Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals today are facing significant challenges created by the online economy.

Challenges Certified Public Accountants Face Online

Accounting businesses today must work harder than ever before to remain in business. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the communities and industries you serve, you must also develop and maintain a strong digital presence. This includes having a website and learning better ways to promote your business online.

In addition to spending money marketing offline, businesses in the accounting industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be directed to develop and maintain a website that attracts clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and gives them a wider marketing exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of the website will change over time and sections will need to be frequently updated. This requires a sound web and content management strategy in place.

One other difficult challenge that accountants face (as all other professions do for that matter), is that your site has around 30 seconds to give visitors what they are searching for or they will leave your site.

“Websites have evolved into central information hubs where service information is still present but enhanced with web portals, hyperlinks to state and federal sites, and a variety of free tools.”

Michael Alter, http://www.accountingweb.com/technology/accounting-software/tips-for-improving-your-website

Opportunities For CPAs In The Online Economy

As well as facing many challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to businesses in the accounting profession that are willing to evolve to meet the challenges of the digital economy and think outside the box when it comes to improving their online business marketing skills.

The guide below will help you uncover a number of ways to drive more traffic and improve your business presence online.

As well as providing tips and information on ways to improve your accounting website, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress CMS platform to power your accounting or financial services business website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform, go here:

• Discover Why A Poorly Built Website Can Cost You Customers And What To Do About It
• WordPress – A Business Owner’s Guide

Useful Tips For Improving Your Accounting Site

This section will show you how to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what web pages you need, what content you need, your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, see this article we have written: A Cost-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Basic Web Pages

All business websites require some essential web pages. Let’s go over the pages your  need to have and how to structure your website for best results.

Services And Products Page

It’s essential to have a page that explains your services and any products that you offer.

Your page should include services such as:

• Business – planning, company structures, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, budgeting, financing, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, planning, reviewing, auditing, advising, problem resolution
• Investment strategies
• Corporate finance
• Wealth creation
• Superannuation/retirement plan (401k) advice
• Audit risk assessment and assurance
• Quickbooks – setup, training, tune up, and support
• Specialist services – mergers, acquisitions, information technology, secretarial, rentals, trusts, fiduciary accounting, succession planning, selling a business, asset transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using your services and why they should book an appointment with you.

Who We Are

This page should give a description of your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.

This page should mention any accounting awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your company and set it above your competitors.

(List all of your awards certifications, recognitions, accreditations, associations, publications, etc. in your About page. Image sourced from: deloitte.com)

Your Staff Page

If you are searching for quicker and easier ideas to grow your business online, then something you can do, is make it easier for prospects to get to know, like and trust you and your business better.

You want prospects to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. It should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors won’t be that well-versed in accounting terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page should even include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow individual staff members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to outline your staff member’s expertise and qualifications, how their skills add value to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your employees to prospective new clients. Screenshot source: deepsky.com)

To learn more about how to create and add an easy-to-manage simple team members directory to your WordPress site using free WordPress plugins, see this tutorial: How To Easily Add An Employee Directory: Plugin Tutorial

Work With Us

List any career opportunities available within your firm. It could include training offered, benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You can also include information about upcoming career opportunities in the accounting industry.

Include also a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, subscribe to your announcements list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Case studies and testimonials from past clients are a great way to show prospective clients what kind of accounting solutions you are capable of implementing to help them solve their problems. Adding a page with testimonials and case studies also helps your accounting website to provide social proof.

(Add a web page with testimonials and case studies. Image sourced from: pcg-services.com)

We have created a detailed article about using testimonials, case studies and user reviews here: Create Better Results Online With Captivating Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a functional contact page is essential.

Your contact page should include the following information about your business:

• Company Name
• Your physical address
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Email
• Google Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media web addresses
• Online chat feature (optional)

If your business operates out of multiple locations you should make this clear when showing the address and contact information.

You could also include links to the most commonly asked questions, frequently-visited pages, special offers, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to easily promote your business using timely content such as news and events, updates, educational information, opinions on current topics, videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an accounting or financial services site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your services.

If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing accounting site is very hard to keep updated or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can act both as your website and your blog.

Very few people know that WordPress can become an automated traffic-generation machine that can instantly begin driving web traffic to your website, simply by publishing regular content to your site.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation)

For more details: Website Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Create A Web Traffic-Getting Machine

Legal Pages

Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is vitally important, not just for building trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being broken wherever you provide services to.

Depending on what products and services you provide, adding the following legal pages to your accounting site will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

Go here if you want to learn more adding legal pages to your site: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Ways To Improve Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the earlier you begin to publish great content on your site, the quicker you will begin to differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

By committing to providing great content with information and tips, you will get your readers to share your content with others and come back for more. Content marketing is the most effective way to inform and educate your visitors and prospects about your business and about doing business with your organization.

For example, topics for an accounting business can cover the following:

• How balance sheets work
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Cashflow planning
• Business insurance
• Protecting revenues
• Tips on structuring your self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing vs leasing, setting up payroll systems, etc.)

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your prospective clients understand your accounting services, such as software accounting, tax accounting, business budgeting, reducing debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to use relevant keywords and terminology in your content that your readers will be searching for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving your user experience (often referred to as UX) helps to keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you different ways to improve your visitor engagement and user experience.

Using RSS Feeds

RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and user experience in several ways.

If you provide information that adds value to others, other businesses may want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:

• All of your content updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared online
• RSS feeds allow users to subscribe
• An RSS feed provides links to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are various ways readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to adding syndicated content to your website from other sites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find RSS feeds with loads of useful content just visit sites of relevant government departments and key industry bodies.

Here are a few RSS feeds you may want to add to your accounting site:

• Taxation Policy Center: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/press/rss.cfm
• Australian Taxation Office: https://www.ato.gov.au/RSS-news-feeds.aspx
• Canada Revenue Agency: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/rssfeeds/
• UK HM Revenue and Customs: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rss/rss.htm
• South Africa Revenue Service: http://www.sars.gov.za/Pages/RSS-Feeds.aspx

(Use RSS feeds to improve your accounting site’s UX.)

Provide Downloadable Checklists

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to increase user engagement, add value to your readers and set yourself apart from the competition. They can provide useful instructions and resources to complete necessary tasks. Checklists and forms can also be great business planning tools.

You can provide online or downloadable checklists and forms covering a range of areas such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Non-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Partnership Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Adding Online Tools

Providing unique online tools, gadgets and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add value to potential clients. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are great tools you can add to accounting websites. Other applications could include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In part two of this detailed guide, we will be discussing a number of online tools you can use in your site using WordPress plugins and themes that improve your seo, increase user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

***

This is the end of part 1 of this article on ways to improve your accounting business online.

To view Part 2, click here:

• How To Build And Grow Your Accounting Or Financial Services Online Presence – Part Two

Get Notified When New Tutorials Get Published – Subscribe To WPCompendium.org!

***

***

***