Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accountants today face growing challenges.

Online Challenges For Certified Public Accountants

Accounting businesses today must work harder than ever before to remain competitive. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the communities and industries you serve, you must also maintain an active web presence. This includes having a dynamic web presence and figuring out better ways to market your business services online.

As well as investing money advertising offline on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television, etc., you will probably find that in order to compete with other accounting businesses, you will need to designate a larger portion of your budget towards developing and managing a website that drives prospects, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and helps give you a wider amount of reach online.

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

One other difficult challenge that accountancy firms (and most other professions) face with their websites, is that your site has only about thirty seconds to help users find what they need or they will leave the 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

Online Opportunities For CPAs

As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to businesses in the accounting sector that are willing to adapt to meet online economy challenges and think progressively about improving their online marketing skills.

In this article, you will learn opportunities to source new accounts and improve your business online.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your accounting or financial services website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform, go here:

• Learn How A Poorly Built Website Can Lose You Business And What To Do About It
• The Beginner’s Guide To Growing Your Successful Business With WordPress

Ways To Improve Your Accounting Or Financial Services Website

This section looks at ways to improve your accounting website and get better results. We will look at what pages an accounting site needs, what type of content works best, your navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, read this guide: How To Plan A Web Site: A Money-Saving Primer For Business Owners

Essential Pages

All websites need some essential pages. Let’s go over the pages your  need and how to set up your website for best results.

Your Products And Services

You need to include a page that describes your services and any products that you offer.

This page will include all the products and services you offer, such as:

• Business accounting – planning, formation, accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, financing, forecasting, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, planning, reviewing, auditing, advice, problem resolution
• Investment strategies
• Corporate accounting
• 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 businesses, transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

Make sure to list all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using these services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us Page

This page needs to describe your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.

It’s important to also mention any business awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your company and set it above other competitors.

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

Your Staff

Are you searching for inexpensive ideas to sell more products online? Then something you can do, is help prospective clients get to know, like and trust your organization better.

You want your business to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees or team members. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors won’t be very well-versed in accounting terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. It should even include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow individual team members on their social pages.

In this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline your staff member’s expertise, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add an employee description page. Screenshot image source: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to easily create and add a list of staff members in your site using a free WP plugin, refer to this tutorial: How To Add An Employee List Directory

Job Opportunities

List any career opportunities available within your firm. It could include training, employee benefits, professional development, social aspects of working with your firm, etc. You can include information about career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Include also a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, join your updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to show prospective clients what type of accounting solutions you are capable of implementing to help them solve their problems. By adding a page with reviews from clients and case studies, you will also help to provide visitors social proof online.

(Add a web page with testimonials from past clients and case studies. Screenshot image sourced from: pcg-services.com)

We have written extensively about using client testimonials and reviews here: Achieve Better Results Online Using Meaningful Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a clean contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should include:

• Name
• Your physical address
• Telephone number
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media networks
• Live Chat/Skype (optional feature)

If you have multiple locations you should make that clear when showing the address and contact information.

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

Add A Blog

A blog can be a very powerful business marketing tool. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to promote your business using timely content like industry announcements, updates, educational articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic machine that can instantly begin attracting an ongoing stream of new visitors to your web site, simply by publishing new content to your website on a regular basis.

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

To learn more about this go here: Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Get More Website Traffic For Your Business Using WordPress

Legal Information Pages

It’s vital to make sure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for establishing credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaking laws or regulations wherever your do business in.

Adding the legal pages below to your accounting or financial services site will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

Go here for a detailed article on adding legal pages to your site: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Improving The Content On Your Website

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

You want to provide great content with advice and tips that will get your readers sharing your content and coming back for more information. Publishing content is a great way to educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business.

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

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Understanding profit and loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for fundraising activities
• Cashflow planning tips
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Risk protection
• Structuring your self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing vs leasing, claiming business expenses, etc.)

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your prospective clients understand your accounting or financial services, such as forensic accounting, small business accounting, tax planning for small business, reducing business debt, understanding financial conventions, etc.

Remember to use keywords and terms in your articles that prospective clients will be searching for online.

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

Improve Visitor Experience

Improving website user experience (generally referred to as UX) will help keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you different ways to improve your visitor engagement and UX.

Content Syndication – RSS Feeds

An RSS feed provides lots of benefits for your business.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other sites will want to syndicate your content.

Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other businesses using RSS feeds, include:

• All of your content updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared
• RSS feeds allow users to subscribe
• A feed provides links back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides a number of ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is 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.

You can find many useful RSS feeds for your website by visiting sites of relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.

Below we have listed some exaples of RSS feeds you could consider adding to your website:

• 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

(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your site’s user experience.)

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and forms are a great way to increase user engagement, add value to your readers and set yourself apart from the competition. Forms and checklists can provide visitors with step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary tasks completed. Forms and checklists are great planning tools.

Forms and checklists can cover areas such as:

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Checklist
• Not-For-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Company Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications for businesses is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools for accounting websites. Others could include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In part 2 of this guide, we will look at a number of online tools you can add to your accounting site using WordPress plugins and themes that can improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

***

This is the end of part 1.

Click on this link to continue reading:

• The Step-By-Step Guide To Building And Growing Your Accounting Or Financial Services Business Online – Part Two

Would You Like To Get Notified When New Tutorials Are Published? Then Subscribe Using The Form Below!

***

***

***