Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accountants today face many challenges thanks to the web economy.

Online Challenges For Certified Public Accountants

Now, more than ever, CPAs must work harder to stand out from the competition, find new clients, and retain current clientele. Not only do they have to be fully involved in the communities and industries they serve, they must also develop a strong digital presence. This includes having an effective website and figuring out smarter ways to promote your business online.

As well as investing dollars advertising offline, you will probably find that in order to remain competitive, you will need to delegate a larger part of your budget towards the development and management of a website that attracts leads, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and helps you create wider reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, your web pages have to load fast, and your website has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of your website will change over time and some areas may need to be frequently updated. This requires implementing sound website and content management strategy.

One other challenge that accounting organizations face online (as most businesses do for that matter), is that they have only about thirty seconds to give visitors what they are searching for or they will go elsewhere to get their needs met.

“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 Accounting Businesses In The Web Economy

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available for accounting companies that are willing to evolve to meet the demands of the digital economy and can think outside the box when it comes to marketing themselves better online.

This guide will help you uncover ways to attract more potential clients and improve your business presence online.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your accounting website or blog.

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

• Discover How A Poorly Built Website Can Cost You Potential Clients
• WordPress For Business Owners – A Beginner’s Guide To Growing A Successful Small Business Using WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

Let’s start by covering some basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results. We show you what pages your site needs, what type of content works best for accounting websites, your navigation structure, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, go here: The Web Site Planning Process - A Cost-Saving Guide For Business Owners

Improve Your Website Pages

Professional websites need several basic pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  should have and how to set up your accounting or financial services website for best results.

Services

You need to include a page that explains your products or services.

This page will include services such as:

• Business accounting – planning, company structures, accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, bookkeeping, forecasting, financing, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting, 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 a business, asset transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what your services do and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us Page

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, causes supported, etc.

Remember to mention any awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your company and set it above other competitors.

(List all of your industry awards recognitions, accreditations, certifications, publications, associations, etc. in your About page. Screenshot source: deloitte.com)

Meet Your Staff

If you are searching for ways to sell more products online, then something you can do, is make it easier for prospects to get to know your business better.

People need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. This page should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with accounting terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page should also include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow some of your team members on their social networks.

On this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight your person’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a ‘meet the team’ page. Image sourced from: deepsky.com)

To learn more about how to easily create and add an easy-to-update simple team members directory to your website using free plugins, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Add A Simple Staff List On Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Recruitment Page

List any career opportunities available within the firm. It would include training offered, benefits, opportunities for advancement, social activities encouraged or sponsored by your organization, etc. You should also include information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

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

Case Studies

Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to show prospective clients them minimise tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials, you are also helping to provide visitors social proof.

(Add a page to your site with reviews from clients and case studies. Screenshot source: pcg-services.com)

We have written extensively about using testimonials and reviews to grow your business online. For more info, see this article: Learn How To Improve Your Visitor-To-Lead Conversions With Engaging User Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A functional contact page is essential.

Your contact page should provide visitors with the following:

• Business Name
• Your address
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Google Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media web addresses
• Live Chat/Skype (optional feature)

If your business services different areas you want to make this clear when displaying your address and contact information.

Consider also including links to an FAQ page, useful pages, special offers, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Blog Section

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool. Most blogging platforms typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business using content such as news and events, product updates, educational articles, discussions on current topics, videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

Not many people know this, but WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation machine that can help begin delivering web traffic to your site, simply by publishing content on a regular basis to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more: Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Create An Automated Web Traffic Generation Machine With WordPress

Legal Pages

It’s crucial for accounting firms to have a compliant website, not just for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening laws or regulations in whichever region you do business in.

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

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

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your site. Go here to learn more about this: Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Improve The Content On Your Website

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

By committing to providing great content with useful information and tips, you will get your visitors sharing your content online and coming back for more information. This is a great way to inform and educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business and about doing business with your company.

For example, topics for an accounting business could include:

• How balance sheets work
• Profit & loss statements
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• How to present accounts for fundraising activities
• Business cashflow planning tips
• Business insurance
• Risk protection
• Structuring your self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing insurance, setting up payroll systems, etc.)

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

Remember to use the same keywords and terminology in your articles that readers will be searching for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your 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!

Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

RSS Feeds – Content Syndication

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed provides many benefits for your business.

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

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

• All of your updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Feeds allow users to subscribe
• An RSS feed provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides multiple ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. users can read the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

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

To find useful RSS feeds for your website, search online for relevant government departments and well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are some exaples of feeds you could add 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

(Use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to provide your visitors with a better UX.)

Adding Online Checklists And Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to help increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. They can provide users with useful instructions and resources to perform necessary tasks. Forms and checklists can also be great planning tools.

Forms and checklists could include topics such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Negative Gearing Worksheet
• Non-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Partnership Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Unique Tools

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

In part 2, we will look at a several online tools you can add to your accounting or financial services website using WordPress plugins that improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one of this guide on ways to improve your accounting business web presence.

Click here to continue:

• Your Accounting Website – WordPress Plugins That Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation

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