Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital age has not only transformed business around the world, it has also created an increasing number of challenges and opportunities for the accounting profession.

Challenges Professional Accountants Face Online

Accountants today must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do they have to be fully involved in the communities and industries they serve, they must also maintain an active digital presence. This includes having an effective web presence and searching for better ways to promote your business services online.

As well as investing money marketing offline, you will probably find that in order to remain competitive, you will need to invest a more significant part of your marketing budget towards developing and managing a website that brings in prospective clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and helps to increase your presence online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your pages have to load fast, and your website has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website will change over time and sections may need to be frequently updated. This requires implementing sound web and content management strategy.

Another problem that CPAs face (as most businesses do for that matter), is that your site has only around 30 seconds or less to help users find the information they are searching for or they will go elsewhere to find what they need.

“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 Certified Public Accountants In The Web Economy

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to accounting companies that can adapt to meet the challenges of the online economy and can think progressively about marketing their services better online.

In this article, you will learn ways to attract more visitors and improve your business presence online.

As well as providing tips and information on ways to improve your business online, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your accounting website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS), see these articles:

• Why A Poorly Built Website Can Lose You Business
• Using A WordPress Blog To Grow Your Small Business Online

Useful Tips For Improving Your Website

Let’s start by covering the basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results. We show you what pages you need, what type of content you need, navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, read this article: A Comprehensive Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Essential Pages

All websites need some basic pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Services

You need to include a page that lists your products and services.

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

• Business – business planning, company structures, accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, bookkeeping, budgeting, forecasting, financing, strategic planning, consulting, 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 businesses, 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 the benefits of using these services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us Page

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

Remember to mention any accounting awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote the company and set it above the competition.

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

Staff Page

Are you searching for ways to sell more products or services online? Then something you can do, is make it easier for your prospective clients to get to know your organization better.

People need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors are probably not well-versed in accounting terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. It should also include social buttons so your visitors can follow individual staff members on their social networks.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline each employee’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your staff or team members to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: deepsky.com)

We have created a detailed tutorial about how to easily create and add an easy-to-manage simple employee directory in WordPress without messing with code here: How To Easily Create A Simple Employee List In Your WordPress Site

Job Opportunities Page

List any career opportunities available within your organization. It would include training offered, benefits, professional development, social activities sponsored by your firm, etc. You can also include case studies of recruits who have risen within your firm and information such as the job outlook and upcoming career opportunities in the accounting industry.

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

Testimonials

Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to show potential clients what kind of financial solutions you are capable of implementing to help solve their problems. Adding a web page with case studies and testimonials also provides social proof.

(Add a page with case studies and client reviews. Screenshot source: pcg-services.com)

To learn more about using client testimonials and reviews, refer to this article: Create Better Results Online With Effective User Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A contact page is essential.

It should include the following:

• Name
• Physical address
• Phone
• Fax number
• Contact email address
• Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media web addresses
• Chat

If your business services different locations you should make that clear when showing the address and contact info.

You could also include links to an FAQ section, useful pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using timely content such as news and events, product updates, educational articles, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an established accounting site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your organization.

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

Not many businesses know this, but WordPress can become an automated traffic-generation system that will help begin attracting a stream of targeted traffic to your web site, simply by adding regular content to your web site.

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

To learn more about this go here: Web Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Automatically Grow Your Web Visitors For Your Business With WordPress

Legal Information Pages

It’s crucially important for accounting and financial services organizations to ensure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for establishing credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaching local, regional or federal laws or regulations wherever you provide services to.

Depending on the services you provide, adding the legal pages below to your website will help you stay out of legal hot water 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 Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

Go here if you want to learn more adding legal pages to your website: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Ways To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s globally competitive economy, content marketing has become one of the key business differentiators.

Providing great content with useful advice and tips will get your visitors to share your web pages with others and come back for more. This is the most effective way to educate site visitors and prospects about your business and about using your products and services.

For example, for an accounting or financial services business, topics can include:

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• Presenting accounts for non-profit activities
• Cashflow planning advice
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Risk protection
• Structuring a 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 your prospective clients understand accounting services, such as forensic accounting, small business accounting, tax planning for small business, reducing debt, understanding financial conventions, etc.

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

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

Improve User Experience

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

Syndicate Content Using RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide many benefits for your business.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other sites 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 kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• RSS feeds allow for subscribing
• It provides a way for links to point back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are multiple ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can read 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 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, visit sites of finance-related government departments or key industry bodies.

For example, here are examples of useful RSS feeds you may want to consider adding 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

(Add RSS feeds to provide your visitors with a better UX.)

Adding Online Forms

Checklists and forms are a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your audience. Forms and checklists can provide users with useful instructions and resources to get necessary tasks done. They are also great business planning tools.

You can provide online or downloadable forms and checklists (or links to these) covering a range of subjects such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Negative Gearing Worksheet
• Not-For-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Partnership Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Unique Tools

Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your potential clients. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are great tools to add to accounting websites. Other applications would include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section, we discuss a number of WordPress-based tools you can add to your accounting site that improve your seo, improve user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

To continue reading, click here:

• Online Business Tips For Certified Public Accountants – Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With WordPress Plugins

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