Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The online economy has not only transformed businesses globally, it has also created increasingly difficult challenges and great opportunities for accounting businesses.

Challenges Certified Public Accountants Face Online

CPAs today must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do they have to be fully involved in the communities and industries their business serves, they must also develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better promote your business online.

In addition to investing money in offline marketing activities, businesses in the accounting industry are now also finding that they will need to allocate a larger share of their budget to develop and manage a website that drives prospects, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and helps to give their business a wider marketing exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, load fast, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of the website will change in time and many areas will need to be frequently updated. This requires the implementation of a sound website and content management strategy.

Another difficult challenge that accounting firms face online (as most businesses do for that matter), is that you have an average of 30 seconds or less to help visitors find what they are searching for or they will look elsewhere.

“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 a number of significant challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available to businesses in the accounting profession that can evolve to meet digital economy demands and think progressively about improving their online marketing skills.

In this comprehensive guide, you will discover new opportunities to drive more web traffic and build more online credibility for your accounting or financial services business.

As well as providing tips and information on ways to improve your accounting web presence, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to power your accounting business website.

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

• Discover How A Poorly Built Web Site Can Lose You Prospective Customers And What To Do About It
• WordPress For Small Business Owners – The Beginner’s Guide To Growing Your Business Using A WordPress Blog

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

Let’s start by reviewing some basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your accounting website and get better results. We will look at what pages your website needs, what type of content works best for accounting and financial services websites, tips for improving your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, check out the detailed step-by-step guide we have written here: A Practical Guide To Website Planning For Business Owners

Improving Your Website Pages

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

Services And Products Page

It’s essential to include a page that lists your services and products.

This page should include services such as:

• Business accounting – planning, company structures, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, financing, forecasting, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, planning, reviewing, auditing, advice, 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. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your services and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us Page

This page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, causes supported, etc.

This page should list any awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote your company and set it above other competitors.

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

Meet Our Team

If you are looking for quicker, easier and cost-effective ways to sell more products online, then help prospective clients get to know you, your team and your organization better.

Prospective clients need to relate to your business. A 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 brief bio. Since most visitors are probably not very 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 even include social buttons so your site visitors can follow your team members on their social pages.

On this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight 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 ‘meet the team’ page. Screenshot source: deepsky.com)

We have created a detailed tutorial about how to add a simple and easy-to-manage list of staff or team members in a WordPress site here: Step-By-Step Tutorial: How To Easily Add A Staff Directory

Career Opportunities

This is a listing of career opportunities available within your company. It would include type of training provided, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You can also include stories of graduates who have established a solid career path thanks to your firm and information about career opportunities in the accounting industry.

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

Case Studies

Client reviews and case studies are a great way to show potential clients what type of accounting solutions you can implement to help them solve their problems. Adding a web page with testimonials from past clients and case studies also provides social proof online.

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

We have created a comprehensive article on using testimonials, case studies and reviews to grow your business online. To learn more about this go here: Learn How To Improve Your Sales Using Meaningful Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a functional contact page is essential.

Your contact page should provide some or all of the following information:

• Company Name
• Your physical location
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Email
• Google Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media networks
• Online chat (optional)

If you operate from several locations you want to make that clear when displaying your address and contact info.

Consider also including a few links for commonly-asked questions, main pages, special offers, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Blog Section

A blog is a powerful business marketing tool. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to easily promote your business using content like company events, updates, educational articles, opinions on current topics, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic system that will attract web traffic to your business, simply by adding regular content to your website.

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

Go here to learn more: Website Traffic Blueprint – How To Create A Traffic-Getting Machine With WordPress

Legal Information

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

Adding the following legal pages to your site will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

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

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your site here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Improving Your Web Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with content that educates and informs visitors has become one of the key success differentiators for businesses selling similar products or providing similar services.

Providing great content with information and tips will get your readers to share your content and come back for more information. Publishing content is the most effective way to inform and teach site visitors and prospective clients about your business and about using your products and services.

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

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Understanding profit & loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for fundraising activities
• Cashflow planning tips
• Business insurance
• Protecting revenues
• Structuring your self-managed retirement fund
• Do’s and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing insurance, claiming business expenses, etc.)

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your readers understand your accounting services, such as forensic accounting, business accounting, business budgeting, reducing business debt, understanding financial conventions, etc.

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

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information 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!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Experience

Improving user experience (generally referred to as UX) helps 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 plenty of benefits for your site.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other businesses 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
• Your feed can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• 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
• There are several ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can read your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

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

To find RSS feeds with useful content for your website, visit sites of relevant government departments or well-known industry bodies.

Here are examples of RSS feeds you may want to add to your 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

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

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and forms are a fantastic way to help increase user engagement and add value to your readers. They can provide useful instructions and resources to get necessary tasks done. Checklists and forms are also great planning tools.

You can provide a range of forms and checklists covering subjects such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Not-For-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Partnership Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

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

In the next section of this detailed guide, we will be discussing a several WordPress-based tools you can add to your website that can help to improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

To continue reading, click here:

• Your Accounting Website – Improving SEO, Improve User Engagement And Generate More Traffic With WordPress Plugins

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