Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital age has not only revolutionised the way business is done globally, it has also created significant challenges and opportunities for the accounting profession.

Challenges Professional Accountants Face Online

Today, more than ever, certified public accountants must work harder to stand out from the crowd, source new clients, and retain current clients. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the communities and industries you serve, you must also develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better promote your business services online.

As well as investing money in offline marketing activities like advertising on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., you will probably find that in order to compete with other web-marketing savvy accounting businesses, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be delegated towards the development and maintenance of a website that brings new clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and helps you create a wider degree of marketing exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, load fast, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of the website will change over time and some areas will need to be updated frequently. This requires a well-developed web and content management strategy.

Another challenge that accounting firms face online, as do most professions for that matter, is that they have around thirty seconds or less to give visitors the information they are looking for or they will find what they are looking for 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 Accountants In The Web Economy

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available to businesses in the accounting industry that are willing to evolve to meet the demands of the online economy and think outside the box in terms of improving their online business marketing skills.

This comprehensive article will help you uncover ways to find new clientele and establish stronger online credibility for your business.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to power your accounting or financial services business website.

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

• How A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Lose You Business And What To Do About It
• Using WordPress – The Business Owner’s Guide

Practical Tips To Improve Your Website

We’ll start first by going over some basics. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what web pages you need, what type of content works best, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, check out the guide we have written here: A Money-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Website Pages

Professional websites require a number of basic pages. Let’s review these.

Products And Services Description Page

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

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

• Business accounting – planning, company formation, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, 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 a business, asset transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about what these services do and why they should book an appointment with you.

About Us

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, community donations, etc.

It should list any awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote the company and set it above the competition.

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

Team Profile Page

Are you looking for ways to grow your business online? Then one of the things you can do, is help your prospective clients get to know, like and trust you 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 team members. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with accounting terms it 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 so your site visitors can follow your staff members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to outline each 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 team profile page. Screenshot source: deepsky.com)

We have created a detailed tutorial on how to create and add an easy-to-manage simple team members directory to your site using a free plugin here: How To Add A Simple Employee Directory To Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

We’re Hiring

This is a listing of career opportunities available within your company. This page would include training, benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. You can include case studies of graduates who have risen within your company and information such as the job outlook and additional career opportunities in the accounting and financial services 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 contact list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to show potential clients the benefits of doing business with your company. By adding a page with testimonials and case studies, you are also helping to are also providing social proof.

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

We have written a comprehensive article about using client testimonials and user reviews to grow your business online. Go here to learn more: Learn How To Turn More Visitors Into Prospects With Powerful Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A clean contact page is absolutely necessary.

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

• Business Name
• Location of office
• Telephone number
• Fax number
• Email
• Google Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Request for more information – contact details
• Social media web addresses
• Online chat

If you operate in different locations you will want to make this clear when displaying your address and contact info.

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

Add A Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business using timely content like announcements, product updates, educational articles and tutorials, opinions on current topics, videos, webinars, etc.

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

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

Not many businesses know this, but WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic system that will begin to attract targeted visitors to your web site, simply by adding new content on a regular basis to your website.

(WordPress can drive new traffic automatically to your site)

For more details: Web Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Create An Automated Web Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Info Pages

It’s crucially important for professional businesses to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaching any local, regional or federal laws and regulations in whichever area you provide services to.

Adding some or all of 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 legal threats and inconveniences:

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

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your website. Learn more here: Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Improve The Content On Your Website

In today’s ultra competitive digital economy, the earlier you begin to publish great content on your site, the sooner you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from your competitors.

By committing to providing great content with advice and tips, you will get your visitors to share your web pages and come back for more information. This is a great way to educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business and about doing business with your company.

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

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Profit & loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Cashflow planning
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Risk protection
• Structuring a 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 informative articles that will help your prospective clients understand your services, such as software accounting, tax accounting, business auditing, reducing debt, understanding financial conventions, etc.

Remember to use specific keywords in your articles that your prospective clients would search 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 exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content for 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 100% FREE!

Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Syndicate Content Using RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide lots of benefits for your site.

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

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

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared
• Allows for subscribing
• An RSS feed provides links back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides a number of ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. users can read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also 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 RSS feeds with loads of useful content for your website by searching online for finance and tax-related government departments or key industry bodies.

Below we have listed some RSS feeds you could add to your accounting 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.)

Checklists And Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to help increase user engagement, add value to your visitors and set yourself apart from the competition. Forms and checklists can provide useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform necessary tasks. They are also great business planning tools.

Forms and checklists could address areas such as:

• How To Set Up A Company
• Negative Gearing Worksheet
• Fundraising Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Individual Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Adding Online Tools

Providing useful tools and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) on your website can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to users. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools to add to accounting websites. Others can include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section, we discuss a number of online tools you can use in your accounting site using WordPress plugins that can help improve seo, improve user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

***

This is the end of section 1.

Click here to keep reading:

• How To Build And Grow An Accounting Business Online – Part Two

Get Notified When New WordPress Tutorials Get Published – Subscribe Using The Form Below!

***

***

***