Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals face a number of challenges in today’s web economy, especially in terms of growing a business online.

Challenges Accounting Services Face Online

Accountants today must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do they have to actively participate in the communities and industries they serve, they must also develop and maintain an active presence online. This includes having an effective website and figuring out smarter ways to grow your business online.

As well as investing dollars marketing offline, you will probably find that in order to remain competitive, you will need to assign a greater portion of your marketing budget to developing and maintaining a website that will bring new prospective clients, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help you create a wider degree of marketing reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your web pages have to load fast, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the needs of the website will change over time and sections will need to be updated frequently. This requires a well-planned website and content management strategy in place.

One other problem that accounting businesses face with their websites (as do all other professions for that matter), is that your site has around thirty seconds or less to give visitors what they are searching for or they will go away.

“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 The Accounting Profession In The Online Economy

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

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

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system to power your accounting or financial services business website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform, see these articles:

• Why A Poorly Built Web Site Can Lose You Money And What To Do About It
• Learning WordPress – The Small Business Owner’s Guide

Practical Tips To Improve Your Website

In this section we’ll show you ways to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages an accounting website needs, what type of content works best, tips for improving your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your accounting or financial services website, read this article: Planning Your Web Site - A Useful Guide For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Web Pages

All business websites need a number of essential web pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  need to have and how to structure your accounting or financial services website for best results.

Services And Products Page

You need a page that explains your products or services.

It will include all the services you offer, such as:

• Business – planning, incorporation of companies, accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, budgeting, forecasting, financing, strategic planning, consulting services, 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, transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

Make sure to 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 your business stands for, its unique approach, philanthropical programs, etc.

Remember to also mention any awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote your company and set it above your competitors.

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

Staff Page

Are you searching for simple ideas to grow your business online or get prospective clients to engage more with your site? Then one of the things you can do, is make it easier for visitors to get to know, like and trust your organization better.

You want prospective clients to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff or team members. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors won’t be that well-versed in accounting terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. This page should even include social buttons so your visitors can follow selected staff members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to outline each staff member’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 staff page. Image sourced from: deepsky.com)

To learn more about how to easily add an easy-to-update simple employee directory in your web site with no coding skills required, go here: Step-By-Step Tutorial: How To Easily Add A Staff List Directory To Your Site

We’re Hiring

List any career opportunities available within your company. It can include type of training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, social activities promoted or sponsored by your firm, etc. You should also include information such as the job outlook and upcoming 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, join your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to show potential clients the benefits of doing business with your company. Adding a web page with case studies and reviews from clients also helps to provide visitors social proof.

(Add a page to your site with case studies and testimonials. Image source: pcg-services.com)

We have written extensively on using testimonials, case studies and client reviews to grow your business online. For more details, go here: Improve Your Sales Conversions With Engaging Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should provide visitors with the following:

• Business Name
• Address
• Telephone number
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Google Map
• Web address
• Contact form
• Request for information – contact details
• Links to social media profiles
• Online chat

If you operate out of several locations you should make this clear when displaying your address and contact info.

Consider also including links to an FAQ page, main pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Or Financial Services Blog Section

A blog is a powerful marketing tool. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to promote your business using timely content like announcements, product updates, training information, opinions on current topics, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

Not many people know this, but WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic machine that can instantly begin driving new visitors to your site, simply by adding content to your website on a consistent basis.

(WordPress can drive new traffic automatically to your site)

To learn more about this go here: Web Traffic Blueprint – How To Turn Your WordPress Blog Into A Web Traffic Machine

Legal Information

Having a compliant website is crucially important, not just for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being contravened wherever you provide services to.

Adding the legal pages below to your accounting or financial services site will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, 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 Links Policy
• Health/Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your website. To learn more about this go here: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Tips On How To Improve The Content On Your Website

In today’s ultra competitive online economy, the earlier you begin engaging in the practice of content marketing, the quicker you will begin to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

By committing to providing great content with advice and tips, you will get your readers to share your web pages and come back for more information. Using content is the most effective way to educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business.

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

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• Presenting accounts for non-profit activities
• Cashflow planning tips
• Business insurance
• Protecting revenues
• Structuring your self-managed retirement fund
• Dos and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing vs leasing, claiming business expenses, etc.)

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your readers understand your accounting services, such as forensic accounting, tax accounting, business budgeting, reducing debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to include keywords in your articles that your prospective clients 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 show you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your site 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 100% FREE!

Tips For Improving User Experience

Improving user experience (generally 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 user experience.

Use RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide plenty of benefits for your business.

If you provide useful information, other businesses may want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

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
• Your feed can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• RSS feeds allow users to subscribe
• A feed provides links to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are a number of ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. read the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to your site 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 just visit sites of finance-related government departments or respected industry bodies.

For example, here are a few RSS feeds you may want to add 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

(Use RSS feeds to improve your accounting site’s user experience.)

Checklists & Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your audience. They can provide users with useful instructions and resources to get necessary tasks performed. Forms and checklists are also great planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Company
• Negative Gearing Worksheet
• Fundraising Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Company Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

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

In the next section of this guide, we will look at a several WordPress plugins and themes you can use in your site that can improve your seo, increase user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

Click on this link to keep reading:

• How To Build And Grow An Accounting Business Online – Part 2

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