Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital economy has not only transformed the way business is done around the world, it has also created a growing number of challenges and great opportunities for accounting and financial services businesses.

Online Challenges For Certified Public Accountants

Now, more than ever, CPAs must work harder to remain competitive, find new business, and retain current business. Not only do they have to maintain a strong presence in the communities and industries their business serves, they must also develop and maintain an active web presence. This includes having an effective web presence and searching for better ways to market your business online.

In addition to investing dollars in offline marketing, you will probably find that in order to compete with other web-marketing savvy accounting businesses, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be delegated towards the development and maintenance of a website that attracts new prospects, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and helps you gain wider marketing reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, your pages have to load fast, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs may change in time and sections will need to be updated often. This requires a well-planned web and content management strategy in place.

Another problem that accounting organizations face online (as all other professions do for that matter), is that your site has around 30 seconds to provide visitors with what 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 The Accounting Profession In The Digital Economy

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for accounting businesses that are willing to adapt to meet online demands and think outside the box about improving their online business marketing skills.

This comprehensive guide will help you uncover new ways to attract more visitors and establish online credibility for your business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System 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 Constructed Website Can Cost You Prospective Customers And What To Do About It
• Using WordPress To Grow A Successful Business

Useful Tips For Improving Your Website

We’ll start first by going over the basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what pages an accounting website needs, what content works best, your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, check out the guide we have written here: Planning A Website - A Comprehensive Blueprint For Non-Technical Business Owners

Essential Website Pages

All websites require a number of basic web pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Services Page

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

It should include all the services and products you offer, such as:

• Business – planning, company formation, accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, book keeping, forecasting, budgeting, financing, strategic planning, consulting, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, 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, transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your services and why they should book an appointment with you.

About Us Page

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

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

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

Team Profile

If you are searching for simple ideas to sell more products online, then one of the things you can do, is make it easier for your prospects to get to know, like and trust your business better.

Your business needs to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. This page 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. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. This page should even 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 people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight each person’s expertise, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a staff page. Screenshot image sourced from: deepsky.com)

We have created a detailed tutorial about how to easily create and add a simple and easy-to-update directory of staff or team members to WordPress without messing around with code here: How To Create A Simple Employee List For Your WordPress Site Without Editing Code

Career Opportunities

This is a listing of career opportunities available within the organization. It can include type of training provided, employee benefits, professional development, social activities sponsored by your firm, etc. It should include information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the accounting and financial services 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 updates list, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials And Case Studies

Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to show potential clients them minimize tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. Adding a web page with testimonials and case studies also helps to establish social proof.

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

We have written extensively about using case studies, testimonials and reviews get better results online here: How To Achieve Better Results Online Using More Effective Testimonials

Contact Us

A functional contact page is essential.

It should provide the following information about your firm:

• Business Name
• Your physical address
• Phone number
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Google Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media links
• Chat (optional)

If your business operates out of multiple areas you want to make this clear when showing your address and contact info.

You should also include links to the most commonly asked questions, main pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Blog

A blog can be a powerful business marketing tool. Most blogging platforms typically include a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content such as announcements, updates, useful articles and tutorials, opinions on current topics, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

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

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

You probably don’t know this, but WordPress can become an automated traffic-generation system that can begin delivering targeted traffic to your web site, simply by adding content to your website on a regular basis.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can drive new traffic automatically to your site)

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

Legal Info Pages

It’s important to make sure they have a compliant website, not just for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being broken wherever you provide services to.

Depending on what services and products you provide, adding the following legal pages to your accounting website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, 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
• Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website here: Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Improving The Content On Your Site

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

You want to provide great content with useful advice and tips that will get your readers to share your web pages and come back for more information. Publishing content is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business.

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

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• Presenting accounts for fundraising activities
• Cashflow planning advice
• Business insurance
• Risk prevention
• How to structure a self-managed retirement fund
• Do’s and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing insurance, setting up payroll systems, etc.)

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your services, such as software accounting, business accounting, business auditing, reducing debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to include keywords and terminology in your articles that readers would search for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content that will add value to 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 completely FREE!

Improving User Experience

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

Syndicating Content - RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide lots of benefits for your site.

If you provide useful information, 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
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• RSS feeds allow for subscribing
• It provides a way for external links to point back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are multiple ways readers can receive your content (e.g. read the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits 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.

You can find many useful RSS feeds by searching online for finance and tax-related government departments and industry bodies.

Here are some useful RSS feeds you may want to 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

(Add RSS feeds to improve your accounting website’s UX.)

Checklists & Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your audience. They can provide users with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform a necessary task. They are also great planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Business
• Negative Gearing Checklist
• Non-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Company Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Add Unique Tools

Providing unique online tools and applications for businesses can help increase visitor engagement and add value to your potential clients. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are great tools to add to accounting websites. Others would include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In part two, we look at a several WordPress plugins and themes you can add to your accounting site that improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

Click on this link to read the rest of this guide:

• The Complete Step-By-Step Guide On How To Successfully Grow Your Accounting Web Presence With WordPress – Part Two

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