Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals face many challenges in today’s web economy, especially when it comes to growing a successful business presence online.

Challenges Professional Accountants Face Online

Accountants today must work harder than ever to remain in business. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the communities and industries you serve, you must also develop and maintain a strong web presence. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your services online.

As well as investing dollars in offline marketing activities like advertising on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., businesses in the accounting industry are also finding that they need to invest a bigger portion of their budget towards the development and management of a website that attracts clients, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and social media, and helps create a wider reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change in time and sections will need to be updated frequently. This requires implementing sound web and content management strategy.

Another challenge that CPAs (and most other businesses) face, is that you have around thirty seconds or less to give users 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

Online Opportunities For Accounting Businesses

As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to accounting firms that are willing to adapt to meet the demands of the online economy and who can think strategically about marketing themselves better online.

This comprehensive guide will help you uncover ways to drive more traffic and establish stronger online credibility for your accounting or financial services business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress platform to power your accounting or financial services business website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS), see the articles below:

• How A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Lose You Customers
• An Online Guide To Growing A Small Business Using WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Accounting Or Financial Services Site

Let’s start by reviewing the basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what pages an accounting website needs, what content you need, your navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your accounting website, go here: The Website Planning Process: A Comprehensive Primer For Non-Technical Business Owners

Improve Your Website Pages

All business websites need several basic web pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  need and how to set up your accounting website for best results.

Services Description Page

You need to include a page that explains your services and any products that you offer.

Your page should include services such as:

• Business accounting – planning, formation, accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, forecasting, financing, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, planning, reviewing, auditing, advising, problem resolution
• Investment strategies
• Corporate accounting
• 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

List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what these services do and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us Page

This page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, community events, etc.

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

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

Meet Your Staff

If you are looking for quicker, easier and cheaper ways to sell more products or services online and get people to engage more with your site, then something you can do, is make it easier for prospects to get to know you and your business better.

You want your business to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with accounting terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. It should also include social buttons so your site visitors can follow some of your staff members on their social pages.

In this page, make sure to outline your person’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.

(Add a team profile page. Screenshot source: deepsky.com)

We have written a detailed tutorial on how to create and add an easy-to-update simple team members directory to WordPress without coding skills here: How To Easily Add A Simple Employee List To Your WordPress Site

Recruitment Page

List any career opportunities available within your company. This page should include training offered, employee benefits, professional development, social activities sponsored or encouraged by your organization, etc. You can also include stories of graduates who have established a solid career path thanks to your firm and information about upcoming career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Also include 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.

Case Studies

Testimonials from past clients and case studies are a great way to show potential clients what type of accounting solutions you can implement to help solve their problems. By adding a page with testimonials from previous clients and case studies, you are also helping to are also providing social proof.

(Add a page to your site with case studies and testimonials. Screenshot image sourced from: pcg-services.com)

We have written a detailed article about using case studies, testimonials and client reviews improve your business online. Go here to learn more: Improve Your Visitor-To-Lead Conversions With More Effective User Testimonials

Contact Us

A contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should provide visitors with some or all of the following information about your organization:

• Company Name
• Your physical location
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Google Map and directions
• Web address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media links
• Live Chat/Skype

If your business services different locations you want to make that clear when displaying the address and contact info.

Consider also including a few links for the most commonly asked questions, main pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business using content such as industry announcements, updates, training information, informative posts, videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

Very few people know that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation machine that will help begin attracting targeted visitors to your web site, simply by publishing content on a regular basis to your website.

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

To learn more about this go here: WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Getting More Website Visitors For Your Business Automatically

Legal Information

As a professional accountant or financial services provider, ensuring that you have a compliant website is crucial, not just for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking any local, regional or federal laws or regulations in whatever area you provide services to.

Adding the legal pages below to your accounting site 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 Statement
• Terms Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your website here: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Improve The Content On Your Site

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

By committing to providing great content with advice and tips, you will get your readers sharing your content with others and coming back for more information. This is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business.

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

• How balance sheets work
• Profit & loss statements
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• Presenting accounts for fundraising activities
• Cashflow planning
• Business insurance
• Risk prevention
• How to structure your self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing insurance, claiming business expenses, etc.)

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

Remember to use the same keywords and terms 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 teach you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful 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 completely FREE!

Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Syndicate Content With RSS Feeds

Using RSS feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and user experience in several ways.

If you provide information that adds value to others, other sites will 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
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• It provides links back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides multiple ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. read your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to providing valuable information on your site from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find useful RSS feeds just visit sites of finance and tax-related government departments and well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are 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 feeds to improve your accounting website’s UX.)

Checklists & Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to help increase user engagement, add value to your audience and set yourself apart from the competition. They can provide users with step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary tasks completed. Checklists and forms can also be great business planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Company
• Negative Gearing Checklist
• Non-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Company Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Provide Unique Tools

Providing useful tools and applications for businesses on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are popular tools for accounting websites. Other tools could include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In part 2, we look at a number of online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins that can improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one of this article on ways to build your accounting business web presence.

Click on this link to keep reading:

• Your Accounting Website – Improving SEO, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation Using WordPress Plugins

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