Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals today are facing many challenges brought about by the digital economy.

Online Challenges For Accountants

Accounting businesses must work harder than ever to remain in business. Not only do they have to become actively involved in the communities and industries they serve, they must also develop and maintain a strong web presence. This includes having a dynamic web presence and learning how to better promote your business online.

As well as spending money in offline marketing activities, 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 to develop and manage a website that can drive clients, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help you create wider marketing reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look professional, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website will change over time and sections may need to be updated frequently. This requires a well-developed web and content management strategy in place.

One other problem that accounting organizations face with their websites, and most other professions for that matter, is that they have only about 30 seconds to help users find the information 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 Accountants In The Web Economy

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also many online opportunities available for accounting firms that are willing to evolve to meet the demands of the digital economy and who can think outside the box about improving their online marketing skills.

In this article, you will learn about new opportunities to attract more visitors and create significant improvements in your business results online.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system to power your accounting business website.

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

• Discover Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Cost You Potential Buyers
• Using A WordPress Site To Grow Your Small Business

Practical Tips For Improving Your Accounting Website

This section will show you how to improve your accounting website and get better results online. We will look at what pages your site needs, what content works best for accounting and financial services sites, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need help with website planning, read this article: A Practical Guide To Website Planning For Business Owners

Essential Website Pages

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

Your Services

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

This page will include services such as:

• Business – business planning, company formation, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, forecasting, budgeting, financing, strategic planning, consulting, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, planning, reviewing, auditing, advice, 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 businesses, transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what your services do and why they should book an appointment with you.

Who We Are

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

This page should also list any business awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, 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 the About page. Image sourced from: deloitte.com)

Team Profile

If you are searching for quicker and easier ideas to sell more products or services online, then make it easier for your prospects to get to know you, your team and your organization better.

You want your business to be relatable. One 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 are probably not well-versed in accounting terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. It should also include social buttons so your visitors can follow your staff members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to highlight your team member’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

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

To learn more about how to add an easy-to-maintain simple employee directory to a WordPress site, see this tutorial: How To Create A Simple Staff Directory In Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Job Opportunities

This is a listing of career opportunities available within your organization. This page should include training provided, benefits, opportunities for advancement, social aspects of working for your organization, etc. You can include case studies of recruits who have worked their way up in your firm and information such as the job outlook and new 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 newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

Case studies and testimonials from past clients are a great way to show prospective clients minimize tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. By adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients, you are also helping to provide social proof online.

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

To learn more about using testimonials and reviews, see this article: Learn How To Turn More Visitors Into Qualified Prospects With Meaningful User Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should provide:

• Company Name
• Location
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Contact email address
• Google Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Request for information – who to contact
• Links to social media profiles
• Chat

If you operate from multiple locations you will want to make this clear when showing the address and contact information.

You should also include a few links for the most commonly asked questions, useful pages, special offers, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful business marketing tool. Many blogging platforms are built around a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content such as news, updates, useful information, discussions on current topics, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an accounting site, 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 hard to keep updated with new content or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can act as both your business website and business blog.

You may not have been told about this, but WordPress can become an automated traffic machine that can help begin driving web traffic to your site, simply by adding regular content to your web site.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more about this: Web Traffic Blueprint – How To Automatically Generate More Website Traffic For Your Business With WordPress

Legal Information Pages

As a professional business, ensuring that you have a compliant website is vital, not just for building trust with visitors, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws or regulations are being contravened wherever your business services clients.

Adding some or all of the legal pages below to your website will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• 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 comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your site. To learn more, go here: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Ways To Improve The Content On Your Site

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

By committing to providing great content with useful advice and tips, you will get your visitors sharing your content online with others and coming back for more information. Using content is a great way to educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business and about doing business with your company.

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

• How balance sheets work
• Understanding profit & loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• Presenting accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning advice
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Protecting revenues
• Structuring a 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 prospective clients understand accounting services, such as software accounting, business accounting, business budgeting, reducing debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to include the same keywords in your content that your readers will be searching for.

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 you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content for 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!

Tips For Improving User Experience

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

Use RSS Feeds

An RSS feed provides plenty of benefits for your website.

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

Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other sites using RSS feeds, include:

• All of your updates are in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Allows users to subscribe
• A feed provides links back to your site
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides various ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to providing great content on 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 useful content for your website by searching online for tax-related government departments or respected industry bodies.

For example, here are some exaples of 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

(Using RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your accounting website’s UX.)

Adding Online Forms

Checklists and forms are a great way to help increase user engagement and add value to your readers. They can provide visitors with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary tasks performed. Forms and checklists are great planning tools.

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

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

Adding Unique Tools

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

In the next section of this detailed guide, we take a look at a several WordPress-based tools you can use in your site that improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1.

To continue reading, click here:

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

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