Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The web economy has not only revolutionized businesses worldwide, it has also created a growing number of challenges and opportunities for CPAs.

Challenges Accountants Face Online

Certified Public Accountants today must work harder than ever before to remain competitive. Not only do they have to be fully involved in the communities and industries they serve, they must also develop a strong digital presence. This includes having a dynamic web presence and figuring out better ways to promote your business services online.

As well as investing money in offline marketing, businesses in the accounting industry are also finding that they will need to assign a bigger share of their budget to developing and managing a website that will bring in leads, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and give their business a wider amount of marketing reach online.

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

One other problem that certified public accountants face with their websites, as most other professions do for that matter, is that your site has only around thirty seconds to give users what 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 Certified Public Accountants In The Online Economy

As well as facing many challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to accounting businesses that can evolve to meet the challenges of the digital economy and can think outside the box about marketing their business services better online.

In this detailed guide, you will learn about ways to attract more visitors and establish stronger online credibility for your accounting or financial services business.

As well as providing tips and information on ways to improve your accounting web presence, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your accounting business website or blog.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform, see these articles:

• Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Cost You Business And What To Do About It
• Using WordPress To Grow Your Business Online

Useful Tips To Improve Your Website

This section explains how to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages you need, what type of content works best for accounting websites, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, visit this page: The Web Site Planning Process - A Money-Saving Guide For Business Owners

Essential Web Pages

All business websites require several basic web pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Services

It’s essential to have a page that explains your services and products.

It should include services such as:

• Business – business planning, company formation, accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, forecasting, budgeting, financing, strategic planning, consulting services, 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 a business, 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 Page

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

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

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

Staff Page

Are you looking for quicker, easier and cheaper ideas to sell more products or services online and get visitors to stay longer on 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 your business to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors are probably not very 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 even include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow individual staff members on their social pages.

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

(Add an employee description page. Screenshot source: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to easily create and add an easy-to-maintain directory of staff members to your web site without coding skills, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Easily Add A Simple Employee Directory On Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Job Opportunities Page

This is a listing of career opportunities within your organization. It could include type of training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social aspects of working for your firm, etc. It should include stories of recruits who have risen within your firm and information such as the job outlook and upcoming career opportunities in the accounting industry.

Also include 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 your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to show prospective clients what kind of solutions you are capable of implementing to help them solve their problems. By adding a page with testimonials from past clients and case studies, you will also help to provide social proof online.

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

We have written extensively on using testimonials and client reviews get better results online. For more details, go here: All You Need To Know To Start Getting Better Results Online With Knockout Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A functional contact page is crucial.

It should provide:

• Name Of Your Organization
• Location
• Phone
• Fax number
• Email
• Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Request for more information – who to contact
• Social media URLs
• Online chat (optional feature)

If you operate out of different locations you should make that clear when showing your address and contact info.

Consider also including a few links for commonly-asked questions, main pages, special offers, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to promote your business using timely content such as news, product updates, educational articles and tutorials, discussions on current topics, promotional videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

Something not many businesses know about, is that WordPress can become an automated traffic-generation system that will help begin driving targeted traffic to your website, simply by publishing regular content to your site.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation)

For more info, see this article: WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Create A Traffic Generation Machine With WordPress

Legal Pages

It’s vitally important to have a compliant website, not just for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being breached in whatever location you provide services to.

Adding the legal pages below to your accounting or financial services site will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Financial/Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• and others

Go here to learn more about adding legal pages to your website: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Ways To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s fiercely competitive global economy, having a well-planned content marketing strategy has become one of the key success factors for businesses.

By committing to providing great content with advice and tips, you will get your visitors to share your content online and come back for more information. This is a great way to educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business and about using your products and services.

For example, topics for an accounting or financial services business could cover:

• How balance sheets work
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning
• Business insurance
• Risk protection
• How to structure 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 educational articles that will help your readers gain a better understanding of your accounting or financial services, such as software accounting, tax accounting, business budgeting, reducing debt, understanding accounting conventions, etc.

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

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information 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. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Tips For Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Adding RSS Feeds

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed provides lots of benefits for your website.

If you provide useful content, other businesses 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 kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• An RSS feed provides links back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides multiple ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. users can view your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s 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 many useful RSS feeds by searching online for relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.

Here are some RSS feeds you may want to consider adding to your 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 provide your visitors with a better user experience.)

Provide Downloadable Forms And Checklists

Checklists and forms are a great way to help increase user engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. They can provide visitors with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete tasks. Forms and checklists are 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 Business
• Negative Gearing Checklist
• Fundraising Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Partnership Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

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

In part two, we take a look at a number of WordPress-based tools you can use in your website that can help to improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part 1 of this step-by-step article on ways to grow your accounting business web presence.

Click here to continue reading:

• Your Accounting Website – Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With WordPress Plugins & Themes

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