Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accountants today face a growing number of challenges.

Challenges Accounting & Financial Businesses Face Online

Today, more than ever, accountants must work harder to stand out from the competition, source new business, and keep their current clients. Not only do you have to maintain an active presence in the communities and industries you serve, you must also maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a dynamic web presence and searching for better ways to market your business services online.

As well as investing money advertising offline, you will probably find that in order to compete with other accounting businesses, increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be allocated to develop and manage a website that will bring new prospective clients, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and increase your reach online.

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

Another difficult challenge that accounting businesses (and most other professions) face online, is that your site has around 30 seconds to provide users with what they are looking for or they will go elsewhere to get their needs met.

“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

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the accounting sector that are willing to evolve to meet the demands of the online economy and think progressively when it comes to marketing their services better online.

In this guide, you will learn about a number of ways to drive more web traffic and improve your business online.

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

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform, go here:

• Why A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Lose You Customers And What To Do About It
• The Business Owner’s Guide To Understanding WordPress

Practical Tips To Improve Your Website

In this section we’ll start with the basics and show you ways to improve your accounting website and get better results. We show you what pages your website needs, what type of content works best, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, visit this page: How To Plan Your Small Business Website - A Basic Guide For Business Owners

How To Improve Your Website Pages

Professional websites require several basic web pages. Let’s review the pages your  should have and how to set up your accounting website for best results.

Description Of Products And Services

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

Your page should include services such as:

• Business – business planning, company formation, accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, budgeting, financing, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, 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

Make sure to list all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using your services and why they should book an appointment with you.

About Us Page

This page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.

This page should list any accounting awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote the company and set it above the competition.

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

Core Team

If you are looking for simple ideas to grow your business online or get people to interact more on your site, then one of the things you can do, is make it easier for your prospects to get to know, like and trust your organization better.

Potential clients need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. It should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be 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 also include social buttons so your visitors can follow selected team members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to highlight your staff member’s 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)

If you need help how to easily add a simple and easily updatable list of staff members to a WordPress site using a free WordPress plugin, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Adding A Staff Directory To Your WordPress Site: Step-By-Step Tutorial

Work With Us

This is a listing of career opportunities available within the organization. This page could include training, benefits, professional development, etc. You should also include case studies of graduates who have established a solid career path thanks to your organization and information about additional 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 you on social media, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to show potential clients minimise tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. Adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients also helps to provide potential clients with social proof online.

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

If you would like to learn more about using client case studies and reviews to grow your business online, go here: Discover How To Turn More Visitors Into Qualified Prospects Using Compelling Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a functional contact page is crucial.

It should provide visitors with some or all of the following:

• Name
• Physical location
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Contact email address
• Map
• Web address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media web addresses
• Chat/Skype

If your business services multiple locations you will want to make this clear when showing your address and contact information.

You could also include links to an FAQ section, main pages, special offers, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool. Most blogging platforms typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content such as industry announcements, company updates, training articles, informative posts, how-to videos, infographics, etc.

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

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

Very few businesses know that WordPress can become an automated traffic-generation machine that can begin delivering targeted visitors to your business, simply by adding regular content to your web site.

(WordPress can drive new traffic automatically to your site)

Go here to learn more: Web Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Getting More Website Traffic Automatically

Legal Info Pages

It’s vitally important to have a compliant website, not just for establishing credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaking any local, regional or federal laws or regulations wherever your business is located.

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

• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• 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

Go here if you want to learn more adding legal pages to your website: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Improve Your Web Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the earlier you begin to publish great content on your site, the faster you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from the competition.

By committing to providing great content with useful advice and tips, you will get your visitors sharing your web pages online and coming back for more information. This is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your business and about doing business with your company.

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

• How balance sheets work
• Profit & loss statements
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning tips
• Business insurance
• Protecting revenues
• Structuring a 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 your prospective clients gain a better understanding of accounting services, such as forensic accounting, business accounting, business budgeting, reducing business debt, understanding financial concepts, etc.

Remember to include keywords and terms in your articles that your prospective clients will be searching for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content for 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!

Improving Visitor Experience

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

Add RSS Feeds

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

If you provide content that adds value to others, 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 updates are kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides links back to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are various ways readers can receive your content (e.g. view the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to providing great content on 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 search online for tax-related government departments and industry bodies.

For example, here are examples of RSS feeds you could consider adding 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

(RSS feeds can help to improve your website’s user experience.)

Adding Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a fantastic way to increase user engagement and add value to your audience. Forms and checklists can provide users with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform necessary tasks. Checklists and forms can also be great business planning tools.

Checklists and forms could cover topics such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Negative Gearing Checklist
• Non-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Individual Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Unique Tools

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

In the next section, we take a look at a several WordPress-based tools you can use in your website that can help improve seo, improve user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

Click on this link to continue reading:

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

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