Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The web economy has not only revolutionized the way business is done worldwide, it has also created an increasing number of challenges and opportunities for accountants.

Challenges Professional Accountants Face Online

Today, more than ever, certified public accountants must find smarter ways to stand out from the crowd, find new business, and keep their current clients. Not only do they have to participate in the communities and industries their business serves, they must also maintain an active presence online. This includes having a website and learning better ways to market your business services online.

In addition to investing money marketing offline, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to remain competitive, you will need to delegate a greater share of your marketing budget to develop and maintain a website that can attract clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help to give your business wider marketing exposure online.

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

Another difficult challenge that accounting organizations (and most professions) face, is that they have only around 30 seconds to provide users with what they are looking for or they will leave the site and go 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 Accountants

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

In this article, you will learn about ways and opportunities to drive more web traffic and create significant improvements in your business results online.

As well as providing practical tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your web presence, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform to power your accounting or financial services business website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform, see the articles below:

• How A Poorly Built Website Can Lose You Money And What To Do About It
• WordPress And Small Business – An Online Guide To Building Your Successful Business With WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Accounting Site

This section covers ways to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what pages a financial services website needs, what content works best, your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need specific help with website planning, see this guide: The Web Site Planning Process: A Practical Primer For Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Web Pages

All websites need a number of basic web pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  need and how to structure your website for best results.

Services Page

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

Your page will include all the services and products you offer, such as:

• Business – planning, company formation, accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, budgeting, forecasting, financing, 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. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what these services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

Who We Are

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, causes supported, etc.

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

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

Your Team

Are you looking for cost-effective ideas to sell more products or services online? Then help prospects get to know, like and trust you, your team and your organization better.

You want people to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff or team members. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors won’t be that 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 also include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow selected staff members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to outline your person’s experience, how they contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

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

If you need help how to easily create and add an updatable list directory of employees in WordPress using a free plugin, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: WordPress Plugin Tutorial: Adding An Employee Directory In WordPress

Recruitment

List any career opportunities available within your firm. This page should include type of training provided, benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. It should include information about career opportunities in the accounting 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, subscribe to your updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Case studies and testimonials from previous clients are a great way to show potential clients what kind of accounting solutions you are capable of implementing to help them solve problems. Adding a page with reviews from clients and case studies also helps your accounting or financial services business to provide prospective clients with social proof online.

(Add a web page with case studies and client reviews. Screenshot source: pcg-services.com)

To learn more about using case studies, testimonials and client reviews, refer to this article: How To Improve Your Sales Conversions Using Knockout Customer Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a functional contact page is crucial.

It should include some or all of the following information:

• Name
• Location
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Contact email address
• Google Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media networks
• Chat feature

If your business operates out of different locations you should make that clear when displaying your address and contact information.

Consider also including links to an FAQ section, frequently-visited pages, special offers, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog Section

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business using content such as industry news, product releases, educational articles, informative posts, videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

Something few people know about, is that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic system that will begin delivering a stream of web traffic to your site, simply by publishing content on a consistent basis to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

If you would like to know more about this here: WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Create An Automated Traffic-Getting Machine With WordPress

Legal Pages

Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is important, not just for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional and federal laws or regulations are being contravened wherever your do business in.

Adding some or all of the legal pages below to your accounting site will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats and 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 to learn more about adding legal pages to your site: How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Improve Your Content

In today’s fiercely competitive digital 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.

You will want to provide great content with advice and tips that will get your readers to share your content with others and come back for more information. Content marketing is a great way to educate site visitors and prospects about your business and about doing business with your organization.

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

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• Presenting accounts for fundraising activities
• Cashflow planning
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Protecting revenues
• Tips on structuring your self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing vs leasing, setting up payroll systems, etc.)

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

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

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating useful content that will add value to your 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!

Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Use RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide lots of benefits for your business.

If you provide valuable 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 in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• A feed provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are several ways readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to providing valuable content on your website from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

You can find RSS feeds with loads of useful content by searching online for finance and tax-related government departments or well-known industry bodies.

For example, here are some RSS feeds you could 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

(Adding RSS feeds can help to improve your accounting website’s UX.)

Checklists And Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a fantastic way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. Forms and checklists can provide useful instructions and resources to get necessary tasks performed. They can also be great business planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Business
• Negative Gearing Worksheet
• Fundraising Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Company Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Add Online Tools

Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools for accounting websites. Other tools would include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section of this detailed guide, we will be discussing a several online tools you can add to your accounting or financial services website using WordPress plugins that can help to improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

Click here to continue:

• How To Grow Your Accounting Web Presence – Part 2

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