Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals today face increasing challenges.

Challenges Accounting And Financial Firms Face Online

Today, more than ever, accountants must work hard to stand out from the competition, obtain new clients, and keep their current business. Not only do you have to participate in the communities and industries you serve, you must also maintain a strong web presence. This includes having an effective website and figuring out smarter ways to market your business services online.

As well as spending money in offline marketing, businesses in the accounting industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be delegated to develop and manage a website that will attract prospective clients, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and increase their marketing reach 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 it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs may change in time and some areas will need to be updated often. This requires implementing well-planned web and content management strategy.

One other problem that accountants face, and all other professions for that matter, is that they have only about thirty seconds or less to give users the information they need 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 Accounting Businesses In The Web Economy

As well as facing significant business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for accounting firms that are willing to evolve to meet digital economy challenges and can think progressively when it comes to marketing their business services better online.

This guide will help you uncover opportunities to find new potential clients and build more online credibility for your business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your accounting business website.

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

• Discover Why A Poorly Built Web Site Can Cost You Prospective Clients And What To Do About It
• Using WordPress To Grow Your Business

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

In this section we’ll start with the basics and show you 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 for accounting and financial services websites, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need specific help with website planning, go here: A Basic Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Essential Pages

Professional business websites require some basic pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Services

You need a page that describes your products and services.

This page should include all the services you offer, such as:

• Business – planning, incorporation of companies, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, book keeping, financing, forecasting, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, planning, reviewing, auditing, advising, 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 businesses, asset transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

Make sure to list all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using these 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, causes supported, etc.

It’s important to mention any awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your company and set it above your competitors.

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

Team

If you are looking for simple ways to sell more products or services online and get people to stay longer on your site, then something you can do, is help prospective clients get to know, like and trust 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 members. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in accounting terms your bio descriptions 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 so your visitors can follow some of your staff members on their social networks.

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

(Make sure to add an employee description page. Image sourced from: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to easily add an easy-to-manage simple team members directory to a WordPress site without coding skills, go here: How To Easily Add A Simple Staff List To Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Recruitment Page

List any career opportunities within the company. It could include training, employee benefits, professional development, etc. It should include information about additional career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Maintain 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 contact list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Testimonials and case studies are a great way to show potential clients businesses minimize tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. By adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients, you will also help to will also be providing potential clients with social proof.

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

We have written extensively on using testimonials, case studies and client reviews improve your business online. Go here to learn more: Learn How To Achieve Better Results Online Using More Effective Customer Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a contact page is essential.

It should provide some or all of the following information:

• Business Name
• Your physical location
• Telephone number
• Fax
• Email address
• Google Map
• Web address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media profiles
• Chat

If your business operates from different locations you will want to make this clear when displaying the address and contact info.

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

Add An Accounting Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content such as news, updates, educational articles, discussions on current topics, promotional videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established accounting site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your firm.

If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing accounting or financial services site is hard to add new content to or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can act both as your business website and business blog.

Not many people know this, but WordPress can become an automated traffic system that will begin attracting an ongoing stream of targeted traffic to your site, simply by adding regular content to your website.

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

For more info, see this article: Web Site Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Create A Web Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Info Pages

It’s vitally important for professional organizations to ensure they have a compliant website, not just for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws or regulations are being broken in whichever region you provide services to.

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

• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions Of Use
• 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 for a detailed article about adding legal pages to your website: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s fiercely competitive global economy, having a content marketing strategy has become one of the key business differentiators.

By committing to providing great content with useful advice and tips, you will get your visitors sharing your web pages and coming back for more. Publishing content is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your business and about using your services and products.

For example, topics for an accounting business can cover:

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• Presenting accounts for fundraising activities
• Business cashflow planning
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Protecting revenues
• How to structure 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 educational articles that will help your prospective clients gain a better understanding of accounting services, such as forensic accounting, tax accounting, business auditing, reducing debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to include the same keywords in your articles that your prospective clients would search for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your site, 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 completely FREE!

Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Syndicating Content - RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and user experience in many ways.

If you provide useful content, other sites may 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
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• An RSS feed provides links back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are a number of ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. view 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 information on your website from other sites, 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 finance and tax-related government departments and key industry bodies.

Below we have listed a few feeds you may want to 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

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

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and forms are a fantastic way to help increase user engagement, add value to your visitors and provide something unique. They can give them step-by-step instructions and resources to complete a necessary task. They can also be great planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Checklist
• Not-For-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Partnership Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Online Tools

Providing unique tools and applications for businesses is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your target audience. 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 the next section, we look at a several WordPress plugins and themes you can add to your accounting or financial services site that can improve seo, increase 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 Successfully Grow An Accounting Or Financial Services Web Presence – Part 2

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