Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals today face significant challenges.

Online Challenges For Accounting Firms

Now, more than ever, accounting organizations must work harder and find smarter ways to remain competitive, source new clients, and keep their current business. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the communities and industries you serve, you must also develop a strong web presence. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your services online.

As well as spending money advertising offline on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., 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 directed to develop and manage a website that can drive new clients, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help to give you a wider degree of reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your web pages have to load fast, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change in time and sections will need to be frequently updated. This requires implementing well-planned web and content management strategy.

Another problem that certified public accountants face online, and most other professions for that matter, is that they have only about thirty seconds or less to provide users with what they need 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

Opportunities For Professional Accountants

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

In this guide, you will learn ways to attract and engage more visitors and improve your business online.

As well as providing tips and information on ways to improve your web presence, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress CMS platform to power your accounting or financial services website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system, see these articles:

• Learn Why A Poorly Constructed Website Can Lose You Potential Clients
• The Business Owner’s Guide To Understanding WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Accounting Site

In this section we will show you ways to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what pages an accounting site needs, what type of content you need, ways to improve your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need specific help with website planning, see this guide: How To Plan Your Small Business Website - A Useful Primer For Business Owners

Basic Website Pages

All business websites need several essential pages. Let’s go over the pages your  need to have and how to structure your accounting or financial services website for best results.

Services And Products Description Page

You need a page that lists your products or services.

Your page will include services such as:

• Business – business planning, company formation, accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, budgeting, forecasting, 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 businesses, asset 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 choose you.

Who We Are

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, sponsored community projects, etc.

Remember to also mention any professional awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your company and set it above the competition.

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

Our Team

If you are looking for quicker, simpler and cost-effective ways to sell more products or services online and get people to engage more with your site, then something you can do, is make it easier for prospective clients to get to know your organization better.

You want prospective clients to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. It should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors won’t be well-versed in accounting terms your 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 so your visitors can follow your team members on their social networks.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight each staff member’s expertise, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add an employee description page. Screenshot image sourced from: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to add a simple team directory to your web site using a free plugin, go here: How To Add A Staff List Directory To Your Site: Tutorial

Recruitment Page

This is a listing of career opportunities available within the company. This page could include training offered, employee benefits, professional development, social activities encouraged or sponsored by your organization, etc. You should also include case studies of recruits who have risen within your firm and information about new 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 the page, subscribe to your announcements list, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to show potential clients the benefits of doing business with your company. Adding a page with client reviews and case studies also helps your accounting or financial services site to establish social proof.

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

We have written extensively on using testimonials and reviews improve your business online. Go here to learn more about this: How To Achieve Better Results Online With Knockout User Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is essential.

It should provide some or all of the following information:

• Business Name
• Street address of office
• Telephone
• Fax
• Email
• Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Links to social media profiles
• Live chat

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

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

Add A Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms typically include a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content such as news, updates, educational articles, informative posts, videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an existing website, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your business.

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

Very few people know that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic machine that will begin driving targeted visitors to your website, simply by publishing regular content to your website.

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

Go here to learn more: Web Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Create A Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Info Pages

It’s vital for professional organizations to make sure they have a compliant website, not just for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening laws or regulations wherever you provide services to.

Depending on the services you provide, adding the legal pages below to your accounting website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential legal threats and inconveniences:

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

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your site here: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

How To Improve The Content On Your Website

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

You will want to provide great content with advice and tips that will get your readers sharing your content online with others and coming back for more. This is the most effective way to inform and teach site visitors and prospects about your business and about using your services and products.

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

• How balance sheets work
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Cashflow planning
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Risk prevention
• Tips on structuring your self-managed retirement fund
• Dos and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing insurance, claiming business expenses, etc.)

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

Remember to include keywords in your content that prospective clients will be searching for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to 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 completely FREE!

Tips For Improving User Experience

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

Add RSS Feeds

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

If you provide information that adds value to others, other businesses 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
• RSS feeds allow users to subscribe
• An RSS feed provides a way for links to point back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides a number of ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to your site from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find useful RSS feeds for your website, search online for finance and tax-related government departments or respected industry bodies.

Below we have listed a few 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

(Add RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to provide your visitors with a better user experience.)

Provide Forms

Checklists and forms are a great way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. Checklists and forms can provide useful instructions and resources to get necessary tasks performed. They are great planning tools.

Checklists and forms could address areas such as:

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Checklist
• Not-For-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Individual Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Unique Tools

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

In the next section of this detailed guide, we discuss a several WordPress plugins and themes you can add to your accounting or financial services site that improve your seo, improve user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section one of this article on ways to improve your accounting business online.

To view the rest of this guide, click this link:

• How To Grow An Accounting Business Online Successfully – Part 2

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