Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress
The digital economy has not only revolutionized the way business is done globally, it has also created a number of challenges and great opportunities for certified public accountants.
Challenges Professional Accountants Face Online
Today, more than ever, accountants must work harder to remain competitive, find new business, and retain current clientele. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the communities and industries you serve, you must also develop an active presence online. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your services online.
In addition to spending dollars in offline marketing activities such as advertising on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv spots, etc., you will probably find that in order to remain competitive, you will need to allocate a greater part of your marketing budget to develop and maintain a website that can attract new clients, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and help to increase your marketing exposure online.
This means that your website not only has to look great, your pages have to load fast, and be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs may change in time and sections may need to be updated frequently. This requires implementing well-developed web and content management strategy.
One other difficult challenge that accounting firms face with their websites (and most businesses for that matter), is that your site has only about 30 seconds to help users find what they need or they will leave 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 CPAs
As well as facing a number of significant business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available for accounting businesses that are willing to adapt to meet the challenges of the digital economy and think progressively about marketing themselves better online.
This guide will help you uncover a number of ways to increase web traffic and create significant improvements in your business presence online.
As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your accounting or financial services website or blog.
To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform, see these articles:
- Discover How A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Customers And What To Do About It
- The Small Business Owner’s Guide To WordPress
How To Improve Your Website
We’ll start first by covering some basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results. We show you what pages your website needs, what type of content works best, your layout and navigation, etc.
If you need any help with website planning, see this detailed guide: The Web Site Planning Process Explained - A Practical Primer For Non-Technical Business Owners
Improve Your Website Pages
All business websites require several essential web pages. Let’s go over the pages your should have and how to structure your accounting or financial services website for best results.
Description Of Products And Services
It’s essential to have a page that lists your products and services.
Your page will include all the services you offer, such as:
- Business – planning, company formation, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, book keeping, financing, budgeting, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
- Taxation – preparing, planning, reviewing, auditing, advice, 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 businesses, asset transfers, etc.
- Lending and leasing
List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what your services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.
Who We Are
This page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, sponsored community activities, etc.
It’s important to mention any awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your company and position it above your competitors.
(List all of your industry awards recognitions, accreditations, certifications, publications, associations, etc. in your About Us page. Screenshot image source: deloitte.com)
Core Team
If you are looking for inexpensive ideas to grow your business online or increase user interaction on your site, then help your prospective clients get to know you and your organization better.
You want prospects to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your people. It should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be 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 individual staff members on their social networks.
On this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight your employee’s experience, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.
(Add a page that introduces your team to prospective new clients. Screenshot source: deepsky.com)
We have created a detailed tutorial on how to create and add an updatable simple team directory to your web site without coding skills here: Adding A Staff List Directory To Your Site
Career Opportunities
This is a listing of career opportunities within your organization. This page can include training offered, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, social activities promoted by your organization, etc. You can also include stories of trainees who have worked their way up in your company and information about career opportunities in the accounting industry.
Also include 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 newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.
Testimonials
Case studies and testimonials from previous clients are a great way to show potential clients the benefits of doing business with your company. By adding a page with reviews from clients and case studies, you will also help to provide social proof.
(Add a web page with testimonials and case studies. Image source: pcg-services.com)
We have written extensively about using testimonials and reviews to improve your business results online here: How To Create Better Results Online With Powerful Testimonials
Contact Us Page
Having a clean contact page is absolutely necessary.
Your contact page should provide visitors with the following:
- Name Of Your Organization
- Location of premises
- Phone
- Fax
- Contact email address
- Map and directions
- Website address
- Contact form
- Contact name
- Social media links
- Live Chat/Skype (optional feature)
If your business services multiple locations you should make this clear when displaying your address and contact information.
You could also include links to an FAQ page, frequently-visited pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.
Add An Accounting Blog Section
A blog can be a very powerful business marketing tool. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content such as company announcements, company updates, useful articles, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, webinars, etc.
If you already have an accounting or financial services site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your services.
If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing accounting site is very hard to add new content to or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can act as both your business website and business blog.
You may not know this, but WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation system that can instantly begin to attract new targeted traffic to your web site, simply by adding regular content to your site.
(An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation)
If you would like to know more about this here: Web Site Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Driving More Web Traffic Automatically
Legal Info Pages
It’s very important to ensure they have a compliant website, not just for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional and federal laws and regulations are being contravened wherever you provide services to.
Adding the following legal pages to your accounting website will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential legal threats and inconveniences:
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms And Conditions Of Use
- Website Disclaimer
- Affiliate Agreement
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- DMCA Notice
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Financial/Health Disclaimers
- Refund Policy
- Video/Audio Terms
- etc.
We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your website. If you would like to learn more here: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site
Improving The Content On Your Website
In today’s ultra competitive online economy, having a sound content marketing strategy has become one of the key business differentiators.
Providing great content with useful information and tips will get your visitors sharing your content and coming back for more information. Content marketing is a great way to inform and teach site visitors and prospective clients about your business.
For example, topics for an accounting business can include:
- Explanations of balance sheets
- Profit and loss statements
- Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
- How to present accounts for non-profit activities
- Cashflow planning
- Maximizing business insurance cover
- Risk prevention
- Structuring a self-managed retirement fund
- Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing insurance, claiming business expenses, etc.)
You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your your prospective clients understand your services, such as software accounting, small business accounting, business budgeting, reducing debt, understanding accounting concepts, etc.
Remember to use specific keywords in your articles that 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 and practical tips 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 marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!
Ways To Improve User Experience
Improving your user experience (typically referred to as UX) helps to keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you ways you can improve your visitor engagement and user experience.
Using RSS Feeds
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and user experience in several ways.
If you provide content that adds value to others, other sites will want to syndicate your content.
Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:
- All of your updates are in one place
- Doesn’t rely on email
- Your feed can be shared
- RSS feeds allow for subscribing
- It provides links to your content
- Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
- There are a number of ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
- RSS is built into WordPress
There are also a number of benefits to providing valuable information on your site 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 for your website by searching online for relevant government departments and well-known industry bodies.
Here are some 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
(Use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to improve your site’s UX.)
Checklists And Forms
Checklists and forms are a great way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your audience and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and forms can provide useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform necessary tasks. Checklists and forms are great planning tools.
You can provide a range of online or downloadable forms and checklists covering topics such as:
- How To Set Up A Business
- Negative Gearing Worksheet
- Fundraising Governance Checklist
- Disclosure Requirements
- Individual Tax Checklist
- Trust Tax Checklist
- Income Tax Variation Forms
Provide Online Tools
Providing unique tools and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools to add to accounting websites. Other tools would include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.
In part 2 of this detailed guide, we will look at a number of WordPress plugins you can add to your site that can improve your seo, increase user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.
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This is the end of section one.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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