Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accountants face a number of challenges in the online economy, especially when it comes to growing a business presence online.

Challenges Certified Public Accountants Face Online

Accountants today must work harder than ever to remain in business. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the communities and industries your business serves, you must also develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a website and learning how to better market your business services online.

In addition to investing dollars advertising offline, you will probably find that in order to remain competitive, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be directed to develop and maintain a website that can bring new prospects, engage visitors, outrank the competition in search engines and help increase your marketing reach online.

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

One other problem that accounting businesses face (as do most other businesses for that matter), is that they have only about 30 seconds or less to help users find what they are looking for or they will go elsewhere to find what they need.

“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 Online Economy

As well as facing a number of business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to accounting businesses that can adapt to meet the demands of the digital economy and think strategically about marketing themselves better online.

This comprehensive article will help you uncover new ways and opportunities to drive more traffic and build more online credibility for your accounting or financial services business.

As well as providing practical tips and information on ways to improve your website, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System to power your accounting or financial services business website.

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

• Discover Why A Poorly Built Website Can Lose You Money
• The Small Business Owner’s Guide To WordPress

How To Improve Your Website

This section will show you how to improve your accounting website and get better results online. We show you what pages your site needs, what content works best for accounting websites, ways of improving your site’s navigation structure, etc.

If you need help with website planning, check out the detailed guide we have written here: The Website Planning Process: A Comprehensive Primer For Non-Technical Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Web Pages

All websites require a number of basic pages. Let’s review these.

Description Of Services

You need a page that lists your products or services.

It should include services such as:

• Business – planning, company structures, accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, budgeting, financing, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, 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 a business, transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your services and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, community events, etc.

It’s important to also include any accounting awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote the company and position it above your competitors.

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

Team Profile

Are you looking for cost-effective ways to sell more products online? Then one of the things you can do, is help prospective clients get to know, like and trust your business better.

You want potential clients to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff members. This page should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors are probably not 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. It should also include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow selected team members on their social pages.

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

(Add a team profile page. Image source: deepsky.com)

We have created a detailed tutorial about how to easily add an easy-to-manage simple employee directory to your WordPress site using free WordPress plugins here: How To Easily Add An Employee List Directory To Your Site: WordPress Plugin Tutorial

Career Opportunities

List any career opportunities within your organization. It could include training, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, social aspects of working for your organization, etc. It should include case studies of graduates who have worked their way up in your firm and information about additional career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Also include 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 newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to show potential clients them minimise tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. Adding a web page with case studies and reviews from clients also helps your accounting site to establish social proof online.

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

If you want to learn more using testimonials, case studies and user reviews to grow your business online, go here: How To Get Better Results Online Using Engaging Testimonials

Contact Us

A functional contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should include some or all of the following information:

• Name
• Address
• Telephone number
• Fax number
• Contact email
• Map
• Web address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media web addresses
• Live chat feature (optional feature)

If your business operates from several areas you will want to make that clear when displaying your address and contact info.

You should also include a few links for commonly-asked questions, main pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool. Many blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing content such as industry news, updates, training articles and tutorials, informative posts, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

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

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

You may not have been told about this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic machine that will begin to drive targeted visitors to your business, simply by publishing new content to your website on a consistent basis.

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

Go here to learn more about this: Web Site Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Growing Your Traffic Automatically

Legal Pages

Having a compliant website is important, not just for building trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaking laws and regulations in whichever area you service.

Adding the following legal pages to your accounting or financial services website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

Go here for a detailed article on adding legal pages to your website: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Improving Your Web Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you begin engaging in the practice of content marketing, the faster you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from your competitors.

Providing great content with advice and tips will get your readers to share your web pages with others online and come back for more information. Using content is a great way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business and about doing business with your organization.

For example, for an accounting or financial services business, topics can cover the following:

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Understanding profit and loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for fundraising activities
• Cashflow planning tips
• Business insurance
• Protecting revenues
• Tips on structuring a self-managed retirement fund
• Do’s 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 readers understand your accounting or financial services, such as finance accounting, tax accounting, tax planning for small business, reducing business debt, understanding accounting conventions, etc.

Remember to use relevant keywords in your content that readers would search for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content for your 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 Of Improving Visitor Experience

Improving your website’s user experience (typically referred to 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 UX.

Use RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and UX in a number of different ways.

If you provide useful information, other businesses will want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other websites using RSS feeds, include:

• All of your content updates are kept in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides links to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are a number of ways readers can receive your content (e.g. view your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to providing great information 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 loads of useful content just visit sites of relevant government departments and respected industry bodies.

Below we have listed examples of useful RSS feeds you could consider adding 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

(Using RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your site’s user experience.)

Adding Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a fantastic way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your audience. They can give them useful instructions and resources to get necessary tasks done. They can also be great planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Checklist
• Non-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

Providing useful tools and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to potential clients. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are some of the most popular tools for accounting websites. Other tools can include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In part 2 of this guide, we discuss a several WordPress plugins and themes you can add to your website that improve your seo, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

***

This is the end of section 1.

Click here to access the rest of this guide:

• How To Build And Grow Your Accounting Or Financial Services Web Presence – Part Two

Want To Get Notified When New WordPress Tutorials Are Published? Then Subscribe To Our Site!

***

***

***