Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress
Accountants today are facing an ever increasing number of challenges thanks to the online economy.
Challenges Accounting Professionals Face Online
Today, more than ever, CPAs must work harder and find smarter ways to stand out from the competition, obtain new business, and retain current clients. Not only do you have to become more involved in the communities and industries you serve, you must also maintain a strong digital presence. This includes having an effective website and learning better ways to grow your business services online.
As well as investing dollars in offline marketing, businesses in the accounting industry are also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be directed to develop and manage a website that drives prospects, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and helps increase their presence online.
This means that your website not only has to look professional, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your site has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of the website may change over time and sections will need to be frequently updated. This requires having a sound website and content management strategy in place.
Another difficult challenge that accounting businesses (and all other professions) face online, is that you have an average of thirty seconds or less to provide visitors what they are looking for 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 CPAs In The Web Economy
As well as facing a number of significant challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the accounting sector that can adapt to meet online economy demands and can think progressively in terms of marketing their business services better online.
This comprehensive article will help you uncover ways to attract and engage new visitors and build more online credibility for your business.
As well as providing practical tips and information on ways to improve your accounting business online, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your accounting or financial services website or blog.
For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS), see the articles below:
Practical Tips To Improve Your Website
Let’s start by covering the basic stuff. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your accounting website and get better results online. We show you what pages you need, what type of content works best for accounting websites, layout and navigation structure, etc.
If you need website planning assistance, go here: A Practical Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners
Improving Your Website Pages
All business websites require several essential web pages. Let’s review these.
Products And Services Description Page
You need a page that lists your products or services.
This page should include all the services and products you offer, such as:
- Business – business planning, incorporation of companies, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, budgeting, forecasting, financing, strategic planning, consulting, etc.
- Taxation – preparing, 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
Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what your services do and direct them to your appointment booking page.
Who We Are
This page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.
It’s important to mention any accounting awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote the company and position it above the competition.
(List all of your awards certifications, recognitions, accreditations, publications, associations, etc. in your About page. Screenshot image sourced from: deloitte.com)
Team
If you are looking for simple ways to grow your business online, then make it easier for your prospective clients to get to know you, your team and your organization better.
You want potential clients to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your people. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be familiar with accounting terms your descriptions 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 that will allow your visitors to follow some of your team members on their social pages.
In this page, make sure to outline each staff member’s qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.
(Add a page that introduces your staff members to prospective new clients. Image source: deepsky.com)
We have created a detailed tutorial on how to create and add a simple staff directory in a WordPress site here: Tutorial: How To Add An Employee List Directory To Your WordPress Site
Recruitment Page
List any career opportunities within the company. This page would include training, benefits, advancement opportunities, social activities sponsored or encouraged by your organization, etc. You can include information such as the job outlook and additional career opportunities in the accounting and financial services 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 newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.
Case Studies
Testimonials and case studies are a great way to show prospective clients what kind of financial solutions you are capable of implementing to help them solve their problems. Adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients also provides social proof online.
(Add a page with case studies and client reviews. Image sourced from: pcg-services.com)
To learn more about using client testimonials and user reviews get better results online, go here: Learn How To Achieve Better Results Online Using Sales Boosting Customer Testimonials
Contact Us
A contact page is essential.
Your contact page should provide visitors with some or all of the following:
- Business Name
- Your address
- Phone
- Fax
- Map
- Web address
- Contact form
- Name of person to contact
- Social media web addresses
- Live chat feature (optional)
If your business services different locations you want to make this clear when showing the address and contact information.
You can also include a few links for the most commonly asked questions, frequently-visited pages, special offers, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.
Add A Blog Section
A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms typically include a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business using timely content like news, company updates, educational articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, videos, infographics, etc.
If you already have an established accounting website, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your services.
If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing accounting site is very hard to keep updated or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can act both as your business website and blog.
Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation system that can help attract an ongoing stream of web traffic to your website, simply by adding content on a consistent basis to your website.
(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)
For more details: Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Automatically Grow Your Web Traffic For Your Business
Legal Information Pages
It’s crucial to ensure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for establishing trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being contravened in whatever region you do business in.
Depending on what services and products you provide, adding the legal pages below 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 sources of legal threats and inconveniences:
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms And Conditions Of Use
- Website Disclaimer
- Affiliate Agreement
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- DMCA Notice
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers
- Refund Policy
- Video/Audio Terms
- and others
Go here if you want to learn more adding legal pages to your website: How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site
Tips For Improving Your Web Content
In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with content has become one of the key success differentiators for businesses.
By committing to providing great content with information and tips, you will get your visitors to share your content and come back for more. This is a great way to inform and teach site visitors and prospective clients about your business and about doing business with you.
For example, topics for an accounting or financial services business could cover the following:
- Explanations of balance sheets
- Overlooked tax deductions
- Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
- How to present accounts for fundraising 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 educational articles that will help your readers understand accounting services, such as forensic accounting, tax accounting, office accounting software, reducing business debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.
Remember to include keywords and terms in your articles that readers would search for online.
We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful 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!
Ways Of Improving User Experience
Improving your site’s user experience (typically referred to as UX) will help keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you ways you can improve visitor engagement and UX.
Adding RSS Feeds
An RSS feed provides plenty of benefits for your website.
If you provide content that adds value to others, other businesses may want to syndicate your content to their visitors.
Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:
- All of your updates are in one place
- your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
- Your feeds can be shared
- Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
- It provides links back to your content
- Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
- RSS provides several ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. users can view your content on their mobile device using different applications)
- It’s built into WordPress
There are also benefits when it comes to providing information on your website 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 relevant government departments and well-known industry bodies.
Below we have listed some exaples of useful RSS feeds you could consider adding to your accounting 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
(RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your site’s UX.)
Checklists And Forms
Checklists and forms are a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. Forms and checklists can provide visitors with step-by-step instructions and resources to complete tasks. Checklists and forms are also great business planning tools.
You can provide online or downloadable checklists and forms covering a range of subjects such as:
- How To Set Up A Company
- Negative Gearing Worksheet
- Fundraising Governance Checklist
- Disclosure Checklists
- Sole Trader Tax Checklist
- Capital Gains Tax Checklist
- Income Tax Variation Forms
Adding Other Tools
Providing unique online tools and applications for businesses is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools to add to accounting websites. Others would include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.
In the next section, we look at a several WordPress plugins you can add to your website that can help improve seo, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.
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This is the end of part one.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
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