Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress
The digital age has not only revolutionised the way business is done worldwide, it has also created a growing number of challenges and great opportunities for accountants.
Challenges CPAs Face Online
CPAs today must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to become more involved in the communities and industries you serve, you must also develop and maintain an active web presence. This includes having an effective website and searching for better ways to grow your business online.
In addition to spending money advertising offline, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to remain competitive, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be delegated towards the development and management of a website that can drive new clients, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and help you create a wider degree of exposure online.
This means that your site not only has to look professional, your pages have to load fast, and your website layout 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 sections may need to be frequently updated. This requires a sound web and content management strategy in place.
One other problem that accountants (and most businesses) face, is that they have only about 30 seconds to give visitors the information they are searching for or they will go away.
“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 Certified Public Accountants In The Digital Economy
As well as facing many challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to accounting firms that are willing to adapt to meet the challenges of the online economy and can think strategically about marketing their business better online.
In this detailed guide, you will learn ways and opportunities to attract more visitors and create significant improvements in your business results 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 website.
For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see the articles below:
- How A Poorly Built Web Site Can Lose You Money And What To Do About It
- The Small Business Owner’s Guide To Using WordPress
Useful Tips To Improve Your Website
We’ll start first by reviewing some basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what pages your site needs, what content works best for accounting websites, your navigation structure, etc.
If you need website planning assistance, read this article we have written: The Web Site Planning Process Explained - A Practical Primer For Non-Technical Business Owners
Essential Web Pages
Professional business websites require several essential pages. Let’s take a look at these.
Description Of services And Products
You need a page that explains your products or services.
Your page will include all the products and services you offer, such as:
- Business – planning, company structures, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, forecasting, budgeting, financing, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
- Taxation – preparation, 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 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
This page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, community projects, etc.
It’s important to include any awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote your company and position it above other competitors.
(List all of your industry awards accreditations, recognitions, certifications, associations, publications, etc. in the About page. Screenshot source: deloitte.com)
Team
Are you looking for ideas to grow your business online or get prospects to stay longer on your site? Then help prospects get to know, like and trust your business better.
Prospects need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with 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. It should even include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow individual team members on their social networks.
In this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline each employee’s expertise, 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 sourced from: deepsky.com)
If you need help how to add an updatable list directory of staff members in a WordPress site with no coding skills required, go here: How To Easily Create A Simple Staff Directory For Your WordPress Site
We’re Hiring
This is a listing of career opportunities available within the organization. It could include training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. It should include information about career opportunities in the accounting industry.
Maintain a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, join your newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.
Testimonials
Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to show prospective clients what type of financial solutions you are capable of implementing to help solve their problems. By adding a page with testimonials from previous clients and case studies, you are also helping to establish social proof online.
(Add a web page with reviews from clients and case studies. Image source: pcg-services.com)
If you want to learn more about using case studies, testimonials and reviews, see this article: How To Achieve Better Results Online With Captivating Customer Testimonials
Contact Page
A functional contact page is essential.
It should include some or all of the following information:
- Company Name
- Your physical location
- Telephone
- Facsimile
- Contact email
- Map
- Website address
- Contact form
- Contact name
- Links to social media networks
- Live Chat/Skype (optional)
If your business operates from multiple locations you should make this clear when showing the address and contact information.
Consider also including 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 marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically include a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using content such as news and events, company updates, useful information, informative posts, promotional videos, webinars, etc.
If you already have an existing site, then consider adding a WordPress blog to promote your company.
If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing site is hard to add new content to or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can act as both your website and your blog.
Something not many people know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic-generation system that can begin to drive targeted visitors to your website, simply by publishing regular content to your website.
(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)
Go here to learn more about this: WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint – Learn How To Turn Your WordPress Website Into An Automated Web Traffic Machine
Legal Pages
As a professional business, ensuring that you have a website that complies will all legal requirements online is vitally important, not just for establishing trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not contravening local, regional and federal laws and regulations wherever your business is located.
Adding the legal pages below to your accounting or financial services website will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential sources of threats and legal 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
- Health Disclaimers
- Refund Policy
- Video/Audio Terms
- and others
To learn more about adding legal pages to your site, see this article: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site
Improve Your Web Content
In today’s fiercely competitive digital economy, being generous with content has become one of the key business differentiators.
By committing to providing great content with advice and tips, you will get your visitors sharing your content and coming back for more information. Content marketing is a great way to educate site visitors and prospects about your business.
For example, for an accounting or financial services business, topics could cover the following:
- Explanations of balance sheets
- Profit & loss statements
- Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
- Presenting accounts for non-profit activities
- Cashflow planning tips
- Maximizing business insurance cover
- Risk prevention
- Tips on structuring your self-managed retirement fund
- Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing insurance, setting up payroll systems, etc.)
You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your readers gain a better understanding of your accounting services, such as forensic accounting, small business accounting, office accounting software, reducing business debt, understanding financial concepts, etc.
Remember to use keywords in your articles that readers would search for online.
We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality 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 completely FREE!
Tips For Improving Visitor Experience
Improving your site’s user experience (generally referred to as UX) will help you keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you ways you can improve your visitor engagement and user experience.
Content Syndication – RSS Feeds
RSS feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and user experience in several ways.
If you provide valuable information, other sites will want to syndicate your content.
Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:
- All of your content updates are in one place
- Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
- RSS feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
- RSS feeds allow users to subscribe
- An RSS feed provides a way for external links to point back to your content
- RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
- There are multiple ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view the content on their mobile device using different applications)
- It’s built into WordPress
There are also a number of benefits to providing content 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 just search online for relevant government departments and key industry bodies.
Below we have listed some RSS 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
(Use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to improve your accounting site’s UX.)
Checklists And Forms
Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to help increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. Checklists and forms can provide step-by-step instructions and resources to perform necessary tasks. They can also be great business planning tools.
Checklists and forms can include subjects such as:
- How To Set Up A Company
- Negative Gearing Worksheet
- Non-Profit Activity Checklist
- Disclosure Requirements
- Company Tax Checklist
- Trust Tax Checklist
- Income Tax Variation Forms
Add Online Tools
Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your potential clients. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are popular tools for accounting websites. Other tools can include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.
In part 2, we will be discussing a number of WordPress-based tools you can add to your site that can improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.
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This is the end of part one.
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