Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital information age has not only revolutionized businesses around the world, it has also created increasingly difficult challenges and great opportunities for certified public accountants.

Challenges Accounting & Financial Businesses Face Online

Now, more than ever, accountants must work hard to remain competitive, find new business, and retain current clientele. Not only do they have to actively participate in the communities and industries they serve, they must also develop and maintain an active digital presence. This includes having an effective web presence and learning how to better market your services online.

In addition to spending dollars advertising offline, you will probably find that in order to compete with other web-marketing savvy accounting businesses, you will need to invest a greater amount of your budget towards the development and management of a website that can drive new prospective clients, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and help to increase your marketing reach online.

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

One other problem that accounting organizations (and other businesses) face online, is that you have around 30 seconds or less to give users the information they are looking for or they will leave your site.

“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 Digital Economy

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available to accounting businesses that are willing to evolve to meet digital economy demands and think progressively when it comes to marketing their services better online.

This guide will help you uncover new ways to find new clientele and create significant improvements in your business results online.

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

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

• Why A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Cost You Potential Customers
• Mastering WordPress – A Small Business Owner’s Guide

Useful Tips To Improve Your Website

In this section we will start with the basics and show you how to improve your accounting website and get better results online. We will look at what pages a financial services website needs, what type of content works best for accounting and financial services sites, suggestions for improving your site’s layout and navigation, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, see this detailed guide: A Comprehensive Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Essential Web Pages

All business websites need a number of essential pages. Let’s take a look at these.

Products And Services

It’s essential to include a page that lists your services and any products that you offer.

This page should include all the services and products you offer, such as:

• Business accounting – planning, formation, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, financing, budgeting, forecasting, 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, 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 appointment booking page.

About Us

This page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, community donations, etc.

Remember to list any awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote the company and position it above other competitors.

(List all of your awards recognitions, certifications, accreditations, associations, publications, etc. in the About Us page. Screenshot image source: deloitte.com)

Your Team

If you are looking for cost-effective ways to sell more products or services online and get people to stay longer on your site, then something you can do, is help prospective clients get to know, like and trust you and your business better.

You want prospects to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors won’t be familiar with 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 even include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow individual staff members on their social pages.

In this page, make sure to highlight your employee’s expertise, how their skills add value to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a page that introduces your employees or team members to prospective new clients. Image sourced from: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to easily add a list directory of staff or team members in WordPress using free WordPress plugins, go here: Adding An Employee List Directory

Recruitment

List any career opportunities available within the firm. It would include training offered, benefits, professional development, social aspects of working for your organization, etc. You should also include information such as the job outlook and 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 this page, subscribe to your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to show prospective clients what it’s like to do business with your company. By adding a page with testimonials and case studies, you are also helping to provide social proof.

(Add a page to your site with client reviews and case studies. Image source: pcg-services.com)

We have written extensively on using testimonials, case studies and user reviews improve your business online. Go here to learn more: How To Get Better Results Online With More Effective Testimonials

Contact Page

Having a contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should provide visitors with some or all of the following:

• Name Of Your Organization
• Your address
• Telephone number
• Facsimile
• Email
• Google Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media pages
• Online chat (optional feature)

If your business services multiple locations you should make that clear when showing the address and contact info.

You should also include links to an FAQ section, frequently-visited pages, special offers, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Or Financial Services Blog Section

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms typically include a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to easily promote your business using timely content such as company announcements, company updates, useful information, informative posts, videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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 be used both as your business website and your blog.

Something few businesses know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation machine that will help begin driving an ongoing stream of web traffic to your web site, simply by publishing regular content to your web site.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more about this: Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Turn Your WordPress Site Into An Automated Traffic Machine

Legal Information Pages

It’s crucially important to ensure they have a compliant website, not just for building credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not contravening laws or regulations wherever you service clients.

Adding the legal pages below to your site will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

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

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your website here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

How To Improve The Content On Your Website

In today’s highly competitive online economy, the sooner you begin to publish great content on your site, the faster you will begin to differentiate yourself from the competition.

You will want to provide great content with useful information and tips that will get your visitors to share your web pages and come back for more information. This is a great way to educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business and about using your services.

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

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

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your readers understand your accounting or financial services, such as forensic accounting, business accounting, business budgeting, reducing debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to include the same keywords and terms in your content that prospective clients would search for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating high-quality content for your site visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Ways To Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving your site’s user experience (typically referred to as UX) helps you keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you different ways to improve your visitor engagement and user experience.

Add RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide plenty of benefits for your website.

If you provide valuable content, 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 content updates are in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• A feed provides links back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are various ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. users can read the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

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

To find RSS feeds with useful content just visit sites of tax-related government departments and respected industry bodies.

For example, here are a few 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

(RSS feeds can help to improve your accounting website’s user experience.)

Add Online Checklists

Checklists and forms are a great way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your visitors and provide something unique. Forms and checklists can give them useful instructions and resources to perform necessary tasks. Checklists and forms can also be great business planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Not-For-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

Providing useful tools 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 target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are great tools to add to accounting websites. Others could include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section, we will look at a number of WordPress-based tools you can add to your site that improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

Click on this link to continue reading:

• A Practical Guide To Building And Growing An Accounting Or Financial Services Website – Part 2

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