Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals today face growing challenges.

Online Challenges For Certified Public Accountants

Certified Public Accountants today must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do you have to actively participate in the communities and industries your business serves, you must also maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your services online.

In addition to investing money in offline marketing activities like advertising on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., businesses in the accounting industry are also finding that they will need to delegate a greater amount of their budget to developing and maintaining a website that attracts new clients, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and gives their business a wider marketing reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your web pages have to load fast, and be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs will change in time and some aspects will need to be frequently updated. This requires having a well-planned web and content management strategy.

Another challenge that accounting firms (and all other businesses) face, is that they have around thirty seconds to give users the information they are looking for or they will find what they are looking for 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 Certified Public Accountants In The Digital Economy

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available to accounting companies that can adapt to meet the demands of the digital economy and can think progressively about improving their online business marketing skills.

In this detailed guide, you will learn ways to increase web traffic and build more online credibility for your business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to power your accounting website.

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

• Discover How A Poorly Built Website Can Cost You Business And What To Do About It
• Mastering WordPress – A Business Owner’s Guide

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

In this section we will show you how to improve your accounting website and get better results. We show you what pages your site needs, what content works best for accounting websites, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, see this article: How To Plan Your Business Website - A Basic Guide For Business Owners

Improving Your Website Pages

Professional business websites need a number of basic web pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  need and how to set up your accounting or financial services website for best results.

Services Description Page

You need to include a page that lists your products or services.

Your page will include all the products and services you offer, such as:

• Business accounting – business planning, company formation, accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, bookkeeping, forecasting, financing, budgeting, 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. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using your services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us Page

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropical donations, etc.

Remember to also mention any accounting awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your company and position it above your competitors.

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

Your Team

If you are searching for simple ways to grow your business online and increase user interaction with your site, then one of the things you can do, is make it easier for your visitors to get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.

You want people to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff or team members. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors won’t be well-versed in accounting terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page should even include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow selected team members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to outline your staff member’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a staff description page. Image sourced from: deepsky.com)

To learn more about how to create and add a simple and easy-to-maintain list of staff members in your website without coding skills, refer to this tutorial: How To Add An Employee List Directory To Your Site: Tutorial

Career Opportunities Page

This is a listing of career opportunities within your firm. This page could include training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, social aspects of working for your organization, etc. You can also include case studies of recruits who have risen within your organization and information such as the job outlook and upcoming career opportunities in the accounting industry.

Include also 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 your social pages, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to show potential clients what kind of financial solutions you are capable of implementing to help them solve problems. By adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients, you will also help to provide social proof online.

(Add a page with testimonials from previous clients and case studies. Screenshot image source: pcg-services.com)

We have created a comprehensive article about using case studies, testimonials and reviews improve your business online. Go here to learn more about this: How To Get Better Results Online With Awesome User Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A contact page is crucial.

It should include:

• Name Of Your Organization
• Address
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Google Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Request for information – contact details
• Social media URLs
• Chat feature (optional)

If your business services different areas you will want to make that clear when showing the address and contact information.

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

Add An Accounting Or Financial Services Blog Section

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using timely content such as news and events, product releases, educational information, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

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

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 as both your business website and your blog.

Something not many businesses know about, is that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic machine that will help begin delivering a stream of targeted traffic to your site, simply by adding regular content to your site.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

For more details: WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Increasing Your Website Traffic Automatically Using WordPress

Legal Information

It’s important for accounting organizations to ensure they have a compliant website, not just for building trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening any local, regional and federal laws and regulations wherever your do business in.

Depending on the products and services you provide, adding the following legal pages 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 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
• and others

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more about this: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Ways To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with content has become one of the key business differentiators.

Providing great content with advice and tips will get your visitors to share your web pages online with others and come back for more. Publishing content is a great way to educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business and about doing business with your company.

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

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Cashflow planning
• Business insurance
• Protecting revenues
• Structuring your self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing vs leasing, claiming business expenses, etc.)

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your readers gain a better understanding of your services, such as finance accounting, tax accounting, business auditing, reducing business debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to use relevant keywords and terms in your articles that your readers will be searching 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 exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content that will add value to 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!

Ways To Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Content Syndication – RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in many ways.

If you provide useful information, other sites will 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 kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared
• Feeds allow users to subscribe
• It provides a way for links to point back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides various ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. view your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to providing valuable content on your site from other websites, 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 finance-related government departments and industry bodies.

Below we have listed a few 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 feeds to provide your visitors with a better user experience.)

Adding Checklists & Forms

Checklists and forms are a great way to help increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. They can provide step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary tasks done. Forms and checklists are great business planning tools.

Forms and checklists could cover areas such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Negative Gearing Worksheet
• Non-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Partnership Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Online Tools

Providing unique online tools, gadgets and applications for businesses on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add value to potential clients. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools to add to accounting websites. Other tools would include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section, we will be discussing a number of online tools you can use in your accounting or financial services site using WordPress plugins and themes that improve your seo, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

To view Part 2, click here:

• How To Successfully Build And Grow An Accounting Business Online Using WordPress – Part Two

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