Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital age has not only transformed the way business is done around the world, it has also created a growing number of challenges and great opportunities for accountants.

Challenges CPAs Face Online

Certified Public Accountants today must work harder than ever before to remain in business. Not only do you have to become more involved in the communities and industries you serve, you must also develop a strong digital presence. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better market your services online.

As well as investing dollars in offline marketing, businesses in the accounting industry are now also finding that they need to invest a larger part of their budget to develop and manage a website that brings in prospective clients, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and increases their reach online.

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

Another difficult challenge that accounting firms (and most other professions) face with their websites, is that they have only around thirty seconds or less to help users find what they are searching for or they will go 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 Accounting Businesses In The Digital Economy

As well as facing significant business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available for accounting companies that are willing to evolve to meet the demands of the digital economy and think strategically about improving their online business marketing skills.

This comprehensive article will help you uncover new ways and opportunities to find more potential clients and establish online credibility for your accounting or financial services business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress platform to power your accounting or financial services website or blog.

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

• Learn How A Poorly Built Web Site Can Lose You Business
• Using WordPress To Grow A Successful Business

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

This section will show you ways to improve your accounting website and get better results online. We will look at what web pages you need, what content you need, your navigation structure, etc.

If you need specific help with website planning, check out the detailed step-by-step guide we have written here: A Cost-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Your Web Pages

Professional business websites need some basic web pages. Let’s discuss these.

Description Of Services

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

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

• Business – business planning, company structures, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, bookkeeping, budgeting, financing, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, planning, reviewing, auditing, advice, 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, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using these services and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

Who We Are

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.

It should list any industry awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote the company and set it above the competition.

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

Meet The Team

If you are looking for quicker, simpler and cost-effective ideas to sell more products or services online, then something you can do, is make it easier for visitors to get to know, like and trust you, your team and your organization better.

You want your business to be relatable. A 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 that well-versed in accounting terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. It should also include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow selected staff 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 qualifications, how their skills add value or contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your staff members to prospective new clients. Screenshot image sourced from: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to easily add an easy-to-manage simple team members directory to your site using free WordPress plugins, see this step-by-step tutorial: Step-By-Step Tutorial: How To Easily Add A Staff List Directory To Your WordPress Site

Work For Us

This is a listing of career opportunities within your organization. This page can include type of training provided, employee benefits, professional development, social aspects of working with your firm, etc. You should also include stories of trainees who have risen within your company and information about new 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 announcements list, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials And Case Studies

Client reviews and case studies are a great way to show prospective clients what kind of accounting solutions you can implement to help them solve problems. Adding a web page with client reviews and case studies also helps your accounting site to provide social proof.

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

If you want to learn more about using case studies, testimonials and reviews, refer to this article: Achieve Better Results Online With Knockout Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a contact page is crucial.

It should provide visitors with the following:

• Name
• Address
• Telephone number
• Facsimile number
• Contact email address
• Google Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Request for more information – contact details
• Links to social media profiles
• Chat/Skype

If you operate out of multiple locations you will 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, main pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Blog Section

A blog is a powerful business marketing tool. Many blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using content like company events, product updates, training articles, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

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

If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing website is hard to keep updated or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can become both your business website and blog.

Not many people know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation machine that can instantly drive targeted traffic to your web site, simply by adding regular content to your web site.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more: WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Growing Your Traffic Automatically

Legal Information

It’s very important for accounting businesses to ensure they have a compliant website, not just for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaching laws or regulations wherever your business is located.

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

• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Financial/Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

Go here if you want to learn more adding legal pages to your website: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Improve The Content On Your Website

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

You will want to provide great content with useful information and tips that will get your readers sharing your content with others online and coming back for more. Content marketing is a great way to educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business and about using your services.

For example, topics for an accounting or financial services business could include:

• How balance sheets work
• Understanding profit & loss statements
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• Presenting accounts for fundraising activities
• Business cashflow planning advice
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Protecting revenues
• Tips on structuring a self-managed retirement fund
• Do’s and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing insurance, setting up payroll systems, etc.)

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your prospective clients understand your accounting services, such as software accounting, business accounting, tips on using small business accounting software, reducing debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to use specific keywords and terminology 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 website or blog, save money creating useful content for your visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improving Visitor Experience

Improving your user experience (generally referred to as UX) will help keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you ways you can improve your visitor engagement and UX.

Add RSS Feeds

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

If you provide content that adds value to others, other sites will want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

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

• All of your updates are in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• It provides links to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are multiple ways 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 benefits to providing valuable information on your website from other sites, 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 relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.

For example, here are some RSS feeds you could 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

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

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and forms are a great way to help increase user engagement, add value to your readers and set yourself apart from the competition. They can provide useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform necessary tasks. Checklists and forms are great business planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Business
• Negative Gearing Worksheet
• Not-For-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Individual Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

Providing useful online tools and applications for businesses on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are popular tools for accounting websites. Other tools could include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section of this guide, we will look at a number of online tools you can use in your website using WordPress plugins and themes that can improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

***

This is the end of section 1.

Click on this link to keep reading:

• Your Accounting Website – WordPress Plugins That Can Help To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation

Subscribe To WPCompendium.org And Get Notified Of New WordPress Tutorials!

***

***

***