Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accountants today face growing challenges.

Online Challenges For CPAs

Today, more than ever, CPAs must find smarter ways to remain competitive, find new clients, and retain current business. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the communities and industries your business serves, you must also develop a strong presence online. This includes having an effective website and learning smarter ways to market your business services online.

As well as spending money in offline marketing activities, businesses in the accounting industry are now finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be allocated to develop and maintain a website that drives prospective clients, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and helps to give their business a wider marketing reach online.

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

One other difficult challenge that CPAs face online (as other professions do for that matter), is that your site has only about 30 seconds or less to provide users what they need 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

Online Opportunities For Accountants

As well as facing many new business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available to businesses in the accounting industry that are willing to evolve to meet the demands of the digital economy and think progressively about marketing their business better online.

This article will help you uncover a number of ways to drive more traffic and establish stronger online credibility for your business.

As well as providing practical tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your web presence, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your accounting business website or blog.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform, see these articles:

• Learn How A Poorly Constructed Website Can Cost You Business And What To Do About It
• Everything You Need To Know To Grow Your Small Business With WordPress

Practical Tips To Improve Your Accounting Or Financial Services Website

Let’s start by going over some basics. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results online. We show you what pages an accounting site needs, what type of content you need, tips for improving your site’s layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, go here: A Comprehensive Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Improve Your Web Pages

Professional websites require a number of basic pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  need and how to set up your website for best results.

Your Services And Products

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

Your page should include services such as:

• Business accounting – planning, company formation, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, budgeting, forecasting, financing, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, planning, reviewing, auditing, advice, 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

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 what these services do and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us Page

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

Remember to include any professional awards, accreditations, recognitions, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote the company and set it above the competition.

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

Meet Our Team

Are you looking for simple ways to sell more products or services online? Then one of the things you can do, is help your prospective clients get to know your organization better.

You want people 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 bio. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with 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 that will allow your prospective clients to follow some of your staff members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to outline your person’s qualifications, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add an employee page. Screenshot image sourced from: deepsky.com)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about how to easily add a simple staff directory in your web site, go here: Plugin Tutorial: How To Add A Staff Directory

Recruitment Page

This is a listing of career opportunities within your company. This page would include training offered, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You can also include stories of trainees who have risen within your firm and information about upcoming career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Also include a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, join your announcements list, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials

Case studies and testimonials from past clients are a great way to show prospective clients businesses minimize tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. Adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients also helps your accounting or financial services website to establish social proof online.

(Add a page to your site with testimonials and case studies. Screenshot image source: pcg-services.com)

We have written extensively on using testimonials and user reviews get better results online. Go here to learn more: How To Convert More Visitors Into Qualified Leads Using Sales Boosting User Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a clean contact page is essential.

Your contact page should provide:

• Business Name
• Address
• Phone number
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Google Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media networks
• Chat feature (optional)

If your business operates in multiple areas you should make this clear when showing your address and contact information.

You should also include links to commonly-asked questions, useful pages, special offers, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing content such as industry news, company updates, educational information, discussions on current topics, videos, infographics, etc.

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

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 serve as both your business website and blog.

Something few people know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation system that can help begin attracting new targeted traffic to your website, simply by publishing content on a regular basis to your website.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can drive new visitors automatically to your site)

If you are interested in learning more about this here: WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Automatically Attract More Web Visitors For Your Business Using WordPress

Legal Information

It’s extremely important for accounting and financial services organizations to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being broken wherever you provide services to.

Adding the legal pages below to your accounting site will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

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

We have written a comprehensive article on adding legal pages to your site. For more info, see this article: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Tips On How To Improve Your Content

In today’s highly competitive digital economy, content generosity has become one of the key differentiators for businesses.

You want to provide great content with useful information and tips that will get your readers to share your content and come back for more. This is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business.

For example, for an accounting business, topics could include:

• How balance sheets work
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• Presenting accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning advice
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Protecting revenues
• Structuring a 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 prospective clients gain a better understanding of your accounting or financial services, such as finance accounting, business accounting, business budgeting, reducing business debt, understanding accounting conventions, etc.

Remember to include the same keywords in your articles that your prospective clients will be searching 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 you how to drive more traffic to your site, 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!

Ways To Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

RSS Feeds

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

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 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 RSS feed
• A feed provides a way for links to point back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides various ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to 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 industry bodies.

Below we have listed a few RSS feeds you could consider adding to your 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.)

Adding Forms

Checklists and forms are a great way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your audience and set yourself apart from the competition. They can provide useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete a necessary task. Checklists and forms are also great planning tools.

You can provide a range of online or downloadable checklists and forms covering areas such as:

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Checklist
• Not-For-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Online Tools

Providing unique online tools and applications for businesses on your website can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are some of the most popular tools for accounting websites. Other tools can include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In part two of this guide, we look at a number of online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins that can improve your seo, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

To continue, click here:

• How To Grow An Accounting Web Presence With WordPress – Part Two

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