Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accountants today face significant and difficult challenges thanks to the online economy.

Online Challenges For CPAs

CPAs today must work harder than ever before to remain in business. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the communities and industries you serve, you must also maintain an active presence online. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your services online.

In addition to investing dollars in offline marketing, you will probably find that in order to compete with other web-marketing savvy accounting businesses, you will need to designate a more significant amount of your budget to develop and manage a website that brings in leads, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and helps increase your marketing reach online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, your web pages have to load fast, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website will change in time and sections may need to be updated often. This requires having a sound web and content management strategy in place.

Another difficult challenge that CPAs face (as most professions do for that matter), is that you have only about 30 seconds or less to give users the information they are searching 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

As well as facing many new business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available for businesses in the accounting profession that can evolve to meet the demands of the online economy and think outside the box about marketing their business better online.

This detailed guide will help you uncover a number of ways to attract and engage more visitors and improve your business online.

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

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS), see these articles:

• Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Customers And What To Do About It
• Everything You Need To Know About Growing A Successful Business With WordPress

Tips To Improve Your Accounting Website

We’ll start first by reviewing the basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your accounting website and get better results online. We show you what web pages you need, what type of content you need, useful tips for improving your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need specific help with website planning, go here: A Practical Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Basic Web Pages

All business websites require several basic web pages. Let’s discuss these.

Products And Services Page

You need a page that lists your products or services.

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

• Business accounting – planning, formation, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, financing, forecasting, budgeting, 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 businesses, 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 what these services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us Page

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

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

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

Core Team

If you are looking for cost-effective ways to sell more products or services online, then something you can do, is help visitors get to know you, your team and your business better.

Prospects need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with accounting terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. It should also include social buttons so your visitors can follow some of your team members on their social networks.

On this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight each person’s qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a staff description page. Screenshot source: deepsky.com)

We have written a detailed tutorial on how to easily create and add a list directory of employees or team members in your website using a free WP plugin here: WordPress Plugin Tutorial: Adding A Staff List Directory

Career Opportunities Page

This is a listing of career opportunities available within the firm. It should include training offered, employee benefits, professional development, social activities sponsored by your firm, etc. You can also include stories of graduates who have risen within your firm and information about career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Also include 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 updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Testimonials from past clients and case studies are a great way to show potential clients them minimize tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. Adding a page with case studies and client reviews also establishes social proof.

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

We have written extensively about using testimonials, case studies and reviews get better results online. Go here to learn more: Discover How To Turn More Visitors Into Qualified Prospects With More Effective Customer Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A contact page is essential.

It should provide some or all of the following information about your business:

• Name
• Your address
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Email
• Google Map
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Request for more information – who to contact
• Social media URLs
• Online chat feature

If you have multiple locations you want to make that clear when displaying your address and contact information.

Consider also including links to the most commonly asked questions, useful 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 business marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content such as company news, product updates, training articles, informative posts, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.

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

If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing accounting or financial services website is very hard to add new content to or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can serve as both your website and business blog.

Something few people know about, is that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation system that can instantly begin attracting an ongoing stream of targeted traffic to your web site, simply by publishing new content on a regular basis to your website.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation)

For more info, see this article: Web Traffic Blueprint – How To Attract More Traffic For Your Business With WordPress

Legal Information

It’s really important to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening laws or regulations in whichever location you do business in.

Depending on the services and products you provide, adding the legal pages below to your accounting site will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats or 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 Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

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

Ways To Improve Your Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the earlier you begin to publish great content on your site, the sooner you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

By committing to providing great content with advice and tips, you will get your visitors sharing your content online with others and coming back for more. Using content is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business.

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

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• Presenting accounts for fundraising activities
• Business cashflow planning tips
• Business insurance
• Protecting revenues
• Structuring your self-managed retirement fund
• Dos and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing vs leasing, setting up payroll systems, etc.)

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

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

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful 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 100% FREE!

Ways To Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving user experience (known 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 UX.

Add RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and user experience in several ways.

If you provide information that adds value to others, other businesses may want to syndicate your content.

Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:

• All of your updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides multiple ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to providing great content 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 RSS feeds with useful content by searching online for relevant government departments or well-known industry bodies.

Below we have listed some exaples of feeds containing useful information that 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 accounting website’s UX.)

Provide Forms

Checklists and forms are a fantastic way to 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 complete tasks. They are also great planning tools.

You can provide a range of online or downloadable forms and checklists (or links to these) covering areas such as:

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Checklist
• Not-For-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Individual Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Add Other Tools

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

In the next section, we look at a several online tools you can use in your accounting website using WordPress plugins and themes that improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1.

To continue, click this link:

• Grow Your Accounting Website – How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With Plugins

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