Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals today face a growing number of challenges created by the digital economy.

Challenges CPAs Face Online

Now, more than ever, certified public accountants must find smarter ways to remain competitive, find new business, and keep their current clientele. Not only do they have to participate in the communities and industries they serve, they must also maintain an active presence online. This includes having a website and searching for smarter ways to promote your business online.

In addition to spending dollars in offline marketing activities, businesses in the accounting industry are now finding that they need to designate a bigger amount of their marketing budget towards developing and managing a website that can drive leads, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and help create wider exposure online.

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

One other difficult challenge that accountancy firms face with their websites, as most businesses do for that matter, is that your site has an average of thirty seconds or less to help users find the information they are looking for or they will look 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 a number of business and technology changes, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to accounting businesses that are willing to adapt to meet the demands of the online economy and who can think strategically when it comes to improving their online marketing skills.

This guide will help you uncover new ways and opportunities to source new clients and create significant improvements in your business presence online.

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

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

• Learn How A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Lose You Potential Customers
• Everything You Need To Know To Grow A Successful Small Business With WordPress

Useful Tips For Improving Your Website

Let’s start by going over the basics. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your accounting website and get better results. We show you what web pages you need, what content you need, ways of improving your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, read this detailed guide we have written: A Cost-Saving Guide To Website Planning For Business Owners

Essential Web Pages

Professional websites require several essential pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  need to have and how to set up your website for best results.

Products And Services

You need a page that explains your services or products.

This page will include services such as:

• Business – business planning, company structures, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, financing, forecasting, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, 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. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using your services and why they should book an appointment.

About Us Page

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

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

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

Our Team

Are you searching for inexpensive ways to sell more products or services online or increase user interaction on your site? Then make it easier for prospects to get to know, like and trust your organization better.

You want people to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be very well-versed in accounting terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page should also include social buttons so your site visitors can follow individual team members on their social networks.

On this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline each team member’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an asset 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 team to prospective new clients. Image source: deepsky.com)

We have created a detailed tutorial on how to easily add an easy-to-manage list directory of staff members to your site with no coding skills required here: Step-By-Step Tutorial: Adding An Employee Directory To Your WordPress Site

Work With Us

List any career opportunities available within your company. This page should include type of training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, social aspects of working with your organization, etc. It should include case studies of recruits who have worked their way up in your firm and information such as the job outlook and new career opportunities in the accounting industry.

Maintain a positions available section in this 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 from previous clients and case studies are a great way to show potential clients what kind of accounting solutions you will implement to help them solve problems. Adding a page with testimonials from past clients and case studies also provides social proof.

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

We have written extensively about using testimonials and client reviews improve your business online. For more info, see this article: How To Get Better Results Online Using Captivating Testimonials

Contact Page

A contact page is essential.

Your contact page should provide:

• Name
• Street address of premises
• Phone
• Fax
• Email
• Google Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media web addresses
• Online chat

If you operate from multiple locations you will want to make this clear when showing the address and contact info.

Consider also including links to commonly-asked questions, frequently-visited pages, special offers, support page, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Or Financial Services Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to easily promote your business by publishing content like industry events, updates, educational information, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an established accounting or financial services site, 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 keep updated with new content or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can serve as both your website and blog.

Something not many people know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic machine that will help attract targeted traffic to your business, simply by adding new content on a consistent basis to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

For more info, see this article: Web Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Growing Your Web Visitors Automatically Using WordPress

Legal Information Pages

As a professional business, having a compliant website is essential, not just for establishing credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional and federal laws or regulations are being contravened in whatever region you service.

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

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

To learn more about adding legal pages to your website, refer to this article: How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips For Improving The Content On Your Website

In today’s globally competitive economy, content generosity has become one of the key success factors for businesses.

By committing to providing great content with information and tips, you will get your visitors sharing your content and coming back for more information. Publishing content is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your business.

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

• How balance sheets work
• Understanding profit & loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Cashflow planning advice
• Business insurance
• 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 educational articles that will help your readers understand accounting services, such as finance accounting, business accounting, tax planning for small business, reducing business debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to include keywords and terminology 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 exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving website user experience (known as UX) helps keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you different ways to improve visitor engagement and UX.

Content Syndication – RSS Feeds

An RSS feed provides lots of benefits for your accounting business.

If you provide information that adds value to others, 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
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides a way for links to point 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. subscribers can view your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to adding syndicated content to your website 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 visiting sites of relevant government departments or industry bodies.

Below we have listed some feeds containing useful information that you may want to add 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 accounting site’s UX.)

Provide Forms And Checklists

Checklists and forms are a fantastic way to increase user engagement and add value to your audience. Forms and checklists can provide visitors with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete tasks. Forms and checklists can also be great planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Company
• Negative Gearing Checklist
• Fundraising Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Partnership Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Add Online Tools

Providing unique tools 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. Others can include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In part 2, we will look at a number of online tools you can add to your site using WordPress plugins that can help improve your seo, improve user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

Click on this link to continue:

• How To Successfully Build And Grow Your Accounting Or Financial Services Business Online With WordPress – Part Two

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