Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The information economy has not only revolutionised the way business is done globally, it has also created a number of challenges and opportunities for CPAs.

Challenges CPAs Face Online

Now, more than ever, CPAs must find smarter ways to remain competitive, source new clients, and retain current clients. Not only do they have to maintain a strong presence in the communities and industries their business serves, they must also develop and maintain an active digital presence. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better promote your business services online.

In addition to investing dollars advertising offline on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to compete, increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be assigned towards the development and maintenance of a website that brings new prospective clients, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and helps you gain wider marketing exposure online.

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

One other challenge that certified public accountants face online, as other professions do for that matter, is that you have only around thirty seconds or less to give visitors the information they need 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 Accountants In The Online Economy

As well as facing many new challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to accounting businesses that can evolve to meet digital challenges and who can think outside the box about improving their online business marketing skills.

In this comprehensive guide, you will discover ways to attract and engage new visitors and build more online credibility for your accounting or financial services business.

As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your website, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your accounting or financial services business website.

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

• Why A Poorly Built Web Site Can Lose You Prospective Clients And What To Do About It
• A Beginner’s Guide To Building A Successful Business Using WordPress

Tips To Improve Your Accounting Or Financial Services Site

This section will show you how to improve your website and get better results online. We will look at what pages a financial services website needs, what type of content works best, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need help with website planning, go here: A Practical Guide To Website Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Website Pages

Professional websites require several basic pages. Let’s discuss the pages your  need and how to structure your accounting or financial services website for best results.

Your Products And Services

You need a page that lists your products and services.

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

• Business accounting – planning, formation, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, financing, budgeting, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, planning, reviewing, auditing, advising, 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. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your services and why they should choose you.

Who We Are

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

It’s important to list any awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote the company and position it above the competition.

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

Meet Our Team

Are you searching for cost-effective ways to grow your business online? Then help your visitors get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.

You want prospective clients to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff members. This page should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors won’t be that well-versed in accounting terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. This page should also include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow some of your staff members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to highlight each person’s expertise, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your staff or team members to prospective new clients. Image source: deepsky.com)

To learn more about how to easily create and add a list directory of employees to your site without using code, see this tutorial: How To Add A Simple Staff Directory On Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills

Work For Us

List any career opportunities within your firm. This page should include type of training provided, benefits, opportunities for advancement, social aspects of working with your organization, etc. It should include information such as the job outlook and upcoming career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Maintain a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, subscribe to your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies

Customer reviews and case studies are a great way to show potential clients what kind of accounting solutions you are capable of implementing to help them solve problems. Adding a page with reviews from clients and case studies also helps your accounting or financial services site to provide social proof online.

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

If you would like to learn more about using testimonials and client reviews to improve your business results online, go here: Improve Your Conversions With Standout User Testimonials

Contact Us

A functional contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should include some or all of the following:

• Name Of Your Organization
• Physical location
• Phone number
• Fax
• Email
• Google Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media links
• Live chat (optional)

If your business operates from multiple areas you want to make that clear when displaying your address and contact info.

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

Add An Accounting Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to promote your business using content such as news and events, updates, training articles and tutorials, discussions on current topics, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an existing 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 accounting or financial services site is very hard to add new content to or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can act as both your website and your blog.

Very few businesses know that WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation system that can instantly begin attracting targeted visitors to your site, simply by publishing content on a consistent basis to your website.

(WordPress can drive new visitors automatically to your website)

Go here to learn more about this: WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Getting More Web Visitors For Your Business Automatically Using WordPress

Legal Pages

It’s crucially important to have a compliant website, not just for building credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaking laws and regulations wherever your business is located.

Depending on the services you provide, adding some or all of the following legal pages to your accounting or financial services site will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

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

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your website here: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Ways To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you begin to publish great content on your site, the sooner you will begin to differentiate yourself from the competition.

By committing to providing great content with useful advice and tips, you will get your readers to share your web pages and come back for more. Content marketing is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business.

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

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Understanding profit & loss statements
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• How to present accounts for fundraising activities
• Business cashflow planning tips
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Protecting revenues
• How to structure a self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing vs leasing, setting up payroll systems, etc.)

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your readers understand your services, such as forensic accounting, small business accounting, tax planning for small business, reducing business debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to include the same keywords in your content that your readers 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 teach you how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content for your visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Adding RSS Feeds

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

If you provide valuable information, other businesses may want to syndicate your content.

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

• All of your content updates are kept in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• A feed provides links back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides several ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. view the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to your site 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 by searching online for finance-related government departments or respected industry bodies.

For example, here are a few feeds you may want to consider adding to your accounting 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

(Use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to improve your website’s user experience.)

Adding Checklists & Forms

Checklists and forms are a great way to increase user engagement and add value to your readers. Forms and checklists can provide users with useful instructions and resources to get necessary tasks done. Checklists and forms can also be great planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Checklist
• Fundraising Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Company Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Unique Tools

Providing unique tools and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your potential clients. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are popular tools for accounting websites. Other applications could include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section of this guide, we will be discussing a several online tools you can add to your accounting or financial services website using WordPress plugins and themes that can help improve your seo, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

Click on this link to keep reading:

• How To Successfully Grow An Accounting Or Financial Services Online Presence With WordPress – Part 2

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