Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The information economy has not only revolutionized businesses globally, it has also created increasingly difficult challenges and opportunities for CPAs and financial service providers.

Online Challenges For Accounting And Financial Firms

CPAs today must work harder than ever to remain in business. Not only do they have to become actively involved in the communities and industries they serve, they must also maintain an active digital presence. This includes having a website and learning smarter ways to market your business services online.

In addition to spending money marketing offline, you will probably find that in order to compete, you will need to assign a more significant share of your marketing budget towards developing and managing a website that will bring in prospects, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help to increase your presence online.

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

One other challenge that accounting organizations (and most other professions) face with their websites, is that they have an average of thirty seconds to give visitors what they are searching 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 Accountants In The Digital Economy

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the accounting profession that are willing to adapt to meet the demands of the digital economy and who can think progressively in terms of marketing their business better online.

The article below will help you uncover ways to attract new visitors and build more online credibility for your business.

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

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

• Learn How A Poorly Designed Website Can Cost You Money And What To Do About It
• The Business Owner’s Guide To Understanding WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

This section explains how to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what web pages you need, what type of content works best, useful tips for improving your site’s layout and navigation, etc.

If you need any help with website planning, check out the detailed step-by-step guide we have written here: The Web Site Planning Process Explained: A Useful Primer For Non-Technical Business Owners

How To Improve Your Web Pages

Professional websites need some essential web pages. Let’s go over the pages your  should have and how to structure your accounting or financial services website for best results.

Description Of Products And Services

It’s essential to include a page that describes your services or products.

It will include services such as:

• Business accounting – business planning, company structures, accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, financing, budgeting, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, 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 businesses, asset 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 what these services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us Page

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

This page should include any awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote the company and set it above other competitors.

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

Team

If you are searching for inexpensive ideas to sell more products online and get people to stay longer on your site, then make it easier for prospects to get to know your organization better.

You want potential clients 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 bio. Since most visitors won’t be very well-versed in accounting terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. It should even include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow some of your staff members on their social networks.

On this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline your person’s qualifications, how their skills add value 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 employees to prospective new clients. Screenshot image sourced from: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to add an easy-to-maintain simple staff directory to WordPress without messing with code, go here: Adding An Employee List Directory

Recruitment Page

This is a listing of career opportunities within your firm. This page should include training, employee benefits, professional development, etc. It should include information about new career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Include also a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, subscribe to your contact list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies And Testimonials

Client reviews and case studies are a great way to show potential clients minimise tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. By adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients, you will also help to provide prospective clients with social proof online.

(Add a web page with case studies and client reviews. Image sourced from: pcg-services.com)

We have written extensively about using case studies, testimonials and client reviews to improve your business results online. To learn more about this go here: Improve Your Visitor-To-Lead Conversions With Highly Effective Testimonials

Contact Page

A clean contact page is essential.

Your contact page should include the following information about your organization:

• Company Name
• Your physical location
• Telephone
• Fax
• Email
• Map
• Web address
• Contact form
• Request for more information – who to contact
• Links to social media profiles
• Chat/Skype (optional feature)

If you operate in different areas you want to make this clear when displaying the address and contact information.

You could also include links to an FAQ page, main pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Or Financial Services Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing content like news and events, company updates, training articles, opinions on current topics, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

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

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

Something not many people know about, is that WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation machine that can begin delivering a stream of targeted visitors to your business, simply by publishing regular content to your web site.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more: Web Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Driving More Website Traffic Automatically With WordPress

Legal Information

As a professional accountant, having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is essential, not just for establishing credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening local, regional and federal laws or regulations wherever you service clients.

Depending on what services you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your accounting website 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 Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your site. Go here to learn more: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Improve The Content On Your Site

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

Providing great content with useful information and tips will get your visitors to share your content with others online and come back for more information. Content marketing is a great way to inform and educate your visitors and prospects about your business and about using your services.

For example, topics for an accounting or financial services business could cover the following:

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Profit and loss statements
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• How to present accounts for fundraising activities
• Business cashflow planning tips
• Business insurance
• Protecting revenues
• Tips on structuring a self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing insurance, claiming business expenses, etc.)

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

Remember to include keywords in your content that your prospective clients 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 teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful 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 your website’s user experience (often referred to as UX) helps keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you different ways to improve your visitor engagement and UX.

Using RSS Feeds

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed provides many benefits for your site.

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 syndicating your content to other businesses using RSS feeds, include:

• All of your content updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• A feed provides links to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides several ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also 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.

To find useful RSS feeds just search online for tax-related government departments and well-known industry bodies.

Here are some exaples of useful RSS feeds you could 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

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

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and forms are a great way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your readers. Forms and checklists can provide users with useful instructions and resources to complete tasks. Forms and checklists are great business planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Business
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Fundraising Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Company Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Provide Online Tools

Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are great tools to add to accounting websites. Other applications can include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section of this guide, we look at a number of online tools you can add to your accounting or financial services site using WordPress plugins that can improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1 of this step-by-step article on ways to build your accounting business web presence.

Click on this link to continue reading:

• Online Business Tips For Accountants – WordPress Plugins And Themes For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Better User Engagement And Traffic Generation

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