Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital business age has not only revolutionised the way business is done globally, it has also created difficult challenges and opportunities for certified public accountants.

Challenges CPAs Face Online

Accounting businesses today must work harder than ever to remain in business. Not only do you have to become more involved in the communities and industries you serve, you must also develop an active digital presence. This includes having an effective web presence and searching for smarter ways to grow your business services online.

In addition to spending dollars advertising offline, businesses in the accounting industry are also finding that they will need to delegate a greater amount of their marketing budget to develop and manage a website that drives clients, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and helps them gain a wider exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, load fast, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website may change over time and sections may need to be updated often. This requires implementing well-planned web and content management strategy.

Another difficult challenge that accounting organizations face, and most other businesses for that matter, is that they have only around thirty seconds to provide users with what they need or they will go elsewhere to find what they need.

“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 Web Economy

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available to accounting companies that are willing to evolve to meet online economy challenges and who can think outside the box in terms of improving their online marketing skills.

In this article, you will discover opportunities to attract new potential clients and create significant improvements in your business results online.

As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your accounting business online, we also recommend that you consider using WordPress to power your accounting website.

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

• Discover How A Poorly Built Web Site Can Lose You Customers
• The Business Owner’s Guide To Understanding WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

In this section we’ll start with the basics and show you how to improve your accounting website and get better results online. We will look at what pages you need, what type of content you need, ways of improving navigation structure, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, read this detailed guide: A Practical Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Your Web Pages

All websites need a number of essential web pages. Let’s discuss these.

Your Products And Services

You need a page that lists your products or services.

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

• Business – business planning, formation, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, budgeting, financing, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, 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 a business, 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 direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us Page

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

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

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

Staff

Are you looking for simple ideas to sell more products online or increase user interaction with your site? Then something you can do, is make it easier for visitors to get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.

You want prospects to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees. It should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors won’t be 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 also include social buttons so your visitors can follow individual team members on their social networks.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight your employee’s experience, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a page that introduces your staff or team members to prospective new clients. Screenshot source: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to create and add an easy-to-manage list directory of staff members to your web site using free WP plugins, go here: Plugin Tutorial: How To Add An Employee Directory To Your Site

Work For Us

List any career opportunities within the firm. This page would include training provided, benefits, professional development, social activities encouraged or sponsored by your firm, etc. You can include information such as the job outlook and new 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, join your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and client reviews are a great way to show prospective clients what type of accounting solutions you will implement to help them solve problems. Adding a page with client reviews and case studies also helps to provide visitors social proof.

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

We have written a comprehensive article on using client testimonials and reviews to improve your business results online. Go here to learn more about this: Improve Your Visitor-To-Lead Conversions With Engaging Customer Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a clean contact page is absolutely necessary.

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

• Business Name
• Street address of premises
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Email address
• Map and directions
• Web address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media web addresses
• Chat feature

If you operate from multiple areas you want to make that clear when showing your address and contact information.

Consider also including links to commonly-asked questions, frequently-visited pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms typically comprise of a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business using timely content such as company events, product updates, educational articles, opinions on current topics, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

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

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

Something few people know about, is that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation machine that will help deliver an ongoing stream of web traffic to your business, simply by adding regular content to your web site.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

For more details, go here: Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Create A Traffic-Getting Machine With WordPress

Legal Info Pages

Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is important, not just for building trust and credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not contravening laws and regulations wherever your do business in.

Adding the legal pages below to your website 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 And Conditions Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your website. To learn more, go here: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips For Improving The Content On Your Site

In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with content has become one of the key success differentiators for businesses that sell similar products or provide similar services.

By committing to providing great content with useful information and tips, you will get your readers to share your content with others online and come back for more. This is a great way to educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business and about doing business with your firm.

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

• How balance sheets work
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Cashflow planning tips
• Business insurance
• Protecting revenues
• Tips on structuring your self-managed retirement fund
• Dos and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing vs leasing, claiming business expenses, etc.)

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

Remember to use relevant keywords in your articles that 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 high-quality 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 completely FREE!

Ways To Improve User Experience

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

Use RSS Feeds

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

If you provide valuable information, other sites may want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

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

• All of your updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• RSS feeds allow users to subscribe
• A feed provides links to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides various ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. read the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to providing great information 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 many useful RSS feeds for your website by searching online for finance-related government departments and key industry bodies.

Below we have listed some exaples of feeds you may want to 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

(Use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to provide your visitors with a better UX.)

Add Downloadable Checklists And Forms

Checklists and forms are a fantastic way to increase user engagement and add value to your readers. Checklists and forms can give them useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete tasks. They can also be great business planning tools.

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

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

Add Online Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) on your website can help increase visitor engagement and significantly 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, we take a look at a number of WordPress plugins and themes you can use in your accounting or financial services site that can help improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one of this step-by-step guide on ways to build your accounting web presence.

To continue, click here:

• Tips For CPAs – WordPress Plugins And Themes For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Better User Engagement And Driving More Visitors

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