Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress
Accounting professionals today face an ever increasing number challenges brought about by the digital economy.
Online Challenges For Accounting & Financial Firms
Accounting businesses must work harder than ever before to remain competitive. Not only do they have to maintain a strong presence in the communities and industries their business serves, they must also maintain an active web presence. This includes having a dynamic web presence and learning how to better promote your services online.
As well as investing money in offline marketing, businesses in the accounting industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be delegated towards developing and maintaining a website that attracts prospective clients, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and helps create wider exposure online.
This means that your site not only has to look great, your pages have to load fast, and be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website may change over time and sections will need to be frequently updated. This requires a sound website and content management strategy.
Another problem that certified public accountants face online, and other businesses for that matter, is that your site has around 30 seconds or less to provide users with what they are searching for or they will go away.
“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 challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available for accounting businesses that can adapt to meet the challenges of the digital economy and can think strategically in terms of improving their online marketing skills.
This comprehensive article will help you uncover ways to attract more clients and create significant improvements in your business results online.
As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your accounting or financial services website or blog.
To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS), see these articles:
Ways To Improve Your Accounting Or Financial Services Website
In this section we will start with the basics and show you how to improve your accounting website and get better results. We will look at what pages you need, what content works best for accounting websites, layout and navigation structure, etc.
If you need assistance or help planning your website, visit this page: A Practical Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners
Improving Your Website Pages
All business websites need several essential web pages. Let’s review these.
Your Services
It’s essential to include a page that lists your services and any products that you offer.
Your page should include services such as:
- Business accounting – business planning, company formation, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, book keeping, forecasting, financing, budgeting, 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
List all of the services you provide. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what these services do and why they should choose you.
About Us
The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.
It’s important to list any awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that you can use to promote the company and set it above your competitors.
(List all of your professional awards certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc. in your About page. Screenshot image source: deloitte.com)
Staff Page
Are you searching for quicker, easier and cost-effective ways to grow your business online? Then something you can do, is help your prospects get to know you, your team and your business better.
Prospects need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff members. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors are probably not well-versed in accounting terms it 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 prospective clients can follow your team members on their social pages.
On this page, make sure to outline your employee’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.
(Add a page that introduces your team members to prospective new clients. Image sourced from: deepsky.com)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about how to add a list directory of employees in your web site using a free plugin, go here: How To Easily Create A Simple Staff Directory In Your WordPress Site
We’re Hiring
List any career opportunities within your company. This page can include type of training provided, benefits, professional development, social activities encouraged or sponsored by your organization, etc. It should include stories of recruits who have worked their way up in your company and information about additional career opportunities in the accounting industry.
Also include a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, join your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.
Case Studies
Testimonials and case studies are a great way to show prospective clients what type of solutions you can implement to help them solve their problems. By adding a page with testimonials and case studies, you are also helping to are also establishing social proof online.
(Add a page with testimonials and case studies. Image sourced from: pcg-services.com)
We have created a comprehensive article on using testimonials, case studies and client reviews to grow your business online. For more details, go here: How To Achieve Better Results Online Using Captivating Customer Testimonials
Contact Us
Having a clean contact page is essential.
Your contact page should include some or all of the following information:
- Business Name
- Your address
- Telephone
- Fax number
- Contact email address
- Google Map
- Web address
- Contact form
- Name of person to contact
- Social media links
- Online Chat/Skype
If your business services several locations you want to make this clear when showing the address and contact information.
Consider also including a few links for commonly-asked questions, useful pages, special offers, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.
Add An Accounting Blog
A blog is a very powerful marketing tool. Many blogging platforms are built around a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using timely content such as company announcements, company updates, educational articles, informative posts, videos, infographics, etc.
If you already have an accounting website, then consider adding a WordPress blog to promote your firm.
If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing accounting website is very hard to keep updated or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can act as both your business website and blog.
Not many people know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic machine that can begin attracting new visitors to your website, simply by publishing regular content to your website.
(An expertly configured WordPress site can drive new visitors automatically to your website)
To learn more about this go here: Web Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Generating More Website Visitors For Your Business Automatically Using WordPress
Legal Information
Having a compliant website is extremely important, not just for building credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not breaching local, regional and federal laws or regulations in whichever region you service.
Depending on what services you provide, adding the legal pages below to your accounting or financial services site will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- 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
- and others
We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more: Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site
Improve Your Web Content
In today’s highly competitive digital economy, the practice of content marketing has become one of the key differentiators for businesses.
You want to provide great content with advice and tips that will get your readers sharing your web pages and coming back for more. Publishing content is the most effective way to educate your visitors and prospects about your business.
For example, for an accounting or financial services business, topics can cover the following:
- Explanations of balance sheets
- Overlooked tax deductions
- Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
- How to present accounts for non-profit activities
- Cashflow planning tips
- Maximizing business insurance cover
- Risk prevention
- Tips on structuring your self-managed retirement fund
- Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing insurance, claiming business expenses, etc.)
You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your readers understand your accounting or financial services, such as finance accounting, small business accounting, tips on using small business accounting software, reducing business debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.
Remember to use specific keywords and terms in your content 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 that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating high-quality content for your visitors and grow your business online using content marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!
Ways To Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience
Improving user experience (known as UX) helps you keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you different ways to improve your visitor engagement and user experience.
RSS Feeds
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds provide plenty of benefits for your site.
If you provide useful content, other businesses will want to syndicate your content.
Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:
- All of your updates are kept in one place
- Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
- RSS feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
- RSS feeds allow users to subscribe
- An RSS feed provides links to your site
- Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
- There are various ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. view your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
- It’s built into WordPress
There are also a number of benefits to adding syndicated content to your site 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 finance and tax-related government departments or key industry bodies.
Here are some exaples of feeds you may want to add 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
(Add RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to provide your visitors with a better user experience.)
Adding Checklists And Forms
Checklists and forms are a great way to increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. Checklists and forms can provide step-by-step instructions and resources to perform a necessary task. Forms and checklists are also great 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 Company
- Rental Property Worksheet
- Non-Profit Governance Checklist
- Disclosure Checklists
- Individual Tax Checklist
- Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
- Income Tax Variation Forms
Provide Other Tools
Providing unique tools and applications for businesses can help increase visitor engagement and add value to potential clients. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools you can add to accounting websites. Other applications could include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.
In part two, we look at a several online tools you can add to your site using WordPress plugins that improve seo, improve user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.
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This is the end of section 1 of this guide on ways to build your accounting web presence.
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