Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress
Accountants today face significant challenges created by the digital economy.
Online Challenges For The Accounting Profession
Now, more than ever, certified public accountants must work hard to remain competitive, obtain new clients, and keep their current clientele. Not only do they have to actively participate in the communities and industries their business serves, they must also develop a strong digital presence. This includes having a website and learning smarter ways to promote your business online.
In addition to spending money in offline marketing activities, you will probably find that in order to compete, increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be delegated to develop and manage a website that can drive new prospective clients, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help give your business a wider degree of marketing reach online.
This means that your site not only has to look great, your web 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 the needs of your website may change in time and many areas may need to be updated often. This requires the implementation of a well-planned website and content management strategy.
One other problem that CPAs face with their websites (as do most businesses for that matter), is that your site has an average of thirty seconds or less to provide visitors what 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
Online Opportunities For CPAs
As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available for accounting businesses that are willing to adapt to meet digital demands and can think strategically in terms of improving their online business marketing skills.
This comprehensive guide will help you uncover ways to attract and engage new visitors and create significant improvements in your business presence online.
As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your accounting website.
For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS), see the articles below:
How To Improve Your Website
We’ll start first by going over some basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what pages you need, what type of content works best for accounting and financial services sites, navigation structure, etc.
If you need assistance or help planning your accounting website, check out the guide we have written here: The Website Planning Process Explained - A Basic Primer For Business Owners
Your Website Pages
Professional websites need several essential pages. Let’s go over the pages your need to have and how to set up your accounting website for best results.
Services And Products
You need to include a page that explains your services and products.
This page should include all the services and products you offer, such as:
- Business – business planning, incorporation of companies, accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, bookkeeping, budgeting, financing, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting, etc.
- Taxation – preparation, planning, reviewing, auditing, advising, 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 businesses, asset 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 what these services do and why they should choose you.
About Us
This page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropical activities, etc.
Remember to also include any professional awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote the company and position it above other competitors.
(List all of your business awards recognitions, accreditations, certifications, publications, associations, etc. in the About Us page. Screenshot image sourced from: deloitte.com)
Meet Our Team
Are you searching for quicker, easier and cost-effective ideas to sell more products online? Then something you can do, is make it easier for your prospective clients to get to know you, your team and your organization better.
You want people to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team. It should include a photo and a mini biography. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in accounting terms your bio descriptions 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 visitors can follow your team members on their social networks.
On this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight your 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 team profile page. Screenshot source: deepsky.com)
We have written a detailed tutorial on how to create and add an easy-to-update simple team directory to your site using free WordPress plugins here: Plugin Tutorial: Adding A Staff List Directory
Career Opportunities Page
List any career opportunities available within your company. It should include training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You can include case studies of graduates who have risen within your firm and 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, join your contact list, follow you on social media, etc.
Case Studies & Testimonials
Case studies and testimonials from past clients are a great way to show potential clients them minimize tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. Adding a web page with case studies and testimonials from previous clients also helps your accounting business to provide social proof.
(Add a web page with case studies and testimonials. Screenshot source: pcg-services.com)
We have written a detailed article about using testimonials, case studies and user reviews improve your business online. For more info, see this article: Learn How To Achieve Better Results Online Using Knockout Client Testimonials
Contact Us
Having a functional contact page is absolutely necessary.
Your contact page should include some or all of the following information:
- Company Name
- Address
- Phone number
- Fax number
- Contact email
- Google Map and directions
- Web URL
- Contact form
- Contact name
- Links to social media profiles
- Interactive chat (optional)
If your business services several locations you will want to make this clear when showing your address and contact information.
Consider also including links to an FAQ page, frequently-visited pages, special offers, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.
Add An Accounting Or Financial Services Blog
A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that allows you to promote your business using timely content like company announcements, company updates, educational information, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, infographics, etc.
If you already have an existing site, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your services.
If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing accounting website is hard to add new content to or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can act both as your business website and business blog.
Something not many businesses know about, is that WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation machine that will drive targeted traffic to your web site, simply by publishing new content on a regular basis to your website.
(WordPress can generate traffic automatically to your site)
Go here to learn more about this: Web Traffic Blueprint – How To Attract More Traffic For Your Business Using WordPress
Legal Information
Having a compliant website is essential, not just for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking laws and regulations wherever you provide services to.
Depending on the services and products you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your site will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats and inconveniences:
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms And Conditions
- Website Disclaimer
- Affiliate Agreement
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- DMCA Notice
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers
- Refund Policy
- Video/Audio Terms
- and others
If you want to learn more about adding legal pages to your website, refer to this article: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Website
How To Improve The Content On Your Website
In today’s globally competitive economy, having a well-planned content marketing strategy has become one of the key differentiators for businesses.
Providing great content with useful information and tips will get your readers sharing your web pages and coming back for more information. Content marketing is a great way to educate your visitors and prospects about your business and about doing business with your organization.
For example, for an accounting or financial services business, topics could cover the following:
- Explanations of balance sheets
- Understanding profit and loss statements
- Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
- Presenting accounts for non-profit activities
- Cashflow planning
- Business insurance
- Risk prevention
- How to structure a 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 informative articles that will help your readers understand your accounting services, such as software accounting, small business accounting, business auditing, reducing debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.
Remember to include keywords and terminology in your content that prospective clients would search for.
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 website, save money creating useful 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 100% FREE!
Improving Visitor Experience
Improving website user experience (often referred to as UX) will help keep visitors coming back and engaging with your site. This section will show you different ways to improve visitor engagement and user experience.
RSS Feeds
An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed provides lots of benefits for your 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 updates are in one place
- Doesn’t rely on email
- Can be shared
- Feeds allow users to subscribe
- It provides a way for external links to point back to your site
- Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
- There are several ways readers can receive your content (e.g. view your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
- RSS is built into WordPress
There are also benefits when it comes 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 RSS feeds with loads of useful content for your website by searching online for relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.
For example, here are a few useful RSS feeds you could 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
(Using RSS feeds can help to improve your accounting site’s UX.)
Checklists & Forms
Adding checklists and forms to your site is a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. Checklists and forms can provide useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete a task. They are great planning tools.
You can provide online or downloadable forms and checklists covering a range of subjects such as:
- How To Set Up A Business
- Negative Gearing Checklist
- Fundraising Governance Checklist
- Disclosure Checklists
- Partnership Tax Checklist
- Trust Tax Checklist
- Income Tax Variation Forms
Other Tools
Providing unique online tools, gadgets and applications for businesses is a great way to increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to your potential clients. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools for accounting websites. Other applications would include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.
In the next section, we take a look at a several WordPress-based tools you can add to your site that can improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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