Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital business age has not only revolutionised the way business is done worldwide, it has also created growing challenges and great opportunities for accounting and financial services businesses.

Challenges Accountants Face Online

Now, more than ever, certified public accountants must work harder to remain competitive, find new business, and retain current clients. Not only do you have to maintain an active presence in the communities and industries your business serves, you must also develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and learning better ways to grow your business services online.

As well as spending dollars in offline marketing, businesses in the accounting industry are now also finding that they will need to allocate a bigger share of their marketing budget towards the development and maintenance of a website that drives leads, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and helps to give their business wider reach online.

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

One other difficult challenge that accountancy firms face (as all other businesses do for that matter), is that they have around 30 seconds or less to give users what they are searching for or they will go elsewhere to get their needs met.

“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 CPAs In The Web Economy

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to accounting firms that are willing to evolve to meet the challenges of the online economy and who can think outside the box in terms of marketing their business services better online.

In this comprehensive guide, you will discover new ways to increase traffic and improve your business presence online.

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

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

• How A Poorly Designed Website Can Lose You Prospective Buyers And What To Do About It
• The Business Owner’s Guide To Using WordPress

How To Improve Your Website

Let’s start by reviewing the basics. In this section, we’ll look at how to improve your accounting website and get better results. We will look at what pages an accounting website needs, what type of content you need, useful tips for improving your navigation structure, etc.

If you need specific help with website planning, go here: A Comprehensive Guide To Website Planning For Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Website Pages

Professional business websites require several essential pages. Let’s go over these.

Services And Products Description Page

It’s essential to have a page that lists your products or services.

It will include services such as:

• Business – business planning, company structures, accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, bookkeeping, forecasting, budgeting, financing, strategic planning, consulting, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, planning, reviewing, auditing, advice, 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, asset transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us

This page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropical donations, etc.

It should list any awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that can be used to promote the company and position it above your competitors.

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

Your Team

Are you searching for quicker and easier ways to sell more products or services online? Then one of the things you can do, is make it easier for your prospects to get to know, like and trust you and your business better.

You want prospects to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors won’t be well-versed in accounting terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. It should also explain what those specialties mean. This page should also include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow selected staff members on their social pages.

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

(Add an employee description page. Image sourced from: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to add an updatable directory of staff members to your website with no coding skills required, go here: How To Easily Create A Simple Employee List In Your WordPress Site

Recruitment

List any career opportunities within your organization. This page should include training, benefits, professional development, social activities sponsored or encouraged by your organization, etc. You can also include information about career opportunities in the accounting industry.

Include also 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 your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials from previous clients are a great way to show potential clients what kind of accounting solutions you will implement to help solve their problems. By adding a page with reviews from clients and case studies, you will also help to are also establishing social proof.

(Add a page with testimonials and case studies. Image source: pcg-services.com)

We have written extensively about using testimonials, case studies and reviews improve your business online. Go here to learn more about this: Improve Your Conversions With Awesome Testimonials

Contact Page

A contact page is absolutely necessary.

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

• Company Name
• Location
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Map
• Web address
• Contact form
• Request for more information – who to contact
• Links to social media profiles
• Online chat feature

If you operate out of multiple locations you should make this clear when displaying the address and contact information.

You should also include links to commonly-asked questions, main pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add A Blog

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Many blogging platforms are built around a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business using content such as industry events, product releases, educational articles and tutorials, discussions on current topics, how-to videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an accounting or financial services site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your services.

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

You may not have been told about this, but WordPress can turn into an automated traffic system that will help begin to drive web traffic to your web site, simply by adding regular content to your website.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can generate web traffic automatically to your website)

If you would like to learn more about this here: Web Site Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Create A Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Pages

As a professional accountant or financial services provider, having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is vitally important, not just for building trust with visitors, but also to ensure that you are not contravening laws or regulations wherever your do business in.

Adding some or all of the legal pages below to your site will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential sources of threats and legal 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
• and others

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

Tips For Improving The Content On Your Website

In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with content that educates and informs readers has become one of the key differentiators for businesses.

Providing great content with useful advice and tips will get your readers sharing your web pages and coming back for more information. Content marketing is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business.

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

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Profit & loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for fundraising activities
• Cashflow planning advice
• Business insurance
• Risk protection
• Tips on structuring a self-managed retirement fund
• Dos and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing vs leasing, setting up payroll systems, etc.)

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

Remember to include keywords in your articles that readers will be searching for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will teach 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 strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving your website’s user experience (typically referred to as UX) helps you keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you ways you can improve your visitor engagement and user experience.

Content Syndication – RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide lots of benefits for your site.

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

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

• All of your content updates are kept in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• It provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are a number of ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to adding syndicated content to 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 by visiting sites of finance and tax-related government departments or respected industry bodies.

Here are a few RSS feeds you may want to 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

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

Checklists & Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to increase user engagement, add value to your readers and set yourself apart from the competition. Checklists and forms can provide users with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete a necessary task. Forms and checklists are great business planning tools.

Forms and checklists can cover areas such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Negative Gearing Checklist
• Non-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

Providing unique online tools and applications for businesses is a great way to 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. Others could include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In part 2, we will look at a several online tools you can use in your site using WordPress plugins that can improve seo, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part 1.

To continue reading, click this link:

• Your Accounting Website – WordPress Plugins & Themes For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Better User Engagement And Driving More Visitors To Your Website

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