Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accountants today face increasing challenges.

Challenges Professional Accountants Face Online

Today, more than ever, CPAs must work harder to remain competitive, source new clients, and retain current business. Not only do you have to become more involved in the communities and industries you serve, you must also maintain a strong web presence. This includes having a dynamic web presence and learning better ways to grow your business services online.

In addition to spending dollars advertising offline on local newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and tv, etc., you will probably find that in order to compete with other web-marketing savvy accounting businesses, you will need to allocate a bigger part of your marketing budget towards the development and management of a website that will drive prospects, engage users, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help give you a wider degree of exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs may change in time and sections may need to be updated often. This requires having a well-developed web and content management strategy in place.

One other difficult challenge that accountancy firms face with their websites, as do other businesses for that matter, is that you have only around 30 seconds or less to help users find the information they are looking 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

Online Opportunities For CPAs

As well as facing many challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to businesses in the accounting sector that can evolve to meet digital economy demands and who can think strategically about marketing their business services better online.

In this detailed guide, you will learn new ways and opportunities to drive more web traffic and improve your business presence online.

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

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System, see these articles:

• Discover Why A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Lose You Business And What To Do About It
• Using A WordPress Site To Grow Your Small Business

Useful Tips For Improving Your Accounting 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 show you what pages an accounting website needs, what type of content works best, your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, go here: Planning Your Website - A Cost-Saving Primer For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Website Pages

Professional websites need some basic pages. Let’s discuss these.

Services Page

You need to include a page that describes your services or products.

It will include services such as:

• Business – business planning, company formation, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, forecasting, financing, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting services, 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 a business, 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.

Who We Are

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

Remember to also include any industry awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your company and position it above other competitors.

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

Your Team

Are you looking for quicker, easier and cheaper ways to sell more products online and get prospective clients to interact more with your site? Then help your prospects get to know your organization better.

Your business needs to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. This page should include a photo and a brief biography. Since most visitors are probably not 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. This page should even include social buttons so your site visitors can follow your staff members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to outline each employee’s expertise, 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 employees to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: deepsky.com)

To learn more about how to easily create and add an easy-to-manage simple staff directory in your website using a free plugin, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Add An Employee List Directory In WordPress: WordPress Plugin Tutorial

Career Opportunities Page

This is a listing of career opportunities available within your company. This page would include type of training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You can include information about career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Maintain a positions available section in this 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 And Testimonials

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

(Add a page with case studies and client reviews. Screenshot image source: pcg-services.com)

We have written extensively on using testimonials, case studies and reviews to grow your business online. Go here to learn more: Improve Your Visitor-To-Lead Conversions With Powerful Testimonials

Contact Us

A functional contact page is essential.

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

• Name
• Location
• Phone number
• Facsimile
• Email
• Map
• Web address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media URLs
• Live chat (optional)

If you operate out of several areas you will want to make this clear when displaying your address and contact information.

You could also include a few links for commonly-asked questions, frequently-visited pages, special offers, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog

A blog is a powerful business marketing tool. Many blogging platforms typically include a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business using timely content such as announcements, product releases, educational articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

Something not many people know about, is that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic system that can help begin delivering an ongoing stream of targeted visitors to your website, simply by adding content to your website on a consistent basis.

(WordPress can generate traffic automatically to your website)

Go here to learn more: Web Site Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Increasing Your Website Traffic Automatically

Legal Pages

It’s vital for professional businesses to make sure they have a compliant website, not just for establishing credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not contravening local, regional and federal laws and regulations wherever your business services clients.

Adding the legal pages below to your accounting or financial services site will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Financial/Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

Go here if you want to learn more adding legal pages to your site: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Tips For Improving The Content On Your Website

In today’s globally competitive economy, the earlier you begin to publish great content on your site, the faster you will begin to differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

Providing great content with advice and tips will get your readers to share your web pages online with others and come back for more information. Content marketing is a great way to educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business and about using your services and products.

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

• How balance sheets work
• Profit and loss statements
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• Presenting accounts for non-profit activities
• Cashflow planning advice
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Risk protection
• How to structure your self-managed retirement fund
• Do’s 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 your prospective clients gain a better understanding of your services, such as finance accounting, small business accounting, tax planning for small business, reducing debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to use keywords in your content that readers would search for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to 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 100% FREE!

Improve Visitor Experience

Improving your user experience (often referred to as UX) will help you keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you different ways to improve visitor engagement and UX.

Add RSS Feeds

Adding RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in a number of different ways.

If you provide valuable content, 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 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
• An RSS feed provides links to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• RSS provides a number of ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to providing information on your website from other websites, such as the fact that you don’t have to write, manage or update the content.

To find useful RSS feeds just visit sites of relevant government departments or respected industry bodies.

For example, here are a few useful RSS feeds you may want to add to your accounting 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 feeds to improve your site’s UX.)

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and forms are a great way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and set yourself apart from the competition. Forms and checklists can provide useful step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary tasks done. Forms and checklists are also great business planning tools.

Checklists and forms could cover subjects such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Fundraising Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Company Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Online Tools

Providing unique online tools, gadgets and applications for businesses on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to potential clients. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are some of the most popular tools for accounting websites. Others would include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In part 2, we discuss a several WordPress plugins you can add to your website that can help improve your seo, improve user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section 1.

To view Part 2, click this link:

• Your Accounting Website – How To Improve SEO, Increase User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation Using WordPress Plugins & Themes

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