Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals face many new challenges in the digital economy, especially in terms of growing their business online.

Online Challenges For CPAs

Certified Public Accountants today must work harder than ever to remain in business. Not only do you have to participate in the communities and industries your business serves, you must also develop a strong web presence. This includes having a dynamic website and learning smarter ways to market your business 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 marketing budget will need to be allocated towards developing and managing a website that attracts new prospective clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and creates wider reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, load fast, and your website has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change in time and sections may need to be frequently updated. This requires the implementation of a sound website and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that accounting businesses face online, as do all other businesses for that matter, is that your site has around 30 seconds or less to help visitors find 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 Accounting Businesses In The Digital Economy

As well as facing a number of challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available for accounting businesses that are willing to adapt to meet online economy challenges and who can think strategically when it comes to improving their online marketing skills.

In this guide, you will discover a number of ways to attract new visitors and establish online credibility for your accounting or financial services business.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your accounting business website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, go here:

• Learn How A Poorly Built Website Can Cost You Prospective Buyers And What To Do About It
• Everything You Need To Know To Grow Your Business Using WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

Let’s start by covering the basics. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what pages an accounting website needs, what type of content works best for accounting websites, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need any help with website planning, read this detailed guide we have written: Planning Your Business Web Site: A Comprehensive Primer For Non-Technical Business Owners

Improve Your Website Pages

All websites require a number of basic web pages. Let’s review these.

Services And Products Description Page

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

Your page should include all the services you offer, such as:

• Business accounting – planning, company structures, 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, asset 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 your 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.

Remember to mention any professional awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your company and position it above your competitors.

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

Our Team

If you are searching for quicker, simpler and cost-effective ideas to sell more products online, then something you can do, is make it easier for visitors to get to know, like and trust you and your organization better.

Prospective clients need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff or team members. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be very 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. This page should also include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow selected team members on their social pages.

On this page, make sure to outline each team member’s expertise, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a staff description page. Screenshot image source: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to create and add an easy-to-maintain simple team members directory in WordPress using a free plugin, see this tutorial: How To Easily Add A Staff List Directory To Your WordPress Site: WordPress Plugin Tutorial

Recruitment

List any career opportunities available within your firm. This page could include training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, etc. It should include information about upcoming 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.

Testimonials

Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to show prospective clients businesses minimize tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials from past clients, you will also help to provide social proof.

(Add a web page with testimonials from past clients and case studies. Screenshot image source: pcg-services.com)

We have created a comprehensive article on using client testimonials and reviews to improve your business results online. Go here to learn more: Achieve Better Results Online Using More Effective Client Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a contact page is crucial.

It should include some or all of the following:

• Name
• Physical address
• Telephone number
• Facsimile number
• Email address
• Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Request for more information – contact details
• Social media web addresses
• Online chat feature

If your business operates in multiple areas you should make that clear when showing the address and contact information.

You should also include links to an FAQ section, frequently-visited pages, special offers, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Or Financial Services Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing content like industry news, company updates, training articles, opinions and discussions, videos, webinars, etc.

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

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

Not many businesses know this, but WordPress can become an automated traffic machine that will help begin attracting an ongoing stream of targeted visitors to your web site, simply by adding regular content to your site.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more: Web Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Turn Your WordPress Web Site Into A Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Information

It’s vital for accounting organizations to ensure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being broken in whatever region you service.

Adding the legal pages below to your website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Financial/Health 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: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Improving The Content On Your Site

In today’s highly competitive digital economy, being generous with content that educates and informs visitors has become one of the key differentiators for businesses that sell similar products or provide similar services.

You want to provide great content with information and tips that will get your visitors sharing your web pages with others online and coming back for more. Using content is a great way to educate your visitors and prospects about your business.

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

• How balance sheets work
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• Presenting accounts for non-profit activities
• Cashflow planning
• Business insurance
• Protecting revenues
• How to structure 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 readers gain a better understanding of your accounting services, such as software accounting, small business accounting, business auditing, reducing business debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to use relevant keywords and terms in your articles that prospective clients would search for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website, 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 completely FREE!

Ways Of Improving User Experience

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

Syndicate Content With RSS Feeds

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed provides plenty of benefits for your business.

If you provide useful information, other sites will 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
• Doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• A feed provides a way for links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• RSS provides a number of ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. users can view your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to adding syndicated content to your site 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 searching online for finance-related government departments or key industry bodies.

For example, here are some 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

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

Checklists And Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to increase user engagement and add value to your visitors. Checklists and forms can provide useful instructions and resources to complete a necessary task. Forms and checklists are also great business planning tools.

You can provide a range of checklists and forms (or links to these) covering subjects such as:

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

Online Tools

Providing useful online tools and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) on your website can help 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 tools can include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In part 2 of this detailed guide, we will look at a number of online tools you can add to your accounting or financial services site using WordPress plugins that can help improve your seo, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

To continue, click this link:

• A Step-By-Step Guide To Successfully Building And Growing Your Accounting Business Online – Part Two

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