Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress
Accounting professionals face many challenges in today’s online economy, especially in terms of growing their business online.
Online Challenges For CPAs
Now, more than ever, CPAs must work hard and find smarter ways to remain competitive, find new clients, and keep their current clients. Not only do they have to be fully involved in the communities and industries they serve, they must also develop a strong presence online. This includes having an effective web presence and figuring out smarter ways to market your business online.
In addition to investing dollars advertising offline, you will probably find that in order to compete, you will need to assign a bigger portion of your marketing budget towards developing and maintaining a website that attracts prospects, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and gives you wider marketing exposure online.
This means that your website not only has to look great, your web pages have to load fast, and be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs will change over time and many aspects will need to be updated frequently. This requires the implementation of a well-developed web and content management strategy.
Another difficult challenge that CPAs face with their websites (and other professions for that matter), is that they have around 30 seconds or less to provide visitors with what they need 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 business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available to accounting firms that can evolve to meet the challenges of the digital economy and who can think outside the box when it comes to improving their online marketing skills.
In this detailed guide, you will discover new ways to increase traffic and improve your business online.
As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your accounting business online, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress platform to power your accounting or financial services business website.
To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform, see the articles below:
- How A Poorly Built Web Site Can Cost You Potential Clients
- The Beginner’s Guide To Growing Your Successful Small Business With WordPress
Useful Tips To Improve Your Website
In this section we’ll show you how to improve your accounting website and get better results online. We will look at what pages a financial services website needs, what type of content works best, layout and navigation structure, etc.
If you need additional information about website planning, go here: The Website Planning Process: A Money-Saving Primer For Business Owners
Your Web Pages
All business websites require several essential pages. Let’s review these.
Description Of Products And Services
It’s essential to include a page that lists your products and services.
Your page should include services such as:
- Business – business planning, formation, accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, book keeping, financing, forecasting, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
- Taxation – preparing, 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, asset transfers, etc.
- Lending and leasing
List all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using these services and why they should choose you.
About Us Page
This page should give a description of your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, sponsored community programs, etc.
This page should mention any awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote the company and position it above your competitors.
(List all of your industry awards recognitions, certifications, accreditations, associations, publications, etc. in the About Us page. Image sourced from: deloitte.com)
Team
If you are searching for quicker, easier and cheaper ideas to sell more products online, then something you can do, is make it easier for visitors to get to know your business better.
Your business needs to be relatable. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors won’t be that 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. It should even include social buttons so your site visitors can follow your staff members on their social pages.
On this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline your person’s qualifications, how they contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.
(Add a team profile page. Image sourced from: deepsky.com)
To learn more about how to easily add an updatable list of employees in a WordPress site using a free WP plugin, refer to this tutorial: How To Add A Staff Directory In WordPress
Recruitment Page
This is a listing of career opportunities available within the firm. It can include training, employee benefits, professional development, social aspects of working for your organization, etc. You can include case studies of trainees who have worked their way up in your organization and information such as the job outlook and 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, subscribe to your newsletter, follow you on social media, etc.
Case Studies
Case studies and client reviews are a great way to show prospective clients the benefits of doing business with your firm. By adding a page with case studies and testimonials from previous clients, you are also helping to establish social proof.
(Add a web page with case studies and client reviews. Image sourced from: pcg-services.com)
We have written extensively on using client testimonials and user reviews improve your business online. For more details: Learn How To Achieve Better Results Online Using Standout Testimonials
Contact Page
Having a contact page is crucial.
It should provide visitors with the following information:
- Company Name
- Your physical location
- Phone
- Fax
- Contact email
- Map and directions
- Website URL
- Contact form
- Contact name
- Social media web addresses
- Live Chat/Skype (optional)
If you operate from several areas you should make this clear when displaying your address and contact info.
Consider also including links to the most commonly asked questions, main pages, special offers, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.
Add An Accounting Or Financial Services Blog Section
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 easily promote your business by publishing content like news, company updates, useful articles and tutorials, informative posts, how-to videos, webinars, etc.
If you already have an established site, then consider adding a WordPress-driven blog to promote your company.
If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing accounting or financial services site is hard to keep updated or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can be used both as your business website and your blog.
Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation machine that will begin driving an ongoing stream of targeted traffic to your website, simply by publishing regular content to your site.
(An expertly configured WordPress site can drive traffic automatically to your site)
Go here to learn more about this: Web Traffic Blueprint – How To Create A Traffic Generation Machine With WordPress
Legal Pages
It’s extremely important to make sure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional and federal laws or regulations are being broken in whichever region you service.
Adding the legal pages below to your website will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats and inconveniences:
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms And Conditions
- Website Disclaimer
- Affiliate Agreement
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- DMCA Notice
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers
- Refund Policy
- Video/Audio Terms
- and others
We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to your site. For more details, go here: What You Need To Know About Adding Legal Pages To Your Website
Improving Your Content
In today’s highly competitive online economy, the sooner you begin to publish great content on your site, the sooner you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from your competitors.
Providing great content with useful advice and tips will get your visitors sharing your content and coming back for more. Using content is the most effective way to educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business.
For example, for an accounting or financial services business, topics could cover:
- How balance sheets work
- Overlooked tax deductions
- Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
- How to present accounts for non-profit activities
- Cashflow planning
- Maximizing business insurance cover
- Risk prevention
- How to structure a self-managed retirement fund
- Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing insurance, setting up payroll systems, etc.)
You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your readers gain a better understanding of your accounting or financial services, such as finance accounting, small business accounting, business auditing, reducing business debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.
Remember to include keywords in your content that prospective clients would search for online.
We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, save money creating useful 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!
Improve User Experience
Improving user experience (typically referred to as UX) helps keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you different ways to improve your visitor engagement and UX.
Syndicating Content Using RSS Feeds
RSS feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and UX in a number of different ways.
If you provide valuable information, other sites will want to syndicate your content to their visitors.
Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other businesses using RSS feeds, include:
- All of your updates are in one place
- Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
- Feeds can be shared
- Users can subscribe to your feed
- A feed provides links to your site
- RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
- There are multiple ways readers can receive your content (e.g. users can view the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
- It’s built into WordPress
There are also benefits when it comes to providing great content on 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 relevant government departments and key industry bodies.
For example, here are a few RSS feeds you could add to your accounting 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 And Forms
Adding checklists and forms to your site is a fantastic way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your audience. Forms and checklists can provide useful instructions and resources to get necessary tasks done. They are also great business planning tools.
Checklists and forms can address topics such as:
- How To Set Up A Company
- Rental Property Checklist
- Fundraising Activity Checklist
- Disclosure Requirements
- Individual Tax Checklist
- Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
- Income Tax Variation Forms
Online Tools
Providing useful online 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 for accounting websites. Other tools could include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.
In part 2, we will look at a number of online tools you can use in your site using WordPress plugins that can help to improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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