Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals today are facing many new challenges thanks to the web economy.

Challenges Professional Accountants Face Online

Accountants today must work harder than ever to remain in business. Not only do they have to become actively involved in the communities and industries their business serves, they must also develop and maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your business online.

As well as spending money marketing offline, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to remain competitive, you will need to invest a larger portion of your marketing budget towards the development and management of a website that can drive new prospective clients, engage visitors, outperform the competition in search engines and social media, and help to increase your reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, 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 your site’s needs may change in time and some areas will need to be updated often. This requires the implementation of a well-developed website and content management strategy.

One other problem that accountancy firms face (as all other professions do for that matter), is that you have only about thirty seconds to give visitors the information they are searching for or they will go 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 a number of challenges, there are also many online opportunities available to businesses in the accounting sector that are willing to adapt to meet online challenges and can think progressively about marketing themselves better online.

The article below will help you uncover new ways to increase traffic and build more online credibility for your accounting or financial services business.

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

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress platform, see the articles below:

• Discover How A Poorly Constructed Website Can Cost You Business
• WordPress – A Business Owner’s Guide

Ways To Improve Your Accounting Or Financial Services Site

In this section we’ll start with the basics and show you how to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what pages your website needs, what type of content works best, layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, see this detailed guide: A Comprehensive Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Your Web Pages

All websites require several basic web pages. Let’s review the pages your  should have and how to set up your accounting or financial services website for best results.

Services And Products

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

Your page will include all the services and products you offer, such as:

• Business accounting – planning, company structures, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, bookkeeping, budgeting, forecasting, financing, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, 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. 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 needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.

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

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

Our Team

Are you looking for quicker and easier ideas to grow your business online? Then make it easier for visitors to get to know, like and trust 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 bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be familiar with accounting terms your bio descriptions 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 your staff members on their social networks.

On this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight each staff member’s experience, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your employees or team members to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: deepsky.com)

We have written a detailed tutorial on how to add an updatable simple employee directory in your website without coding skills here: How To Create A Simple Employee List For Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Job Opportunities

This is a listing of career opportunities within the organization. This page would include type of training provided, benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You can include case studies of recruits who have risen within your company and information about career opportunities in the accounting industry.

Also include a positions available section in this page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to this page, subscribe to your contact list, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Testimonials from past clients and case studies are a great way to show prospective clients the benefits of doing business with your firm. Adding a page with testimonials from past clients and case studies also helps your accounting or financial services site to provide visitors social proof.

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

We have written extensively about using testimonials and reviews to grow your business online. For more details: How To Improve Your Conversions With Profit-Boosting Client Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should provide:

• Name
• Physical address
• Telephone
• Fax
• Contact email
• Google Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media networks
• Interactive chat feature (optional feature)

If you operate out of different areas you will want to make that clear when displaying your address and contact info.

Consider also including links to an FAQ section, useful pages, special offers, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Or Financial Services Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically include a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing content such as company announcements, company updates, training articles and tutorials, discussions on current topics, promotional videos, webinars, etc.

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

If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing accounting site is hard to keep updated with new content 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 your web presence into an automated traffic-generation system that can help attract new visitors to your web site, simply by publishing new content to your website on a consistent basis.

(WordPress can drive traffic automatically to your site)

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

Legal Pages

It’s important for accounting businesses to have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for establishing credibility with visitors, but also to ensure that no local, regional or federal laws and regulations are being breached wherever you provide services to.

Adding the legal pages below to your accounting or financial services site will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of legal threats and inconveniences:

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

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more about this: Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Ways To Improve The Content On Your Website

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

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

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

• How balance sheets work
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• Presenting accounts for non-profit activities
• Cashflow planning
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Protecting revenues
• Tips on structuring a self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing vs leasing, setting up payroll systems, etc.)

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your your prospective clients gain a better understanding of accounting services, such as finance accounting, business accounting, using office accounting software, reducing business debt, understanding accounting conventions, etc.

Remember to include keywords in your articles that your 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 that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating high-quality content for your visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Ways Of Improving Visitor Experience

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

Content Syndication – RSS Feeds

RSS feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and UX in many ways.

If you provide useful content, other businesses may 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 content updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared
• RSS feeds allow users to subscribe
• An RSS feed provides links to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are several ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits 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.

To find useful RSS feeds for your website, visit sites of relevant government departments and respected industry bodies.

Here are some exaples of RSS feeds you may want to consider adding to your 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

(RSS 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. Forms and checklists can give them useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete necessary tasks. Checklists and forms can also be great planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Non-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Partnership Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Online Tools

Providing unique tools and applications for businesses is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are great tools to add to accounting websites. Others can include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In part two, we look at a several online tools you can add to your site using WordPress plugins that can improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

***

This is the end of section 1.

Click on this link to access Part Two:

• The Ultimate Guide To Growing An Accounting Or Financial Services Online Presence Successfully With WordPress – Part Two

Get Notified When New Tutorials Are Published – Subscribe To Our Site!

***

***

***