Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accountants today are facing increasing challenges created by the web economy.

Online Challenges For Accounting And Financial Firms

Accounting businesses must work harder than ever to remain in business. Not only do they have to participate in the communities and industries their business serves, they must also develop an active web presence. This includes having a website and learning better ways to grow your business online.

As well as spending money advertising offline on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television, etc., businesses in the accounting industry are also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget will need to be directed towards the development and maintenance of a website that attracts prospective clients, engages visitors, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and helps to give their business wider marketing reach online.

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

Another challenge that accounting businesses face with their websites, and all other professions for that matter, is that they have only about thirty seconds or less to give visitors the information they need 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 The Accounting Profession In The Web Economy

As well as facing a number of challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to businesses in the accounting profession that are willing to adapt to meet the demands of the online economy and think strategically in terms of marketing their business better online.

This guide will help you uncover new opportunities to source more accounts and create significant improvements in your accounting and financial business presence online.

As well as providing practical tips and information on ways to improve your accounting business online, we also focus on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS) to power your accounting business website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS), see the articles below:

• Why A Poorly Designed Website Can Cost You Prospective Customers And What To Do About It
• Mastering WordPress – A Small Business Owner’s Guide

Useful Tips To Improve Your Website

We’ll start first by covering the basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your accounting website and get better results online. We show you what pages an accounting site needs, what type of content you need, navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your accounting website, check out the detailed guide we have written here: How To Plan Your Business Website: A Basic Blueprint For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Website Pages

All websites need a number of basic web pages. Let’s go over these.

Your Products And Services

It’s essential to include a page that explains your products and services.

It should include all the services and products you offer, such as:

• Business accounting – planning, incorporation of companies, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, financing, budgeting, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting, 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, transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

Make sure to list all of the services you provide, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using your services and why they should book an appointment with you.

About Us

The ‘About Us’ page needs to describe your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, supported community activities, etc.

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

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

Core Team

Are you looking for ideas to sell more products or services online? Then make it easier for visitors to get to know, like and trust you, your team and your organization better.

Your business needs to be relatable. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff. It should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be well-versed in accounting terms your bio descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. It should even include social buttons so your site visitors can follow some of your staff members on their social networks.

In this page, make sure to highlight each person’s experience, how their skills contribute to the success of your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

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

We have written a detailed tutorial on how to create and add an easy-to-manage simple team directory in your website without using code here: WordPress Plugin Tutorial: Adding A Staff List Directory

Recruitment

This is a listing of career opportunities available within your organization. It should include type of training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social aspects of working with your organization, etc. It should include information such as the job outlook and additional 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 the page, subscribe to your updates list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies

Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to show prospective clients what type of accounting solutions you will implement to help solve their problems. By adding a page with testimonials and case studies, you are also helping to are also providing social proof.

(Add a page with testimonials from past clients and case studies. Image sourced from: pcg-services.com)

If you want to learn more about using testimonials, case studies and reviews, see this article: Learn How To Improve Your Sales Conversions With Powerful Testimonials

Contact Page

A clean contact page is crucial.

It should include some or all of the following information about your organization:

• Company Name
• Physical address
• Phone number
• Fax number
• Email
• Map and directions
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Request for information – who to contact
• Social media web addresses
• Chat/Skype (optional)

If your business operates in several areas you should make this clear when displaying the address and contact information.

Consider also including links to commonly-asked questions, useful pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter, blog, etc.

Blog Section

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing content like industry announcements, updates, useful articles, opinions and discussions, promotional videos, webinars, etc.

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

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

Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can become an automated traffic-generation system that will help begin to deliver targeted traffic to your business, simply by publishing new content on a consistent basis to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more about this: Web Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Automatically Generate More Website Traffic For Your Business

Legal Information

Having a compliant website is crucial, not just for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaching any laws or regulations wherever your business services clients.

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

• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms Of Use
• 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

To learn more about adding legal pages to your site, refer to this article: Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

Tips For Improving Your Content

In today’s fiercely competitive digital economy, having a well-planned content marketing strategy has become one of the key success differentiators for businesses that sell similar products or provide similar services.

By committing to providing great content with useful advice and tips, you will get your readers to share your web pages with others and come back for more. Publishing content is a great way to educate site visitors and prospective clients about your business.

For example, topics for an accounting or financial services business could include:

• How balance sheets work
• Understanding profit & loss statements
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Protecting revenues
• Tips on structuring a self-managed retirement fund
• Dos and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing insurance, 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 your accounting services, such as software accounting, small business accounting, using office accounting software, reducing debt, understanding financial concepts, etc.

Remember to include the same keywords and terminology in your articles that your prospective clients would search for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with actionable information that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site 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 To Improve Visitor Experience

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

Use RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide lots of benefits for your accounting business.

If you provide useful information, other businesses 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
• RSS feeds can be shared online
• RSS feeds allow for subscribing
• It provides a way for links to point back to your content
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are multiple ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. read your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes 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.

You can find RSS feeds with loads of useful content for your website by searching online for relevant government departments and key industry bodies.

Below we have listed a few 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

(Use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to provide your visitors with a better user experience.)

Adding Checklists And Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. They can provide visitors with useful instructions and resources to complete necessary tasks. Checklists and forms are great planning tools.

You can provide forms and checklists covering a range of areas such as:

• How To Set Up A Company
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Non-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Individual Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

Providing unique tools and applications for businesses on your website can help increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are great tools you can add to accounting websites. Other applications would include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In part 2, we discuss a number of online tools you can use in your accounting site using WordPress plugins and themes that can improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part 1 of this article on ways to grow your accounting web presence.

Click here to view the rest of this article:

• How To Build And Grow An Accounting Or Financial Services Web Presence – Part 2

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