Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital age has not only revolutionised business globally, it has also created a number of difficult challenges and great opportunities for certified public accountants.

Challenges Accounting Services Face Online

Now, more than ever, accountants must find smarter ways to remain competitive, find new clients, and retain current clients. Not only do you have to be fully involved in the communities and industries your business serves, you must also develop and maintain an active digital presence. This includes having a dynamic website and learning how to better promote your business services online.

In addition to investing dollars marketing offline, businesses in the accounting industry are also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be directed to develop and maintain a website that will bring in clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help them gain wider marketing exposure online.

This means that your website not only has to look great, load fast, and your website has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of the website will change over time and some aspects may need to be updated often. This requires implementing sound website and content management strategy.

One other problem that accounting organizations (and all other professions) face online, is that they have an average of thirty seconds to provide users with what they are looking 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 Online Economy

As well as facing significant challenges, there are also many online opportunities available for businesses in the accounting industry that can evolve to meet the challenges of the digital economy and who can think progressively in terms of improving their online business marketing skills.

This detailed guide will help you uncover new ways and opportunities to attract and engage more visitors and establish stronger online credibility for your business.

As well as providing tips and information on ways to improve your accounting website, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress CMS platform to power your accounting website.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, see the articles below:

• How A Poorly Constructed Web Site Can Lose You Potential Buyers And What To Do About It
• Learning WordPress – The Small Business Owner’s Guide

Practical Tips For Improving Your Accounting Or Financial Services Site

We’ll start first by reviewing some basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what web pages you need, what type of content you need, your navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, read this detailed step-by-step guide we have written: Planning A Website: A Basic Primer For Business Owners

Ways To Improve Your Website Pages

All business websites need several basic pages. Let’s discuss these.

Products And Services Page

You need to include a page that explains your services and any products that you offer.

This page should include services such as:

• Business – planning, incorporation of companies, accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, book keeping, financing, forecasting, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, planning, reviewing, auditing, advising, problem resolution
• Investment strategies
• Corporate finance
• 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 businesses, transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your services and why they should book an appointment.

Who We Are

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

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

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

Team

If you are looking for ideas to grow your business online, then help prospective clients get to know, like and trust your organization better.

Prospects need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your team members. It should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors will not tend to be familiar with accounting terms your descriptions should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. It should also include social buttons that will allow your prospective clients to follow some of your staff members on their social pages.

In this page, don’t be afraid to humanize your people with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline each employee’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they will help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your team members to prospective new clients. Image source: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to create and add a simple and easy-to-maintain directory of staff members to WordPress with no coding skills required, go here: How To Easily Add A Staff List Directory To Your WordPress Site: Tutorial

Career Opportunities

List any career opportunities within the company. It could include training, employee benefits, professional development, etc. You can also include 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 this page, join your newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Case studies and reviews from clients are a great way to show prospective clients what kind of solutions you are capable of implementing to help them solve problems. By adding a page with client reviews and case studies, you are also helping to establish social proof.

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

If you want to learn more about using case studies, testimonials and reviews, refer to this article: Discover How To Turn More Visitors Into Qualified Leads With Standout Client Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a clean contact page is absolutely necessary.

It should provide visitors with the following:

• Business Name
• Your address
• Telephone
• Fax number
• Contact email
• Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media links
• Interactive chat (optional)

If your business services different locations you will want to make that clear when displaying the address and contact information.

Consider also including links to the most commonly asked questions, frequently-visited pages, special offers, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog Section

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool. Most blogging platforms typically include a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to promote your business by publishing content such as news and events, company updates, useful articles and tutorials, informative posts, how-to videos, infographics, etc.

If you already have an accounting or financial services 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 keep updated with new content or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can be used as both your business website and your blog.

Something not many people know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic-generation system that can instantly begin driving a stream of web traffic to your business, simply by publishing regular content to your web site.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can generate web traffic automatically to your website)

You can learn more about this here: Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Turn Your WordPress Website Into An Automated Web Traffic Machine

Legal Info Pages

As a professional accountant, ensuring that you have a website that complies will all legal requirements online is extremely important, not just for establishing credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking local, regional or federal laws and regulations wherever you provide services to.

Adding the following legal pages to your website will help keep you out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential legal threats and inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms 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
• etc.

We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to your website. Go here to learn more: How To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Ways To Improve The Content On Your Site

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

By committing to providing great content with advice and tips, you will get your readers sharing your content and coming back for more information. This is the most effective way to educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business and about doing business with your firm.

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

• How balance sheets work
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• Presenting accounts for fundraising activities
• Business cashflow planning advice
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Protecting revenues
• Structuring your self-managed retirement fund
• Do’s 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 prospective clients understand your accounting or financial services, such as software accounting, small business accounting, business auditing, reducing business debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to include the same keywords in your articles that 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 and practical tips 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 marketing strategies. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also completely FREE!

Improving Visitor Experience

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

Syndicate Content With RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and user experience in a number of different ways.

If you provide valuable content, other businesses will want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

Some of the benefits of having other businesses syndicate your content, include:

• All of your content updates are kept in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• A feed provides links to your content
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides multiple ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. users can read your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• It’s built into WordPress

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

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

Below we have listed some useful RSS feeds you could consider adding 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

(RSS feeds can help to improve your accounting site’s user experience.)

Add Online Checklists

Checklists and forms are a fantastic way to help increase user engagement, add value to your visitors and set yourself apart from the competition. They can give them useful instructions and resources to complete necessary tasks. Checklists and forms can also be great business planning tools.

Checklists and forms can cover areas such as:

• How To Set Up A Company
• Negative Gearing Checklist
• Fundraising Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

Providing useful 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 you can add to accounting websites. Other tools would include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In part 2 of this detailed article, we take a look at a number of WordPress-based tools you can add to your site that can help to improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part 1.

Click on this link to read the rest of this guide:

• A Practical Guide To Growing An Accounting Web Presence – Part 2

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