Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accountants today are facing significant challenges thanks to the online economy.

Online Challenges For Accounting Businesses

Now, more than ever, CPAs must work harder to stand out from the competition, obtain new business, and retain current business. Not only do they have to actively participate in the communities and industries they serve, they must also develop and maintain an active presence online. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your business online.

As well as investing dollars in offline marketing activities, businesses in the accounting industry are now finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be delegated to develop and manage a website that drives new prospective clients, engages users, outperforms the competition in search engines and social media, and increases their marketing reach online.

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

One other challenge that accounting organizations (and most professions) face online, is that your site has only about thirty seconds to give visitors the information they need or they will look 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

Opportunities For Accountants

As well as facing significant business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available for businesses in the accounting profession that are willing to adapt to meet the challenges of the digital economy and can think strategically when it comes to marketing their business better online.

This guide will help you uncover ways to attract and engage new visitors and establish online credibility for your accounting or financial services business.

As well as providing general website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to power your accounting website.

To learn more about the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system (CMS), go here:

• How A Poorly Designed Website Can Cost You Customers And What To Do About It
• How To Grow Your Business With WordPress

How To Improve Your Accounting Website

This section will show you ways to improve your website and get better results. We will look at what pages a financial services website needs, what type of content works best for accounting websites, your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need website planning assistance, visit this page: The Web Site Planning Process Explained - A Money-Saving Blueprint For Business Owners

Basic Website Pages

Professional business websites require a number of basic pages. Let’s discuss these.

Services

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

It will include services such as:

• Business – business planning, incorporation of companies, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, financing, forecasting, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting, 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. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what your services do and why they should book an appointment.

About Us Page

This page should give a description of your business and what your business stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.

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

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

Staff

If you are searching for ideas to sell more products online and get people to engage more on your site, then something you can do, is make it easier for visitors to get to know, like and trust you and your organization better.

You want prospective clients to relate to your business. A 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 won’t be that well-versed in 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 visitors to follow selected staff members on their social pages.

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

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

We have created a detailed tutorial on how to easily create and add an easy-to-manage list directory of staff or team members in WordPress without coding skills here: Step-By-Step Tutorial: How To Add An Employee List Directory To Your Site

Recruitment Page

List any career opportunities within your firm. It would include training, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social activities sponsored by your firm, etc. You should also include information such as the job outlook and career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Maintain a positions available section in your page. If there are no positions currently available, consider inviting people to return periodically to the page, join your newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Testimonials from previous clients and case studies are a great way to show potential clients what type of financial solutions you are capable of implementing to help them solve problems. By adding a page with testimonials from previous clients and case studies, you are also helping to provide social proof online.

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

We have written a comprehensive article on using case studies, testimonials and client reviews get better results online here: Convert More Visitors Into Prospects Using More Effective Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a clean contact page is absolutely necessary.

Your contact page should include:

• Business Name
• Street address of premises
• Phone
• Fax number
• Email address
• Google Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media web addresses
• Chat/Skype

If you operate in multiple areas you will want to make that clear when showing the address and contact information.

You should also include a few links for the most commonly asked questions, frequently-visited pages, special offers, support page, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Or Financial Services Blog Section

A blog is a powerful business marketing tool. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing content such as industry news, product updates, useful articles and tutorials, informative posts, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

If you already have an accounting site, then consider adding a WordPress blog to promote your services.

If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing website is very hard to add new content to or not delivering you the results you want, then WordPress can become both your website and your blog.

Very few businesses know that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic system that can begin driving targeted traffic to your site, simply by adding regular content to your site.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can generate new visitors automatically to your website)

For more details, go here: Web Site Traffic Blueprint – How To Turn Your WordPress Website Into A Traffic Machine

Legal Information Pages

As a professional business, having a compliant website is extremely important, not just for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws and regulations are being breached in whichever location you service.

Adding some or all of the following legal pages to your website will help you stay out of legal hot water with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Google), and other potential legal threats or 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
• Financial Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

Go here if you want to learn more adding legal pages to your site: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Improving The Content On Your Website

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you begin to engage in the practice of content marketing, the faster you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

You want to provide great content with advice and tips that will get your visitors to share your content and come back for more information. Content marketing is a great way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your business.

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

• How balance sheets work
• Understanding profit & loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• Presenting accounts for fundraising activities
• Business cashflow planning
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Risk prevention
• How to structure 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 informative articles that will help your your readers understand accounting services, such as finance accounting, business accounting, business auditing, reducing business debt, understanding accounting concepts, etc.

Remember to use specific keywords and terms in your content that readers will be searching for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content that will add value to your site visitors and grow your business online using content marketing. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Tips For Improving Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Syndicate Content With RSS Feeds

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed provides lots of benefits for your website.

If you provide content that adds value to others, other sites will want to syndicate your content to their visitors.

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

• All of your updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feed can be shared online
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides a way for external links to point back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides various ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits to adding syndicated content to your site 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, search online for finance-related government departments or respected industry bodies.

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.)

Add Online Checklists And Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to increase user engagement, add value to your audience and provide something unique. Checklists and forms can give them step-by-step instructions and resources to perform necessary tasks. Checklists and forms can also be great business planning tools.

You can provide online or downloadable forms and checklists covering a range of subjects such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Negative Gearing Worksheet
• Not-For-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Individual Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Unique Tools

Providing unique tools and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) can help increase visitor engagement and significantly add value to users. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are useful tools to add to accounting websites. Other applications could include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In part two, we will look at a number of online tools you can add to your website using WordPress plugins that improve your seo, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one.

To view Part Two, click here:

• How To Build And Grow An Accounting Or Financial Services Business Online – Part Two

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