Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accountants today are facing difficult challenges created by the digital economy.

Challenges Certified Public Accountants Face Online

Accounting businesses today must work harder than ever before 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 web presence. This includes having a website and searching for better ways to grow your business services online.

In addition to spending money marketing offline, businesses in the accounting industry are now also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their marketing budget need to be allocated towards the development and management of a website that drives clients, engages visitors, outranks the competition in search engines and helps give their business wider marketing reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your pages have to be fast-loading, and be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs may change over time and many areas will need to be frequently updated. This requires the implementation of a well-developed website and content management strategy.

One other challenge that accounting organizations (and most businesses) face online, is that your site has an average of thirty seconds or less to help visitors find what they are searching for or they will leave and 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 Professional Accountants

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

This detailed guide will help you uncover a number of ways to attract more visitors and improve your business online.

As well as providing practical tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your web presence, we also recommend that you consider using WordPress to power your accounting or financial services business website or blog.

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

• How A Poorly Constructed Website Can Cost You Business
• Learn How To Grow Your Small Business With A WordPress Site

Practical Tips To Improve Your Accounting Website

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

If you need assistance or help planning your accounting website, see this detailed step-by-step guide we have written: A Money-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Business Owners

Improving Your Web Pages

All websites need some basic pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  need and how to structure your accounting website for best results.

Your Services And Products

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

It will include services such as:

• Business accounting – business planning, company structures, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, book keeping, financing, budgeting, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, 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 a business, asset 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 what your services do and why they should book an appointment.

About Us

This page needs to describe your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, philanthropy, etc.

Remember to also mention any awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote the company and position it above the competition.

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

Meet Our Team

If you are searching for quicker, simpler and cheaper ideas to grow your business online, then help prospective clients get to know, like and trust you, your team and 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. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors will not tend to 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 so your visitors can follow selected 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 outline your 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.

(Make sure to add a page that introduces your staff to prospective new clients. Image source: deepsky.com)

To learn more about how to add a simple and easy-to-update simple team members directory in your website using free WP plugins, see this tutorial: How To Add A Simple Employee Directory To Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Career Opportunities

This is a listing of career opportunities within your firm. This page should include training, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social aspects of working with your organization, etc. You can also include information about upcoming career opportunities in the accounting 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, subscribe to your updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Client reviews and case studies are a great way to show prospective clients what type of financial solutions you will implement to help solve their problems. Adding a page with client reviews and case studies also helps to provide prospective clients with social proof.

(Add a page with client reviews and case studies. Screenshot image sourced from: pcg-services.com)

If you want to learn more about using testimonials and user reviews, refer to this article: Convert More Visitors Into Prospects With Profit-Boosting User Testimonials

Contact Page

A contact page is essential.

Your contact page should provide:

• Company Name
• Your physical address
• Telephone
• Facsimile
• Email
• Google Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Name of person to contact
• Social media web addresses
• Chat/Skype

If your business operates out of several locations you will want to make this clear when displaying the address and contact information.

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

Add A Blog Section

A blog is a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing content like industry news, updates, educational information, opinions on current topics, videos, infographics, etc.

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

If you don’t have a website yet, or your existing accounting website is hard to add new content to or not giving you the results you want, then WordPress can serve as both your business website and business blog.

Something few businesses know about, is that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation system that can instantly begin driving an ongoing stream of targeted visitors to your site, simply by adding regular content to your web site.

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

To learn more about this go here: Web Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Driving More Website Traffic For Your Business Automatically

Legal Info Pages

It’s vitally important to ensure they have a compliant website, not just for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no local, regional and federal laws and regulations are being contravened wherever your business services clients.

Adding the following legal pages to your website will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions
• 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: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Ways To Improve Your Web Content

In today’s globally competitive economy, the sooner you begin engaging in the practice of content marketing, the quicker you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from your competitors.

By committing to providing great content with useful advice and tips, you will get your visitors sharing your web pages with others and coming back for more. Content marketing is a great way to educate your visitors and prospects about your business and about using your products and services.

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

• How balance sheets work
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• Presenting accounts for non-profit activities
• Cashflow planning advice
• Business insurance
• Protecting revenues
• Structuring a self-managed retirement fund
• Dos and don’ts of … (e.g. purchasing insurance, claiming business expenses, etc.)

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your prospective clients understand accounting services, such as software accounting, business accounting, business budgeting, reducing business debt, understanding financial concepts, etc.

Remember to include the same keywords and terminology in your content that prospective clients will be searching for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information that will show exactly how to drive more traffic to your site, 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 100% FREE!

Improving User Experience

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

RSS Feeds – Content Syndication

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

If you provide content that adds value to others, other businesses may 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
• Can be shared
• RSS feeds allow for subscribing
• It provides links to your site
• Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are a number of ways readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read the content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of benefits when it comes to providing content on your site from other sites, 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 key industry bodies.

Here are some exaples of 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 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 help increase user engagement, add value to your readers and set yourself apart from the competition. They can give them useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform necessary tasks. Checklists and forms are great business planning tools.

Forms and checklists could address topics such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Negative Gearing Checklist
• Not-For-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

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

In the next section of this detailed guide, we discuss a number of WordPress-based tools you can use in your accounting site that can help to improve your seo, increase user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

To continue reading, click here:

• Your Accounting Website – Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation Using WordPress Plugins

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