Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital business age has not only revolutionised the way business is done worldwide, it has also created many challenges and great opportunities for accounting and financial services businesses.

Online Challenges For Certified Public Accountants

CPAs today must work harder than ever to remain competitive. Not only do they have to be fully involved in the communities and industries they serve, they must also maintain a strong presence online. This includes having a website and learning how to better promote your business services online.

As well as investing dollars in offline marketing activities, businesses in the accounting industry are now also finding that they need to delegate a more significant share of their marketing budget towards the development and management of a website that can attract new prospective clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and help give their business wider marketing exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your pages have to load fast, 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 updated frequently. This requires implementing sound website and content management strategy.

Another difficult challenge that accounting organizations face with their websites, as do most other professions for that matter, is that you have only around 30 seconds or less to give visitors what they need 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 CPAs In The Online Economy

As well as facing significant business and technology changes, there are also many online opportunities available to accounting firms that are willing to adapt to meet digital economy challenges and can think outside the box when it comes to marketing their business services better online.

In this detailed guide, you will learn new ways and opportunities to drive more traffic and create significant improvements in your business presence online.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also emphasize the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your accounting or financial services business website or blog.

For more information about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress, go here:

• Learn How A Poorly Constructed Website Can Cost You Customers
• The Small Business Owner’s Guide To Understanding WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Website

This section will show you ways to improve your accounting website and get better results. We show you what web pages you need, what content you need, suggestions for improving your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your accounting or financial services website, see this detailed guide we have written: The Website Planning Process: A Comprehensive Blueprint For Business Owners

How To Improve Your Website Pages

All websites need some essential pages. Let’s review these.

Description Of Services

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

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

• Business accounting – business planning, formation, accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, book keeping, financing, forecasting, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting, 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. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using your services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us Page

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

Remember to also include any professional awards, recognitions, certifications, accreditations, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote the company and set it above other competitors.

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

Staff

If you are looking for quicker, easier and cost-effective ideas to grow your business online, then make it easier for your prospects to get to know, like and trust you and your business better.

Prospects need to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your employees or team members. It should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors won’t 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 also include social buttons so your site visitors can follow selected team members on their social pages.

In this page, make sure to outline each employee’s experience, 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 staff to prospective new clients. Screenshot image sourced from: deepsky.com)

For a detailed tutorial on how to easily create and add an easy-to-manage simple team members directory to your site using a free WP plugin, go here: How To Add A Simple Employee List On Your WordPress Site

Recruitment

This is a listing of career opportunities within your firm. This page should include training, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social activities sponsored by your firm, etc. You should also include stories of recruits who have established a solid career path thanks to your firm and information such as the job outlook and upcoming career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Include also 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 announcements list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Testimonials and case studies are a great way to show prospective clients what kind of financial solutions you are capable of implementing to help them solve problems. Adding a web page with testimonials and case studies also provides prospective clients with social proof.

(Add a page to your site with case studies and client reviews. Screenshot source: pcg-services.com)

If you want to learn more about using case studies, testimonials and client reviews, refer to this article: Learn How To Convert More Visitors Into Qualified Leads Using Powerful Client Testimonials

Contact Page

A contact page is essential.

It should include:

• Name
• Your physical address
• Phone
• Fax
• Email address
• Google Map and directions
• Website URL
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media profiles
• Live chat

If your business services multiple areas you will want to make that clear when showing the address and contact information.

Consider also including a few links for commonly-asked questions, frequently-visited pages, special offers, helpdesk, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Blog Section

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically include a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to easily promote your business by publishing timely content like industry news, company updates, educational articles and tutorials, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

Something few businesses know about, is that an expertly configured WordPress site can turn into an automated traffic-generation system that can drive an ongoing stream of targeted traffic to your site, simply by adding content to your website on a regular basis.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

For more details, go here: Web Site Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Driving More Traffic Automatically With WordPress

Legal Pages

It’s vital to make sure they have a compliant website, not just for building credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking local, regional or federal laws or regulations in whichever region you service.

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

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

Go here to learn more about adding legal pages to your website: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

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 quicker you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from your competitors.

Providing great content with useful advice and tips will get your visitors to share your content and come back for more information. Publishing content is a great way to inform and educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business and about doing business with your organization.

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

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Profit & loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning
• Business insurance
• Risk protection
• How to structure 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 readers gain a better understanding of your accounting or financial services, such as finance accounting, tax accounting, tips on using business accounting software, reducing debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

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

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive regular training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating useful content for your site 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!

Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

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

Add RSS Feeds

RSS feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and UX in a number of different ways.

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

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

• All of your updates are kept in one place
• Doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• RSS feeds allow for subscribing
• It provides links to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• There are a number of ways your readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read the content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also 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.

You can find RSS feeds with loads of useful content for your website by searching online for tax-related government departments or key industry bodies.

For example, here are examples of useful RSS feeds you could add 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.)

Checklists & Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a great way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your audience and provide something unique. Checklists and forms can give them useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform necessary tasks. Forms and checklists are great planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Company
• Negative Gearing Checklist
• Not-For-Profit Activity Checklist
• Disclosure Requirements
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Unique Tools

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are some of the most popular tools for accounting websites. Others can include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section, we discuss a number of online tools you can use in your accounting or financial services site using WordPress plugins that can improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more visitors to your business.

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This is the end of section 1.

To view Part Two, click this link:

• Grow Your Accounting Website – Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Generate More Visitors To Your Website Using Plugins & Themes

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