Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accounting professionals today face increasingly difficult challenges created by the online economy.

Online Challenges For Certified Public Accountants

CPAs today must work harder than ever before to remain competitive. Not only do they have to become actively involved in the communities and industries their business serves, they must also develop an active digital presence. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better market your services online.

As well as investing money marketing offline, businesses in the accounting industry are also finding that increasingly larger amounts of their budget need to be directed towards the development and maintenance of a website that can attract prospective clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and social media, and help to create a wider degree of reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look great, your web pages have to load fast, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website will change in time and many aspects may need to be frequently updated. This requires the implementation of a sound web and content management strategy.

One other difficult challenge that accounting businesses face online (as most businesses do for that matter), is that your site has only about thirty seconds 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 business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available to accounting businesses that are willing to adapt to meet the demands of the online economy and think strategically about marketing their business services better online.

In this detailed guide, you will discover ways and opportunities to increase traffic and improve your business online.

As well as providing useful website improvement tips, we also recommend that you consider using the WordPress platform to power your accounting website or blog.

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

• Discover How A Poorly Built Website Can Cost You Customers
• Using WordPress – The Small Business Owner’s Guide

Ways To Improve Your Website

In this section we’ll start with the basics and show you ways to improve your accounting website and get better results. We show you what pages your website needs, what content works best for accounting and financial services websites, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need any help with website planning, see this detailed step-by-step guide we have written: How To Plan A Web Site: A Practical Primer For Business Owners

Improve Your Web Pages

Professional business websites require a number of essential web pages. Let’s take a look at the pages your  need to have and how to structure your website for best results.

Services And Products Page

You need a page that explains your services or products.

It should include services such as:

• Business – business planning, incorporation of companies, accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, book keeping, financing, budgeting, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting, etc.
• Taxation – preparing, planning, reviewing, auditing, advising, 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 businesses, transfers, etc.
• Lending and leasing

Make sure to list all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about what these services do and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us Page

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

It’s important to include any professional awards, certifications, recognitions, accreditations, publications, associations, etc., that could be used to promote the company and set it above the competition.

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

Team Profile Page

If you are searching for quicker, easier and cost-effective ways to sell more products online, then make it easier for prospects to get to know you, your team and your business better.

You want people to relate to your business. A great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff members. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors won’t be that well-versed in accounting terms it 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 site visitors can follow individual team members on their social pages.

On this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to highlight each person’s expertise and qualifications, why they are an invaluable asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Make sure to add a staff page. Screenshot source: deepsky.com)

If you need help how to easily create and add an easy-to-manage directory of staff members to a WordPress site with no coding skills required, go here: Step-By-Step Tutorial: How To Add An Employee Directory To Your Site

Career Opportunities

This is a listing of career opportunities within your organization. This page would include training, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, etc. You can include information such as the job outlook and additional career opportunities in the accounting 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 updates list, follow you on social media, etc.

Testimonials

Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to show potential clients businesses minimise tax, increase profitability, or grow strategically. 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 image sourced from: pcg-services.com)

To learn more about using client case studies and reviews, refer to this article: How To Improve Your Sales Conversions With Captivating Testimonials

Contact Us Page

Having a contact page is essential.

It should provide visitors with some or all of the following:

• Company Name
• Physical location
• Telephone number
• Fax number
• Contact email address
• Map
• Web address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media links
• Chat feature (optional feature)

If your business operates out of different areas you want to make that clear when displaying your address and contact info.

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

Add An Accounting Or Financial Services Blog Section

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool for your business. Blogs are built around a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business using timely content like company news, updates, educational articles and tutorials, informative posts, videos, media presentations, etc.

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

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

You probably don’t know this, but WordPress can turn into an automated traffic system that will help attract web traffic to your business, simply by publishing content on a consistent basis to your website.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

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

Legal Information

Having a website that complies will all legal requirements online is vitally important, not just for establishing credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaching laws and regulations wherever you provide services to.

Depending on the products and services you provide, adding some or all of the legal pages below to your accounting site will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers, and other potential legal threats and inconveniences:

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

We have written a comprehensive article about adding legal pages to your site here: How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips On How To Improve Your Content

In today’s fiercely competitive global economy, the earlier you begin to publish great content on your site, the quicker you will begin to differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

Providing great content with useful information and tips will get your visitors to share your content and come back for more information. This is the most effective way to inform and educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business and about using your services and products.

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

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Profit and loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for fundraising activities
• Business cashflow planning
• Business insurance
• Risk protection
• How to structure a self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing vs leasing, claiming business expenses, etc.)

You can also create a series of educational articles that will help your readers understand accounting services, such as finance accounting, small business accounting, business budgeting, reducing debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to include keywords and terms in your content that readers would search for online.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with actionable information and practical tips that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your web site, save money creating high-quality 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 completely FREE!

Improve Visitor Engagement And User Experience

Improving your site’s user experience (often referred to as UX) helps to keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you ways you can improve your visitor engagement and user experience.

Syndicating Content - RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide lots of benefits for your accounting business.

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

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

• All of your updates are in one place
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared online
• Allows users to subscribe
• It provides links back to your content
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
• There are several ways readers can receive your content (e.g. subscribers can read your content on their mobile device using a feed reader)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also a number of 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 many useful RSS feeds by visiting sites of relevant government departments and industry bodies.

For example, here are a few useful RSS feeds you may want to add to your accounting site:

• 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

(Add RSS feeds to provide your visitors with a better user experience.)

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and forms are a great way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your audience. Forms and checklists can give them useful step-by-step instructions and resources to complete tasks. Checklists and forms are great business planning tools.

You can provide a range of forms and checklists (or links to these) covering areas such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Negative Gearing Worksheet
• Fundraising Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Partnership Tax Checklist
• Trust Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Unique Tools

Providing unique tools and applications for businesses on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are some of the most popular tools for accounting websites. Other applications could 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 website using WordPress plugins and themes that improve your search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more web traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one.

To view Part 2, click here:

• How To Grow An Accounting Website – Part Two

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