Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

Accountants face many new challenges in the digital economy, especially when it comes to growing a successful business presence online.

Online Challenges For The Accounting Profession

Today, more than ever, accounting firms must find smarter ways to stand out from the competition, find new business, and keep their current clients. Not only do they have to actively participate in the communities and industries they serve, they must also develop an active presence online. This includes having a website and learning how to better market your business online.

As well as investing dollars in offline marketing, you will probably find (if you haven’t already) that in order to remain competitive, increasingly larger amounts of their budget will need to be allocated to develop and maintain a website that can attract clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and help give you a wider degree of marketing exposure online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your pages have to load fast, and your website has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, the needs of your website will change over time and sections may need to be updated often. This requires implementing well-developed website and content management strategy.

One other problem that accountancy firms face with their websites (as all other businesses do for that matter), is that your site has only around thirty seconds to give users the information they are looking for or they will find what they are looking for 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 CPAs In The Web Economy

As well as facing many new challenges, there are also loads of online opportunities available to accounting businesses that can evolve to meet online economy challenges and can think progressively about improving their online marketing skills.

The guide below will help you uncover ways and opportunities to drive more traffic and create significant improvements in your business results online.

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

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

• Learn How A Poorly Built Web Site Can Cost You Customers
• The Small Business Owner’s Guide To Using WordPress

Tips To Improve Your Website

In this section we will start with the basics and show you how to improve your accounting website and get better results online. We show you what pages you need, what content works best, layout and navigation, etc.

If you need additional information about website planning, check out the detailed step-by-step guide we have written here: The Web Site Planning Process - A Useful Guide For Non-Technical Business Owners

How To Improve Your Website Pages

All business websites require several essential web pages. Let’s go over these.

Products And Services

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

Your page will include services such as:

• Business – planning, company formation, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, forecasting, budgeting, financing, strategic planning, consulting services, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, 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, not just the ones you specialize in. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about what these services do and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us Page

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

It’s important to mention any accounting awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, publications, associations, etc., that can be used to promote your company and set it above other competitors.

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

Meet Your Staff

If you are searching for cost-effective ideas to sell more products online or get people to interact more with your site, then one of the things you can do, is help visitors get to know you, your team 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 team. This page should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors won’t be 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 even include social buttons that will allow your site visitors to follow some of your staff members on their social networks.

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 your staff member’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.

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

If you need help how to create and add an easy-to-manage list directory of employees or team members to your web site using free plugins, go here: How To Easily Add A Simple Employee Directory To Your WordPress Site With No Coding Skills Required

Work For Us

This is a listing of career opportunities available within your organization. This page can include type of training provided, employee benefits, opportunities for advancement, social activities promoted or encouraged by your firm, etc. You can also include stories of trainees who have risen within your firm and information such as the job outlook and upcoming 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 the page, join your updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies

Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to show prospective clients what type of solutions you are capable of implementing to help them solve problems. Adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients also helps your accounting website to establish social proof.

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

We have written a detailed article about using client case studies and reviews to improve your business results online. For more info, see this article: Improve Your Visitor-To-Lead Conversions Using Awesome Client Testimonials

Contact Page

A contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should include some or all of the following information:

• Name
• Physical location
• Phone number
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Google Map
• Web URL
• Contact form
• Request for information – contact details
• Links to social media networks
• Interactive chat feature (optional)

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

Consider also including links to the most commonly asked questions, main pages, special offers, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Blog

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool. Blogs are built around a content management system that allows you to promote your business by publishing timely content like news and events, updates, useful articles, informative posts, promotional videos, infographics, etc.

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

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

You may not be aware of this, but WordPress can turn into an automated traffic-generation system that can help attract an ongoing stream of new visitors to your web site, simply by publishing regular content to your web site.

(An expertly configured WordPress site can automate your traffic generation)

Go here to learn more: Web Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Turn Your Website Into A Traffic Machine

Legal Information

It’s extremely important for accounting businesses to ensure they have a website that complies will all legal requirements online, not just for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being breached wherever you provide services to.

Adding the following legal pages to your accounting site 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 Linking Policy
• 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: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Tips For Improving Your Content

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

By committing to providing great content with useful advice and tips, you will get your readers to share your content online and come back for more. This is the most effective way to inform and educate your visitors and prospective clients about your business.

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

• Explanations of balance sheets
• Understanding profit & loss statements
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for fundraising activities
• Cashflow planning tips
• Maximizing business insurance cover
• Risk prevention
• How to structure your 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 informative articles that will help your your readers understand your accounting services, such as software accounting, business accounting, tips on using office accounting software, reducing business debt, financial concepts made simple, etc.

Remember to use the same keywords and terms in your content that your prospective clients would search for.

We recommend subscribing to our Content Marketing Email Training Series. You will receive a comprehensive series of training emails with easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will show you how to drive more traffic to your website or blog, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to 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!

Improving User Experience

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

Add RSS Feeds

Using RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and UX in many ways.

If you provide valuable information, other businesses may 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
• Content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• RSS feeds can be shared online
• Allows users to subscribe
• It provides links back to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides several ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. users can view your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits to providing great content on your website 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 tax-related government departments or well-known industry bodies.

Here are some exaples of feeds containing useful information that 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

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

Provide Forms & Checklists

Checklists and forms are a fantastic way to increase visitor engagement, add value to your audience and set yourself apart from the competition. Forms and checklists can provide users with step-by-step instructions and resources to get necessary tasks completed. Checklists and forms can also be great business planning tools.

Checklists and forms could cover areas such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Rental Property Checklist
• Fundraising Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Partnership Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Other Tools

Providing unique online tools, gadgets and applications for businesses on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add significant value to your potential clients. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are great tools you can add to accounting websites. Others can include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In part two of this detailed article, we discuss a number of online tools you can use in your accounting or financial services website using WordPress plugins that can improve your search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of section one of this step-by-step article on ways to grow your accounting business web presence.

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