Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital economy has not only transformed business around the world, it has also created a growing number of challenges and opportunities for accounting and financial services businesses.

Online Challenges For Accounting Businesses

Accounting businesses today must work harder than ever before to remain competitive. Not only do they have to participate in the communities and industries their business serves, they must also develop and maintain an active presence online. This includes having a website and learning how to better market your business services online.

As well as investing money in offline marketing, businesses in the accounting industry are also finding that they will need to invest a more significant portion of their marketing budget to develop and maintain a website that drives clients, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and helps increase their presence online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your pages have to be fast-loading, and your website layout has to be easy to navigate, but even more importantly, your site’s needs will change over time and sections will need to be updated frequently. This requires implementing sound web and content management strategy.

One other problem that accounting organizations face online (as other professions do for that matter), is that you have an average of 30 seconds or less to provide visitors what 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 Accounting Businesses In The Digital Economy

As well as facing many business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the accounting sector that can adapt to meet the demands of the online economy and can think progressively about marketing themselves better online.

This guide will help you uncover opportunities to source new potential clients and create significant improvements in your accounting and financial business presence online.

As well as providing practical tips and information on ways to improve your website, we also recommend that you consider using WordPress to power your accounting website or blog.

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

• Learn How A Poorly Built Web Site Can Lose You Business And What To Do About It
• WordPress In Small Business – A Beginner’s Guide To Growing A Business With WordPress

Practical Tips For Improving Your Accounting Website

We’ll start first by reviewing some basic information you need. In this section, we’ll look at ways to improve your accounting website and get better results online. We will look at what pages a financial services site needs, what content works best for accounting websites, your layout and navigation, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your website, visit this page: A Money-Saving Guide To Web Site Planning For Non-Technical Business Owners

Your Web Pages

All websites need some basic pages. Let’s review the pages your  should have and how to set up your accounting or financial services website for best results.

Services And Products Page

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

It should include all the services you offer, such as:

• Business accounting – business planning, company formation, accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, forecasting, financing, budgeting, strategic planning, consulting, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, planning, reviewing, auditing, advice, 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. Provide your visitors with information that will educate them about the benefits of using your services and direct them to your contact or appointment booking page.

About Us Page

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and what it stands for, its unique approach, philanthropical donations, etc.

It should also mention any awards, accreditations, certifications, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that could be used to promote your company and set it above other competitors.

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

Meet Your Staff

Are you searching for quicker and simpler ideas to grow your business online and get people to stay longer on your site? Then one of the things you can do, is help visitors get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.

Prospective clients need to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff members. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors are probably not very well-versed in accounting terms it should tell who they are and what their specialties are. You may also want to explain what those specialties mean. This page should also include social buttons so your visitors can follow individual staff members on their social networks.

In this page, don’t be afraid to show the human side of your team members with personal stories, hobbies, etc., but make sure to outline each person’s qualifications, how their skills add value or contribute to the success of 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 or team members to prospective new clients. Image source: deepsky.com)

To learn more about how to add a simple team members directory to your website without coding skills, go here: Adding An Employee List Directory: Tutorial

Work With Us

This is a listing of career opportunities within the company. It would include type of training provided, employee benefits, professional development, social activities sponsored or encouraged by your organization, etc. You can also include case studies of recruits who have risen within your organization and information about new career opportunities in the accounting and financial services industry.

Also include 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 newsletter, follow your social pages, etc.

Testimonials & Case Studies

Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to show prospective clients what it’s like to do business with your firm. Adding a page with case studies and reviews from clients also helps to establish social proof online.

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

We have written a detailed article about using case studies, testimonials and client reviews to grow your business online. Go here to learn more: Learn How To Improve Your Visitor-To-Sales Conversions Using Effective User Testimonials

Contact Us

Having a clean contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should provide:

• Company Name
• Your address
• Phone number
• Facsimile
• Contact email
• Map
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Social media links
• Online chat (optional)

If you have multiple locations you will want to make that clear when showing the address and contact info.

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

Add A Blog

A blog can be a very powerful business marketing tool. Most blogging platforms are built around a content management system that is simple to use and allows you to promote your business using content like company events, updates, useful information, discussions on current topics, how-to videos, webinars, etc.

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

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

Something few people know about, is that WordPress can turn into an automated traffic machine that can instantly begin attracting an ongoing stream of web traffic to your business, simply by publishing new content on a regular basis to your website.

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

If you would like to learn more here: Web Site Traffic Blueprint – A Complete Guide To Driving More Web Traffic Automatically

Legal Pages

It’s crucial for professional organizations to have a compliant website, not just for establishing trust and credibility with prospective clients, but also to ensure that you are not breaking local, regional or federal laws and regulations wherever your business services clients.

Depending on what products and services you provide, adding the legal pages below to your accounting or financial services site will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential legal threats or inconveniences:

• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• 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 here: The Importance Of Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s ultra competitive global economy, the sooner you begin to publish great content on your site, the sooner you will begin to see results and differentiate yourself from competing businesses.

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

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

• How balance sheets work
• Understanding profit & loss statements
• Directors’ duties and legal responsibilities
• Presenting accounts for fundraising activities
• Business cashflow planning advice
• Business insurance
• Protecting revenues
• How to structure a self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing insurance, setting up payroll systems, etc.)

You can also create a series of informative articles that will help your prospective clients understand your accounting or financial services, such as software accounting, business accounting, tax planning for small business, reducing debt, understanding financial conventions, etc.

Remember to include keywords and terms in your articles 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 easy-to-digest information and practical tips that will teach exactly how to drive more traffic to your website, save money creating high-quality content for your site visitors and grow your business online using content. 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 user experience (typically referred to as UX) will help you keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you different ways to improve your visitor engagement and UX.

Use RSS Feeds

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

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

Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other sites using RSS feeds, 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
• Users can subscribe to your RSS feed
• An RSS feed provides links back to your site
• Feeds can be submitted to RSS directories
• There are multiple ways readers can receive your content (e.g. users can read your content on their mobile device using different applications)
• It’s built into WordPress

There are also benefits to adding syndicated content to 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, search online for relevant government departments or key industry bodies.

Below we have listed some exaples of RSS feeds you may want to 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

(Adding RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your site’s user experience.)

Checklists And Forms

Adding checklists and forms to your site is a fantastic way to help increase visitor engagement, add value to your readers and set yourself apart from the competition. Forms and checklists can give them step-by-step instructions and resources to complete necessary tasks. Checklists and forms are also great planning tools.

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

• How To Set Up A Business
• Rental Property Worksheet
• Non-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Company Tax Checklist
• Capital Gains Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Adding Unique Tools

Providing useful tools, gadgets and applications for businesses (or links to these tools) on your website is a great way to increase visitor engagement and add value to your target audience. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are great tools you can add to accounting websites. Others could include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section of this detailed guide, we will be discussing a number of WordPress-based tools you can add to your accounting or financial services site that can 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 of this guide on ways to grow your accounting business web presence.

Click on this link to keep reading:

• The Step-By-Step Guide To Successfully Building And Growing Your Accounting Or Financial Services Online Presence – Part Two

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