Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

The digital information age has not only revolutionised businesses around the world, it has also created a growing number of challenges and great opportunities for the accounting and financial services sector.

Challenges Certified Public Accountants Face Online

Now, more than ever, CPAs must work hard and find smarter ways to stand out from the crowd, source new business, and keep their current clientele. Not only do you have to become actively involved in the communities and industries your business serves, you must also develop an active digital presence. This includes having a dynamic website and learning how to better market your services online.

In addition to spending money in offline marketing activities such as advertising on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television, etc., businesses in the accounting industry are now also finding that they will need to allocate a more significant share of their budget towards the development and management of a website that drives new clients, engages users, outranks the competition in search engines and helps increase their marketing reach online.

This means that your site not only has to look professional, your web pages have to be fast-loading, and your site layout has to be easy to navigate, but it’s also important to keep in mind that your site’s needs will change over time and sections will need to be updated often. This requires a sound website and content management strategy.

Another difficult challenge that accounting firms face with their websites (and other businesses for that matter), is that your site has an average of thirty seconds or less to provide users 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

Opportunities For Accountants In The Digital Economy

As well as facing many new business and technology changes, there are also loads of online opportunities available for businesses in the accounting industry that are willing to evolve to meet digital demands and can think outside the box in terms of improving their online marketing skills.

In this detailed guide, you will discover a number of ways to attract new visitors and create significant improvements in your business results online.

As well as providing tips and information on cost-effective ways to improve your accounting web presence, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to power your accounting website or blog.

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

• Discover How A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Lose You Business
• Mastering WordPress – A Business Owner’s Guide

How To Improve Your Website

This section explains how to improve your accounting website and get better results. We will look at what pages you need, what type of content works best, ways to improve your layout and navigation structure, etc.

If you need assistance or help planning your accounting website, see this detailed step-by-step guide: The Website Planning Process: A Comprehensive Guide For Business Owners

Your Website Pages

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

Services

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

It will include services such as:

• Business – business planning, incorporation of companies, general accounting, payroll, preparing financial statements, bookkeeping, budgeting, financing, forecasting, strategic planning, consulting, etc.
• Taxation – preparation, planning, reviewing, auditing, advice, 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 a business, 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 the benefits of using these services and direct them to your appointment booking page.

About Us Page

The ‘About Us’ page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, supported community programs, etc.

It should mention any accounting awards, recognitions, accreditations, certifications, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote the company and position it above the competition.

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

Team Profile Page

If you are searching for quicker, easier and cheaper ideas to sell more products or services online, then something you can do, is help visitors 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 employees. It should include a photo and a mini bio. Since most visitors are probably not familiar with 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. This page should even include social buttons so your prospective clients can follow individual team members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to highlight your team member’s expertise, why they are an asset to your team, and more importantly, how they can help add value to your clients’ business.

(Add a page that introduces your staff members to prospective new clients. Image sourced from: deepsky.com)

To learn more about how to easily create and add a simple and easily updatable directory of staff members in WordPress using a free plugin, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: WordPress Plugin Tutorial: How To Add An Employee List Directory To Your Site

Work With Us

This is a listing of career opportunities within your company. It would include type of training provided, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, social aspects of working with your firm, etc. You should also include information about new 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 this page, subscribe to your updates list, follow your social pages, etc.

Case Studies & Testimonials

Reviews from clients and case studies are a great way to show potential clients the benefits of doing business with your organization. Adding a page with reviews from clients and case studies also helps to provide social proof online.

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

To learn more about using testimonials, case studies and reviews, refer to this article: How To Get Better Results Online With Highly Effective Testimonials

Contact Us

A functional contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should include the following:

• Name
• Physical location
• Phone
• Facsimile
• Email
• Map and directions
• Website address
• Contact form
• Contact name
• Links to social media pages
• Interactive chat feature (optional)

If your business operates out of multiple areas you want to make that clear when showing your address and contact information.

Consider also including links to an FAQ page, frequently-visited pages, special offers, support area, newsletter opt-in form, blog, etc.

Add A Blog Section

A blog can be a very powerful marketing tool. Blogs typically comprise of a content management system that is easy to use and allows you to easily promote your business using content like company announcements, updates, training articles and tutorials, informative posts, videos, webinars, etc.

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

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

Not many people know this, but WordPress can turn your web presence into an automated traffic-generation machine that will deliver targeted traffic to your web site, simply by publishing regular content to your web site.

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

For more info, see this article: Web Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Turn Your WordPress Site Into A Traffic Generation Machine

Legal Information

As a professional accountant, ensuring that you have a website that complies will all legal requirements online is crucially important, not just for building trust with visitors, but also to ensure that no local, regional and federal laws and regulations are being contravened wherever your do business in.

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

• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• Affiliate Agreement
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• DMCA Notice
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Financial/Health Disclaimers
• Refund Policy
• Video/Audio Terms
• etc.

If you want to learn more about adding legal pages to your website, see this article: Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

How To Improve The Content On Your Site

In today’s globally competitive economy, being generous with content that educates and informs visitors has become one of the key differentiators for businesses.

Providing great content with useful information and tips will get your readers to share your web pages and come back for more information. Content marketing is the most effective way to inform and teach your visitors and prospective clients about your business.

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

• How balance sheets work
• Overlooked tax deductions
• Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
• How to present accounts for non-profit activities
• Business cashflow planning tips
• Business insurance
• Risk protection
• How to structure your self-managed retirement fund
• Things to look for when … (e.g. purchasing vs leasing, setting up payroll systems, etc.)

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

Remember to include the same keywords and terms in your articles 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, save money creating useful content that will add value to your 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 100% FREE!

Improve User Experience

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

RSS Feeds

RSS feeds can help to improve visitor engagement and user experience in several ways.

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

Some of the benefits of syndicating your content to other businesses using RSS feeds, include:

• All of your content updates are in one place
• your content distribution doesn’t rely on email
• Your feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
• Users can subscribe to your feed
• A feed provides links to your site
• RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregators
• RSS provides various ways for readers to receive your content (e.g. subscribers can view the content on their mobile device using feed readers)
• RSS is built into WordPress

There are also benefits when it comes to providing information on your website 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 finance and tax-related government departments and respected industry bodies.

For example, here are examples of 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 (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your accounting website’s user experience.)

Checklists And Forms

Checklists and forms are a great way to help increase visitor engagement and add value to your visitors. They can provide useful instructions and resources to complete a task. They are also great business planning tools.

Forms and checklists could include areas such as:

• How To Set Up A Business
• Rental Property Checklist
• Not-For-Profit Governance Checklist
• Disclosure Checklists
• Sole Trader Tax Checklist
• Self Managed Super Fund Tax Checklist
• Income Tax Variation Forms

Provide Online Tools

Providing useful tools and applications for businesses can help increase visitor engagement and add value to your potential clients. Calculators, such as loan and tax calculators, are some of the most popular tools for accounting websites. Other tools could include time cards, and retirement and interest calculators.

In the next section, we will look at a number of online tools you can add to your site using WordPress plugins that can help improve seo, increase user engagement and generate more traffic to your business.

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This is the end of part one of this guide on ways to improve your accounting business web presence.

Click here to access the rest of this article:

• How To Build And Grow An Accounting Website Successfully With WordPress – Part Two

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