Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

This article focuses on helping accountants and financial service professionals grow their business online and contains useful information on ways to improve the effectiveness of your accounting or finance-related web presence.

Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress

How To Grow Your Accounting Or Financial Services Web Presence Successfully With WordPressAccountants today face significant challenges.

Online Challenges For Certified Public Accountants

Accounting businesses must work harder than ever to remain in business. Not only do they have to become more involved in the communities and industries they serve, they must also maintain a strong digital presence. This includes having an effective website and learning how to better market your business online.

In addition to investing dollars in offline marketing activities such as advertising on newspapers, ads in industry publications and magazines, radio and television spots, etc., businesses in the accounting industry are now also finding that they will need to assign a larger amount of their budget to develop and manage a website that will bring new clients, engage users, outrank the competition in search engines and help them gain wider exposure online.

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

Another challenge that CPAs (and other businesses) face online, is that your site has an average of 30 seconds to help users find what they are looking for or they will 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 CPAs In The Web Economy

As well as facing a number of challenges, there are also plenty of online opportunities available to accounting firms that are willing to adapt to meet digital economy challenges and who can think progressively about improving their online marketing skills.

The article below will help you uncover a number of ways to attract more visitors and improve your accounting and financial business presence online.

Important

As well as providing practical tips and information on ways to improve your business online, we also place special emphasis on the benefits and advantages of using the WordPress content management system to power your accounting or financial services website.

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

Useful Tips For Improving Your Website

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

If you need website planning assistance, read this article: The Web Site Planning Process - A Money-Saving Guide For Business Owners

Basic Website Pages

All websites require a number of essential web pages. Let’s discuss these.

Services Page

You need a page that describes your products or services.

This page should include all the services you offer, such as:

  • Business accounting – business planning, company formation, general accounting, payroll, financial statement compilation, bookkeeping, budgeting, forecasting, financing, strategic planning, consulting, 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 a business, asset transfers, etc.
  • Lending and leasing

List all of the services you provide. Educate your visitors about the benefits of using your services and why they should book an appointment with you.

About Us Page

This page should give a description of your business and explain to visitors what your business stands for, its unique approach, community activities, etc.

It should also list any awards, certifications, accreditations, recognitions, associations, publications, etc., that you can use to promote your company and position it above other competitors.

List all of your awards recognitions, accreditations, certifications, associations, publications, etc. in your About Us page

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

Your Team

Are you searching for quicker, simpler and cost-effective ideas to sell more products or services online? Then one of the things you can do, is help your prospects get to know you and your business better.

You want potential clients to relate to your business. One great way to do that is to have a page that introduces your staff or team members. This page should include a photo and a brief bio. Since most visitors won’t be 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. It should also include social buttons that will allow your visitors to follow individual team members on their social networks.

On this page, make sure to outline your team member’s experience, how their skills and knowledge add value 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

(Make sure to add a page that introduces your team members to prospective new clients. Screenshot image source: deepsky.com)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about how to easily create and add an easy-to-update simple team directory to a WordPress site using free plugins, go here: How To Easily Add An Employee Directory

Career Opportunities

List any career opportunities available within your company. This page would include training provided, employee benefits, advancement opportunities, social activities promoted by your firm, etc. It should include information such as the job outlook and 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 updates list, follow you on social media, etc.

Case Studies

Case studies and testimonials from previous clients are a great way to show prospective clients the benefits of doing business with your company. Adding a page with case studies and client reviews also establishes social proof online.

Add a web page with reviews from clients and case studies

(Add a web page with case studies and testimonials from previous clients. Screenshot image source: pcg-services.com)

If you would like to learn more about using case studies, testimonials and client reviews to grow your business online, go here: How To Improve Your Visitor-To-Lead Conversions With Compelling Testimonials

Contact Us Page

A contact page is crucial.

Your contact page should provide:

  • Business Name
  • Street address of office
  • Telephone
  • Facsimile
  • Email
  • Map
  • Web URL
  • Contact form
  • Contact name
  • Links to social media networks
  • Online chat feature (optional feature)

If your business services different locations you will want to make that clear when showing the address and contact info.

You can also include links to an FAQ section, main pages, special offers, support area, newsletter, blog, etc.

Add An Accounting Blog

A blog is a powerful marketing tool for your business. Most blogging platforms typically include a content management system that allows you to easily promote your business using content such as company events, product releases, educational information, opinions and discussions, how-to videos, media presentations, etc.

If you already have an existing accounting or financial services website, then consider adding a WordPress-powered blog to promote your business.

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

Useful Info

You probably don’t know this, but an expertly configured WordPress site can turn your web presence into an automated traffic system that can help begin to attract targeted traffic to your website, simply by adding new content on a regular basis to your website.

WordPress can automate your traffic generation

(WordPress can automate your traffic generation)

To learn more about this go here: Website Traffic Blueprint – Discover How To Turn Your WordPress Web Site Into An Automated Traffic Machine

Legal Information

It’s essential for accounting and financial services companies to make sure they have a compliant website, not just for building trust with prospective clients, but also to ensure that no laws or regulations are being broken wherever you service clients.

Adding some or all of the legal pages below to your website will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities, third-party service providers (e.g. Facebook), and other potential sources of threats and legal inconveniences:

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

To learn more about adding legal pages to your site, see this article: Why You Need To Add Legal Pages To Your Site

Improve Your Content

In today’s highly competitive digital economy, the sooner you begin to engage in the practice of content marketing, the faster you will begin to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

You will want to provide great content with advice and tips that will get your readers sharing your content with others online and coming back for more. Content marketing is the most effective way to inform and educate site visitors and prospects about your business.

For example, topics for an accounting business could cover:

  • How balance sheets work
  • Profit and loss statements
  • Duties and legal responsibilities of company directors
  • How to present accounts for fundraising activities
  • Business cashflow planning
  • Maximizing business insurance cover
  • Protecting revenues
  • How to structure a self-managed retirement fund
  • Do’s and don’ts of … (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 services, such as finance accounting, business accounting, business budgeting, reducing debt, understanding accounting concepts, etc.

Remember to include the same keywords in your articles that prospective clients would search for online.

Tip

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 or blog, save money creating high-quality content that will add value to your visitors and grow your business online using content. It’s not only a great course with loads of useful information, it’s also 100% FREE!

Improve User Experience

Improving website user experience (typically referred to as UX) will help to keep visitors coming back and using your site. This section will show you different ways to improve your visitor engagement and user experience.

Adding RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds can help to improve your visitor engagement and user experience in several ways.

If you provide information 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 content updates are kept in one place
  • Doesn’t rely on email
  • Feeds can be shared and picked up by other sites online
  • Feeds allow for subscribing
  • A feed provides links to your content
  • Your feeds can be submitted to RSS directories and aggregator services
  • RSS provides multiple ways for your readers to receive your content (e.g. view your content on their mobile device using feed readers)
  • It’s built into WordPress

There are also a number of 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.

You can find many useful RSS feeds by searching online for tax-related government departments or respected industry bodies.

For example, here are some exaples of RSS feeds you may want to add to your site:

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

(Add RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to improve your accounting website’s UX.)

Checklists & Forms

Checklists and forms are a fantastic way to increase user engagement, add value to your readers and provide something unique. Forms and checklists can provide users with useful step-by-step instructions and resources to perform a necessary task. Forms and checklists can also be great business planning tools.

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

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

Providing unique tools, gadgets and applications for businesses 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 popular tools for accounting websites. Others would include time cards, or retirement and interest calculators.

In part two, we take a look at a several online tools you can add to your site using WordPress plugins that can improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.

How To Build And Grow Your Accounting Online Presence Successfully With WordPress

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

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Originally published as Grow Your Accounting Business Online With WordPress.