Matt Wilkinson, Founder of Bizink, knows websites and the steps to getting accounting clients with your content. In the accounting world, most firms neglect the crucial step of building up their expertise on their site for potential clients to see. Matt started his company to change this. In this episode of Grow Your Firm Podcast by Jetpack Workflow Software, David Cristello and Matt Wilkinson discuss:

1. The one question to ask in order to write the absolute best content.
2. Writing better than your competition and getting accounting clients with your content
3. How you can turn website visitors into leads

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

• Bizlink - Matt Wilkinson’s company
• Linkedin - Matt Wilkinson
• How to Grow Your Accounting Firm, Manage Staff & Much More
• How to Generate Your First 100 Accounting Clients

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Building up your content base: Matt Wilkinson, CEO of Bizink, has a slogan: “Making accountants incredible online.” Too many accounting firms don’t focus on their online presence and getting accounting clients with their content. His company focuses on websites, content marketing, and online marketing. While every other industry adapts and fills their websites and social media with an abundance of relevant content, accounting firms continue to lag behind with archaic sites and a scarcity in the content department. Matt saw an opportunity to help many firms get a jump on their competition with building out their sites and content. In the past, many firms shied away from dumping thousands into new websites. But, today, many services make it much easier to put together a good looking website. (Jetpack runs on WordPress --- one of the most popular website platforms). They are so easy to set up now, you could probably have someone in-house do it for very cheap. Yet, that’s only the first (small) step. After that, you must fill in the website with information a prospective and current client would find helpful. Most firms stumble on this step. Bizink continues to grow as they do the content work for various firms. What content should I produce? It’s unfortunate, in most advertisements and content nowadays, the “angle” of the piece centers around the company/firm. Matt discovered this is completely backwards. Your content should answer the problems and pain points of your top clients. Solve it for the business owner. For example, many small businesses struggle with consistent cash flow. Your process for the content would center around “How can I stabilize their cash flow?” Think about everything you’ve seen work with other clients plus from your own research. Appeal on any emotional level! For cashflow, go through every scenario running through a prospects mind --- “How do I pay staff and myself consistently without running out of money? Will I stash enough away to afford a major surprise purchase?”--- Examples with cashflow to think about: What strategies do they need to use? 5 ways to get paid faster and boost your cash flow. Write content that speaks directly to those issues. Don’t worry about the spelling, just get the content out there. Matt even recommends writing “quick, snappy posts” rather than long, drawn out pieces. Many longer pieces might be more loaded up with complete ideas, but you want your pieces to go after one idea quickly. This allows you to write more and more. Quantity matters in this instance especially as you start off. Putting together the right content for your accounting firm: Matt had a client who wrote a very specific post on a subject. That post shows up on top of Google again and again. As visitors drop in to view the article, more and more, they then became leads,and then clients. The post sits on auto-pilot as visitors trickle in then become clients. This is what you want to create. Content that resonates with your audience. It has massive potential.

DAVID’S TIP: David’s found you can create content without having to write long blog posts and without having to be a good writer. He recommends getting an intern from a local college. Then, sit down with an expert in your industry, interview them, get the intern to make notes enough to put it into a blog post. There, you don’t need to write or spend too much time locked behind a computer typing away.

Matt believes you need to just get content out there and on as many channels as possible. Don't stress about "being clever" or having "perfect" content. Get it out there.

“Do some videos, they are faster. Use various media to engage various clients.”

While you create this informative catalogue, remember to use the correct keywords a prospect would type into Google. The right keywords get logged into Google Search. Whenever a website browser types in that keyword into Google, you could be the very first result. This is when you could get your own article that passively produces new, fresh leads. You must also understand the mindset of a website visitor. According to Kissmetrics, 96% of B2B visitors to your site are just in the research phase. It makes sense. There’s a major shift into providing value and trust beforehand rather than jumping right into a sales pitch. Most of these visitors won’t be be ready to jump on a phone call, but you need to get them interested. You must do it first and fast because only 20% of visitors to your site will ever come back. The standard play to get someone to stick around is offer “FREE UPDATES” or just “SUBSCRIBE HERE.” Here, the visitor would give you their email so you can then follow up with them later on.  In this case, Matt believes these are the absolute worst things to put on your site. You need to provide value upfront, and these common traps put on accounting firm sites don’t provide any sort of value. Another terrible (but very common) move is to offer “FREE CONSULTATIONS.” In truth, the prospect is thinking, “Why waste time going through a sales pitch from someone who I don’t know if they understand my business?” You might think this is a valuable offer on your end, but prospects don't see this. Try this: offer a free content piece or ebook. Suddenly you’re extending value to the visitor. At that point, for them to get the content piece, they must give you their email. When the ebook value outweighs their desire to safeguard their email, you get leads. All on auto-pilot. Going even deeper, when you specialize your firm towards a certain industry or service, you can make the content even more relevant to each audience. After each content piece, make sure to email your clients. Matt recommends re-purposing your content again and again at conferences, in your FAQ, with new clients, etc.. Your best referrals will come from current clients. Keep them hooked. Matt still sees major opportunities for local firms to take advantage of this. Most won’t. When you tap into the mind of a prospective client, you'll never run out of content ideas ever. How do you currently use content in your accounting firm? Related Articles:

1. The Profitable Way to Onboard New Clients
2. How (and Why) You Should Intentionally Work with Fewer Clients
3. How to present value pricing and advisory service to clients?