In Part 1 of this guide on ways to improve your accounting business web presence, we provided in-depth information on the following topics:
- Online Challenges For The Accounting & Financial Services Profession
- Opportunities For The Accounting Profession In The Online Economy
- Your Website Pages
- Improving The Content On Your Site
In this section, we will continue looking at more ways to grow your accounting services business online. Topics covered include:
- Improve Traffic Using WordPress
- Ways To Generate Leads & Enquiries
- How To Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Generate More Traffic With WordPress Plugins
To learn more about WordPress plugins and themes, see the articles below:
Grow Your Accounting Website – How To Improve Your Business Online With WordPress Plugins and Themes
Your web traffic is an integral part of your business growth. This section explores WordPress plugins that can improve SEO, improve user engagement and drive more traffic.
Optimizing Your Website For SEO
There are loads of ways WordPress can help to optimize your accounting website for search engines:
- Search Engine-Friendly URLs – Set the permalinks to use the title of the post.
- Post Tags – WordPress lets you choose the keywords that you want search engines to index your articles for.
- Post Categories – Add search engine-friendly categories for your posts and products.
- Post Excerpts – WordPress lets you compose the description for your posts that will display in search results.
- Images – add search-optimized titles to your content images for better search engine results.
- Internal Content Linking – WordPress provides a built-in feature that allows you to easily create internal links for faster indexing of your content
- Pinging – WordPress can be set up to automatically notify (ping) other sites and directories the moment a new post is published on your site.
How To Improve SEO, Increase User Engagement And Drive More Traffic With Plugins
As well as the built-in features of WordPress, the WordPress developer community makes available various plugins that will improve SEO, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your website.
Here are some plugins you can use to improve your website’s search engine optimization:
- Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress sitemap plugin (lists all of your pages and posts for search engines)
- Page-List – WordPress site map plugin (for visitors)
(Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your website’s SEO)
Other WordPress plugins you can add to improve your accounting or financial services website’s SEO, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business are to add a forum, newsletters, comments, and social sharing features. Here are some WordPress plugins that can help (many of the plugins described below are also free):
- BuddyPress – This plugin helps you run your own social community on your site.
- bbPress – This free WordPress plugin allows you to set up a forum on WordPress.
- E-Newsletter – Use this plugin to send professional email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WordPress site.
- Disqus – Power discussions and increases engagement on your website or blog.
- Monarch – This plugin lets you add social buttons and features that allow visitors to share your content online on your pages and posts.
(You can easily add social sharing to your site using free or inexpensive plugins)
How To Generate More Leads & Enquiries
Let’s take a look now at how to improve sales and generate leads and enquiries online.
Add A Newsletter
Providing a newsletter is a great way to build a list of subscribers. Adding an email newsletter provides several benefits and advantages including:
- Sends targeted traffic
- Keeps readers from forgetting about you
- Provides updates
- Provides you with a highly targeted marketing channel
- It’s a way to offer special services or products to a select audience
- Provides regular opportunities for improving user engagement
- Provides an additional way for your content to be shared online with others
A proven strategy for attracting new subscribers to your email newsletter is to provide high value content and give users a free gift in exchange for their personal details. This could be an exclusive guide, checklists for handling finances, access to financial calculators, discount coupons, access to videos, contests, etc.
Adding Contact Forms
Contact forms make it easy and simple for prospective customers to contact you. A contact form also allows users to report problems, contact specific departments, ask for a quote, give suggestions for new services or products and more.
Contact forms provide many benefits and advantages including:
- Reducing spam
- Set up automated responses
- Gives you control over what is sent to you
- Allows you to keep your email address private
- They can be added to any page or post
- Improves the professional look of your site
- Convenient for users
One of the most popular contact form plugins is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 – WordPress Plugin)
Contact Form 7 is easy to install and configure and lets you create multiple contact forms, customize the forms and the mail contents, add fields, and more.
Supports international languages, Ajax-powered submissions, CAPTCHA, spam filtering and so on.
Something else to consider is adding sections to your contact form so prospects can select which topic they want to discuss. This ensures that contact form requests reach the right person.
Provide Maps
A map helps your visitors and clients find you.
Maps are a useful tool for several reasons:
- Maps increase local SEO
- Clients can better plan their meeting and appointments
- Shows location of events
(Adding maps helps your visitors and clients find you)
Popular map plugins for WordPress include:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
WordPress Plugins And Themes For Improving SEO, Increasing User Engagement And Generating More Visitors To Your Accounting Services Website
Accounting – WordPress Plugins
WordPress makes available a number of plugins you can add to your accounting or financial services website to immediately add a range of practical tools for your site visitors. Here are some of the plugins you can choose from:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators Plugin For WordPress)
This plugin provides a free collection of 400+ calculators. You can embed them into your pages, posts, or sidebars using shortcodes. The plugin also supports internationalization
Most of the calculators aren’t focused specifically on accounting, but there are a few for:
- 401k
- Payments
- Leases
- Equity
- And many more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes Plugin For WordPress)
With this plugin you get a widget that displays up to 20 different stock quotes per portfolio. You can display as many portfolios as you want.
(Show Stock Quotes WP Plugin – Stock Portfolio)
For more details, go here}:
Custom Stock Ticker
(Custom Stock Ticker – WordPress Plugin)
This plugin lets you add custom stock tickers to any page, post, or sidebar with shortcodes.
This plugin provides loads of customizable ticker. You can choose to use built-in skins or customize it yourself to match the look and feel of your website. You can also create custom stocks for individual categories.
Appearance customization features include colours, size, speed, text, and symbols, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator)
This free plugin lets your site visitors calculate indicative repayments online. This is a great tool for calculating car loans, real estate, or any other large loan.
(Finance Calculator – Loan Calculator)
Finance Calculator also contains an application form that sends a message to a specified email address.
It will show payment protection, calculate 12 to 60 months loans and create forms that can be placed in any page or post.
For more details, go here}:
WP-Invoice
(WP-Invoice WP Plugin)
WP-Invoice lets you send itemized invoices to clients.
This plugin integrates billing into WordPress. You can send clients itemized invoices. It also allows you to set up recurring billing. WP-Invoice can be expanded through both free and premium add-ons, like business location, electronic signature, PDF creation, quoting, checkout forms, and more.
The plugin ties into the WordPress user management database to keep track of clients and their information, and integrates with payment processors like PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, 2Checkout, USAePay, and others.
The plugin gives you the ability to add custom payments and charges, insert pre-defined line items and discounts, view invoice status and progression, easily filter and find invoices, see invoice receipts and invoice history, create email notification templates, display reports (collected vs uncollected invoices, most valuable clients and top grossing line items), and more.
For more details, go here}:
All In One Business Management Application
(All In One Business Management Application Plugin)
This is a complete business management system that includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, helpdesk with knowledgebase and ticket management system, CRM and lots more.
(All In One Business Management Application Plugin For WordPress – Invoice)
The plugin supports multiple languages, is fully customizable and provides additional tools such as document management, notice board, and more.
For more details, go here}:
iBilling – Accounting And Billing Software
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software)
This is a scalable business software that lets you manage client data and invoices, tracks your company’s cash flow and net worth, send single-click payment reminders and payment confirmations, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software WP Plugin – Invoice)
It integrates with several online payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
WordPress Themes
To benefit the most from using WordPress, it’s best to choose a theme specifically for accounting. Here is a list of some of the best accountancy themes available. These themes allow you to have a professional-looking accounting website within minutes.
Accounting Pro
(Accounting Pro WP Theme)
Accounting Pro is a turn-key theme for accountants and accountancy firms. It’s responsive, has a drag-and-drop page-builder, has several page templates, custom menu features, a content composer (which improves on the standard WordPress editor), a sidebar manager, auto-resized images, and lots more.
You can expand this theme with premium add-ons.
More information:
Accountancy
(Accountancy – WordPress Theme)
This one offers a variety of built-in styles and layouts to make your accounting site look and feel professional.
This fully responsive (mobile-friendly) theme includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial, it’s lightweight, search engine optimized, and loads fast. Accountancy Theme provides the flexibility you need without bloating your theme with features you don’t need. Free updates and one year of support is included with your purchase.
Go here for more info:
Accounting
(Accounting WordPress Theme)
This premium WordPress theme includes a drag-and-drop builder that allows you to design your website any way you want. The theme also has unlimited sidebars and custom widgets, four different header types, a custom admin panel, different color schemes, custom slider, three different blog types, and is fully responsive (mobile-friendly). Accountancy is a clean-looking, modern and fast loading theme.
Go here for more info:
Kathryn
(Kathryn WP Theme)
Kathryn is built specifically for accounting services. It offers multiple layouts, slider, multiple sidebars, flexible rotator, various color choices, is easy to use, inexpensive, search engine optimized, and is fully responsive. Although this theme could easily suit any profession, it builds a great looking accounting theme. It includes a license for the Soliloquy slider plugin and must be purchased separately from the Genesis Framework.
For more details, go here:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme)
This one was designed to exude professionalism within the accounting industry. Every color, layout element, icon, menu item, page structure, call-to-action, etc., was specifically designed to give your accounting business website a professional look while not looking dull. It’s a turn-key installation but you can still modify it if you want. It’s fully responsive (mobile-friendly) and includes pages for your accounting services, contact form section with consultation requests (downloadable as a CSV file), testimonials, and a blog.
Go here for more info:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate Theme)
WP Advocate is a corporate theme developed for professional service providers such as accountants and attorneys. You can use the theme’s bundled images or upload your own. It also includes a custom post type for staff profiles. It will also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. WP Advocate is a clean and fast-loading theme.
More information:
Divi
(Divi Theme For WordPress)
This is the most flexible theme in Elegant Themes‘ collection. You can create a professional site using the page builder or pre-made layouts. You can modify your layout to your heart’s content.
The builder transforms elements into visual building blocks, allowing you to understand and redesign the structure of their web pages without touching code.
(Divi Theme – Page Builder)
Divi has 40 content modules that you can drag and drop anywhere you want. These modules include multiple layouts, a slider, you can place pricing tables, testimonials, call-to-action, and lots more. It is responsive and fully customizable. Prices start at $69 per year and includes full access to over 80 sleek business themes.
Visit this website to learn more this theme:
The Corporation
(The Corporation WordPress Theme)
This premium theme from Elegant Themes was specifically built to make corporate sites look great.
The Corporation has a page-based home page design with a eye-catching slider, blog design, six different different color schemes, multiple page templates that include contact pages, blog feeds, sitemaps, search page, gallery page, and more. Elegant Theme prices start at $69 per year and includes full access to all themes.
For more information, go here:
Adviser
(Adviser)
This premium theme for WordPress was built specifically to help professionals in the financial industry to build trust online with a clean business design. It’s ideal for businesses that provide services such as investing or tax advice. The Adviser theme includes a recruitment page with hiring announcements and where to send applications. It also includes a lease calculator. It includes multiple shortcodes and widgets, and includes the drag-and-drop visual composer.
For more information, go here:
Tax Help
(Tax Help Theme For WordPress)
This one was specifically designed for financial organizations, tax and financial advisors, and those that provide tax assistance. The theme is designed to show your services professionally and help establish your professional reputation. It provides a range of blog styles, uses a drag-and-drop visual composer, includes a shortcode builder, the Revolution Slider, and many custom shortcodes.
For more details, go here:
Finance Business
(Finance Business – WordPress Theme)
This one was built specifically for firms that provide any type of financial service such as consulting, tax help, insurance, corporate, finance, loans, accounting, and more. It includes a custom CMSMasters Visual Content Composer plugin, around one hundred shortcodes that includes charts and financial content, custom drag-and-drop composer, 2 premium sliders, page settings, color management features, animations, and lots more.
Visit this site for more details about using this theme:
Avada
(Avada Finance WordPress Theme)
Avada is a fully responsive and versatile multipurpose theme that lets you easily build, configure, and run any kind of website you want without touching code, including a website for an accounting or finance-related organization.
To learn more about the Avada theme for WordPress, go here: Avada
We hope that you have found this comprehensive guide on WordPress plugins & themes for improving SEO, increasing user engagement and web traffic generation helpful.
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