In Part 1 of this guide on ways to improve your accounting web presence, we provided many practical tips and suggestions on the following topics:
- Challenges Professional Accountants Face Online
- Opportunities For Accounting Services
- Your Web Pages
- Improve The Content On Your Site
In this section, we will continue looking at more ways to grow your accounting business online. Areas covered include:
- Ways Of Improving Web Traffic Using WordPress
- How To Generate Leads & Enquiries
- WordPress Plugins And Themes For Improving SEO, Increasing User Engagement And Driving More Web Traffic
For more information about WordPress plugins and themes, go here:
Ways Of Improving Web Traffic With WordPress
Web traffic is an integral part of your business growth. In this section, you will learn WordPress plugins for improving SEO, better user engagement and web traffic generation.
Optimizing Your Website For SEO With WordPress
There are so many ways that WordPress helps optimize your accounting or financial services website for search engines:
- URLs – configure the permalinks to use the title of the post.
- Tags – WordPress lets you choose the keywords that you want your article pages (posts) to be indexed by in the search engines.
- Post Categories – Create categories for keeping your content organized and easy to find.
- Post Excerpts – Create the description for your posts that will appear in search results.
- Images – title images with keywords for improved search results.
- Content Linking – WordPress provides a built-in feature that lets you easily link your content to other posts and pages
- Post Notification – Set up your WordPress site to automatically notify other search directories as soon as a new post is published on your site.
Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Generate More Web Traffic Using Plugins
In addition to the built-in features of WordPress, the WordPress community makes available also a number of plugins that will improve your accounting website’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more traffic to your site.
For example, here are some plugins you can use to improve your site’s search engine optimization:
- Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress XML sitemap plugin
- WP Tree – WordPress site map plugin
(Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO)
Other things you can do to improve your site’s SEO, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your site are to add a forum, newsletters, commenting, and social sharing. Here are a few more fantastic plugins that can help:
- BuddyPress – This plugin lets you run a social community on WordPress, with member profiles, activity streams, user groups, messaging, and more.
- bbPress – Use this free WordPress plugin to set up and run your own online community forum on your WordPress site.
- E-Newsletter – Send email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WP dashboard.
- Disqus – use this WordPress plugin to power discussions and helps to increase engagement on your site.
- Floating Social – Add powerful social sharing features to your website.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site with free or inexpensive plugins)
Ways To Generate Leads & Enquiries
Let’s discuss now ways to improve sales and generate new leads and enquiries for your business.
Add An Email Newsletter
Adding a newsletter is an excellent way to build a list of subscribers. Adding an email newsletter provides a number of benefits and advantages, like:
- Drives targeted traffic to your site
- Keeps readers from forgetting about you
- Provides useful updates
- Provides a targeted marketing channel
- It’s a way to provide special services or products to a select audience
- Provides new opportunities for engaging with users
- Provides you with an additional way for your content to be shared online with other potential clients
A proven way to attract subscribers is to provide high value information and offer users additional bonuses for free in exchange for their personal details. This could be a handy guide, checklists for handling tax, access to financial calculators, coupons, access to courses, contests, etc.
Contact Forms
Contact forms make it easy and simple for readers to contact you. Users can report problems, ask questions to specific departments, request a quote, and more.
Contact forms provide several benefits and advantages including:
- Reducing spam
- Automated response
- Gives you control over what gets sent to you
- Allows you to keep your email address private
- Can be added to any page or post
- Improves the professional look of your website
- More convenient for visitors
One of the most popular contact form plugins is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 – WordPress Plugin)
This free contact form plugin is easy to install and configure and lets you add multiple contact forms, customize the form and the mail contents, add fields, and more.
The plugin also supports international languages, Ajax-powered submissions, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.
Something else to consider is to segment your contact form so prospective clients can choose which aspect of your business they are contacting you about. This helps you get the comment to the right person.
Add A Map
Maps help your visitors and customers find you.
Maps are very useful tools for several reasons:
- Maps help to improve local SEO
- Visitors can find your office more easily and plan their visits better
- Show location of events
(Adding maps to your website helps your visitors and customers find you)
Some of the most popular map plugins include:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
WordPress Plugins & Themes That Can Help To Improve Your Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation
Financial Plugins For WordPress
WordPress lets you add a number of plugins to your website that will immediately make available a range of functional tools for site visitors. Here are some of the plugins you can choose from:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators – WordPress Plugin)
This is a free collection of 400+ calculators. You can embed these into your posts, pages, or sidebars using shortcodes. Internationalization is supported.
Most of them aren’t focused specifically on accounting, but there are a few you can use for:
- Mortgage
- Rate of return
- Leases
- Equity
- And lots more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes)
This plugin installs a widget that displays up to 20 different stock quotes per portfolio. You can display as many portfolios as you want.
(Show Stock Quotes Plugin – Stock Portfolio)
For more details, go here}:
Custom Stock Ticker
(Custom Stock Ticker Plugin For WordPress)
With this plugin you can add custom stock tickers to any page, post, or sidebar with shortcodes.
Custom Stock ticker includes several customizable ticker. Choose from built-in themes or customize these yourself. It’s easy to customize it so it matches your website. You can also create custom stocks for individual categories.
Appearance customization features include width, height, scroll speed, background color, opacity, number of stocks displayed simultaneously, text color, font family, font size, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator Plugin For WordPress)
This free calculator allows your visitors to calculate indicative repayments. This is a great tool for vehicle loans, property loans, or any other large loan.
(Finance Calculator WordPress Plugin – Loan Calculators)
Finance Calculator also contains an application form that will send a notification message to the email address you specify.
Other features of this plugin include displaying payment protection, calculating 12 to 60 months loans and creating a form that can be placed in any page or post.
For more details, go here}:
WP-Invoice
(WP-Invoice WordPress Plugin)
WP-Invoice lets you send itemized invoices to clients.
WP-Invoice integrates billing into WordPress. You can send itemized invoices, set up recurring billing and expand functionality with both free and premium add-ons, like business location, electronic signature, PDF creation, quoting, single-page checkout forms, and more.
The plugin ties into WP’s user management database to keep track of clients and their information, and integrates with PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, 2Checkout, PayPal Payments Pro, and others.
The plugin gives you the ability to add custom payments and charges, create pre-defined line items and discounts, quickly view invoice status and progression, filter and find invoices, show invoice receipts and invoice history, create email notification templates, view reports (collected vs uncollected invoices, 10 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 WordPress Plugin)
This complete business management system includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, help desk with ticket system, CRM and lots more.
(All In One Business Management Application Plugin – Invoice)
The plugin supports different languages, is fully customizable and provides additional tools like document management, to do app, and more.
For more details, go here}:
iBilling – Accounting And Billing Software
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software WordPress Plugin)
This is a scalable business software that lets you manage customer data and invoices, track your company’s cash flow and net worth, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software WordPress Plugin – Invoice)
iBilling Accounting and Billing Software integrates with several online payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
Accounting And Financial Services WordPress Themes
To benefit the most from using WordPress to grow your business online, it’s best to choose a theme specifically suited for accounting businesses. Below is a list of some of the best accountancy themes available. With the themes below you can own a professional accounting website within minutes and save hundreds to thousands of dollars on the cost of web design.
Accounting Pro
(Accounting Pro Theme For WordPress)
This premium theme is an inexpensive turn-key theme developed for accountants and accounting firms. It’s responsive, has a drag-and-drop page-builder, has several page templates, a custom menu feature, a content composer (which improves on the standard WordPress editor), a sidebar manager, auto-resized images, and lots more.
Accounting Pro can be customized using premium add-ons.
More info:
Accountancy
(Accountancy – WordPress Theme)
This premium theme comes in a variety of built-in styles and layouts to make your accounting website look and feel professional.
It includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial section, and more. It’s lightweight, search engine optimized, loads fast, and fully responsive. It provides the features you need without bloating your theme. Your purchase price includes free updates and 1 year of support.
Go here to learn more this WordPress theme:
Accounting
(Accounting – WordPress Theme)
This premium theme for WordPress includes a drag-and-drop builder so you can design your site any way you want. It also has unlimited sidebars and custom widgets, four different types of headers, a custom administration panel, different color schemes, custom slider, 3 blog types, and is responsive. It is a clean-looking, modern and fast-to-load theme.
More information:
Kathryn
(Kathryn WP Theme)
This premium WordPress theme was built for accountants. The theme allows you to use WordPress as a true content management system and comes with a slider, multiple layouts, multiple sidebars, flexible rotator, a variety of 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 plugin and is a separate purchase from the Genesis Framework.
For more information, go here:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme)
Accounting WordPress Theme was created to exude professionalism within the accounting industry. Every color, layout element, icon, menu item, page structure, call-to-action, etc., is specifically designed to help make your accounting business site look professional 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 section with consultation requests (downloadable as CSV), testimonials section, and a blog.
Go here for more details:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate Theme For WordPress)
This is a corporate theme designed specifically for professional service providers such as accountants and attorneys. Use the theme’s bundled images or upload your own. It also includes a custom post type for employee profiles and can also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. WP Advocate is a clean and fast-loading theme.
Go here for more details:
Divi
(Divi WordPress Theme)
This premium theme is the most flexible theme in Elegant Themes‘ entire theme collection. You can create a professional website using the page builder or beautiful and unique pre-made layouts. You can change your layout to your heart’s content.
Divi’s page builder transforms elements into visual building blocks, allowing anyone to understand and redesign the structure of their page without editing code.
(Divi WordPress Theme – Page Builder)
Divi has 40 content modules that you can drag and drop anywhere you want. This includes multiple layouts, a slider, you can place pricing tables, testimonials, call-to-action, and lots more. It is responsive and fully customizable. Themes start at $69 per year and includes full access to all beautifully-designed themes.
Go here for more info:
The Corporation
(The Corporation)
This one from Elegant Themes was specifically designed to create great-looking corporate websites.
The Corporation has a sleek page-based home page design with a prominent, flashy slider. It also has a blog design and features that toggle on and off. It comes with six different color schemes. It also has multiple page templates that include contact pages, blog feeds, sitemaps, search page, gallery page, and more. Theme prices start at $69 per year and includes access to 80+ sleek business themes.
To learn more about this theme, go here:
Adviser
(Adviser WP Theme)
The Adviser WordPress Theme was specifically designed to help finance professionals build trust through clean web design. It’s perfect for those that provide services like investing advice or tax help. It includes a recruitment page with hiring announcements and where to send applications. It also includes a built-in lease calculator. It includes multiple shortcodes and widgets, and includes the drag-and-drop visual composer.
To learn more about this theme, go here:
Tax Help
(Tax Help WordPress Theme)
This premium theme for WordPress was specifically designed for financial organizations, tax and finance advisors, and businesses that provide tax services. It’s designed to showcase your services in a professional way and help grow your business reputation. It has different blog styles, uses the drag-and-drop visual composer, includes a shortcode builder, the Revolution Slider, and additional custom shortcodes.
To learn more about using this WordPress theme, go here:
Finance Business
(Finance Business – WordPress Theme)
This premium WordPress theme was specifically designed for businesses that provide any type of financial service such as consulting, tax help, corporate, finance, insurance, accounting, loans, and more. It includes a custom CMSMasters Visual Content Composer plugin. It also has around one hundred shortcodes that includes charts and financial content. It also includes a custom drag-and-drop composer, 2 premium sliders, page settings, color management, animated elements, and lots more.
For more details, go here:
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
Hopefully, this guide has helped you learn how to improve SEO, improve user engagement and drive more web traffic with WordPress plugins and themes.
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