In Part One of this article on ways to grow your accounting web presence, we provided in-depth tips and suggestions on the following areas:
- Online Challenges For The Accounting & Financial Services Profession
- Opportunities For Accountants
- Basic Pages
- Improve Your Web Content
In this section, we will continue exploring more ways to grow your accounting services business online. Topics covered below include:
- Ways Of Improving Traffic
- Ways To Generate Leads & Enquiries Using WordPress
- WordPress Plugins & Themes That Can Help To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Generate More Traffic
For more information about WordPress plugins and themes, go here:
- WordPress Plugins – Improving Your Blog’s Features
- WordPress For Beginners – An Introduction To Themes
Ways To Improve Web Traffic
Web traffic is an integral part of your online business growth. This section discusses WordPress plugins that can help improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and increase traffic generation.
Optimize Your Website For Search Engines (SEO)
There are many ways WordPress can help to improve SEO:
- SEO-Friendly – Set the permalinks to create search engine-optimized URLS for your content posts.
- Post Tags – WordPress lets you select the keywords that you want your articles to be indexed for in the search engines.
- Categories – Create SEO-friendly categories for archiving and organizing your content.
- Post Excerpts – Set an excerpt that visitors will see in the search engine results.
- Images – add search-optimized titles to your images for better search engine results.
- Internal Content Linking – WordPress has a built-in feature that lets you easily create internal links for faster indexing of your content
- Post Notification – Configure your site to automatically notify other sites and directories whenever a new post is published on your website.
WordPress Plugins That Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Generate More Visitors
In addition to the built-in features of WordPress, the WP community makes available dozens of plugins that improve your accounting website’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more visitors to your business.
For example, you can use the plugins below to improve your SEO:
- All in One SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress sitemap plugin
- WP Tree – WordPress site map plugin
(Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your site’s search engine optimization)
Other ways to improve SEO, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your site are to add a forum, newsletters, comments, and social sharing. Here are some more WordPress plugins that can help:
- BuddyPress – Set up your own social network on your site.
- bbPress – This plugin can be used to run your own discussion forum on your site.
- E-Newsletter – Use this WordPress plugin to send email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WP dashboard.
- Disqus – Power discussions and helps to increase user engagement on your website or blog.
- Social Media Feather – This plugin lets you add social buttons and features that allow visitors to share your content online to your website.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their site with free or inexpensive plugins)
Generate More Leads & Enquiries Using WordPress-Based Tools
Let’s discuss now how to improve your sales and generate more leads and enquiries online.
Providing A Newsletter
Adding an email newsletter is an excellent way to retain and grow your readership. It] provides several benefits including:
- Drives targeted traffic to your website
- Keeps readers from forgetting about you
- Provides updates that could save businesses time and money
- Provides a targeted marketing channel
- It’s a way to provide special services or products to a select audience
- Increases user interaction
- Provides another way for your content to be shared online with new potential customers
A proven strategy for attracting new subscribers to your newsletter is to provide them with valuable information and give them free gifts or bonus items in exchange for their details. This can be an exclusive report, tips for handling tax, access to tax calculators, discount coupons, access to videos, contests, etc.
Add Contact Forms
Contact forms provide an easy and simple way for readers to get in touch with you. Readers can report issues, ask questions to specific departments, ask for quotes, and more.
Contact forms provide many benefits, like:
- Reducing spam
- Automated response
- Gives you control over what is sent to you
- You can keep your email address private
- Can be added to any page or post
- Looks professional
- Is convenient for visitors
One of the most popular WordPress contact form plugins is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 Plugin For WordPress)
This free plugin allows you to create multiple contact forms, customize your form and the email contents, add fields, and more.
Supports international languages, Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.
Something else to consider is adding sections to your contact form so visitors can choose which department they want to contact. This ensures that visitors get the comment to the right person.
Add Maps
Adding maps helps your visitors and clients find you.
A map is a great tool for several reasons:
- Maps increase local SEO
- Visitors can find you easily and helps plan their trips better
- Shows location of events
(A map helps your visitors and customers find you)
Popular Google Maps plugins for WordPress include:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With Plugins & Themes
Accounting And Financial Services – WordPress Plugins
WordPress provides a number of plugins you can add to your site that will immediately add a range of functional tools for site visitors. Here are just some of these plugins:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators Plugin For WordPress)
This plugin provides a free collection of over 400 calculators that you can provide to users on your website and embed into your pages, posts, or sidebars using shortcodes. Internationalization is supported.
Most of them aren’t focused specifically on accounting, but there are quite a few for:
- Interest rate
- Loans
- Tax
- Debit
- And many more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes WordPress Plugin)
With this plugin you get a widget that shows up to 20 different stock quotes per portfolio. You can show as many widgets as you like.
(Show Stock Quotes WP Plugin – Stock Portfolio)
For more details, go here}:
Custom Stock Ticker
(Custom Stock Ticker)
This free plugin lets you place a custom stock ticker on any sidebar, page or post with shortcodes.
Custom Stock ticker comes with a number of customizable features. Choose from built-in themes or customize these yourself. It’s easy to customize it so it matches your website. You can also add custom stocks to specific categories.
Appearance customization features include colors, size, speed, text, and symbols, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator WordPress Plugin)
This free plugin allows your visitors to calculate indicative repayments online. This is a great financial tool for calculating repayments on car loans, real estate, or other large loans.
(Finance Calculator Plugin – Loan Calculators)
The plugin also contains an application form that will send a message to the email address you specify.
Other features of this plugin include displaying payment protection, calculating 12 to 60 months loans and creating forms that can be placed in any page or post.
For more details, go here}:
WP-Invoice
(WP-Invoice Plugin)
WP-Invoice is ideal for WordPress users with clients to bill.
WP-Invoice integrates billing into WordPress. You can send out itemized invoices, set up recurring billing and expand functionality with free and premium add-ons that let you manage locations, accept electronic signatures, create PDF versions of your invoices, provide quotes, create checkout forms, and more.
The plugin ties into the WP user management database to keep track of clients and their information, and integrates with payment processors like PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, and several others.
You can add custom payments and charges, create pre-defined line items and discounts, view invoice status and progression, filter and find invoices, see invoice receipts and invoice history, create notification e-mail templates, display reports (collected vs uncollected invoices, ten 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 support ticketing system, CRM and many additional features.
(All In One Business Management Application Plugin – Invoice)
All In One Business Management Application supports international 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 client data and invoicing, tracks your company’s net worth and cash flow, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software WordPress Plugin – Invoice)
It integrates with several online payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
Accounting And Financial Services Themes For WordPress
To get the most benefit out of growing your business online with WordPress, it’s best to choose a theme specifically for accounting businesses. Here is a list of some of the best themes themes available for accounting. With the themes listed below you can own a professional accounting website within minutes and save hundreds to thousands of dollars on the cost of website design.
Accounting Pro
(Accounting Pro Theme For WordPress)
This premium theme for WordPress is an inexpensive turn-key theme for accountants and accountancy firms. It’s a responsive theme with a drag-and-drop page-builder, offers several page templates, custom menus, a content composer (gives you an improved WordPress editor), a sidebar manager, auto-resizing for images, and lots more.
You can expand this theme using premium add-ons.
For more details, go here:
Accountancy
(Accountancy Theme For WordPress)
Accountancy comes with a variety of styles and layouts to help give your accounting site a professional look and feel.
This fully responsive (mobile-friendly) theme includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial, it’s lightweight, search optimized, and fast loading. Accountancy Theme provides the features your business needs without bloating your theme. Free updates and 1 year of support is included with the cost of purchasing.
Visit the theme site to learn more this WordPress theme:
Accounting
(Accounting Theme)
This theme includes a drag-and-drop builder so you can design your website any way you want. It also has unlimited sidebars with custom widgets, four different header types, a custom admin panel, different color schemes, a custom slider, 3 blog types, and is fully responsive. Accountancy looks clean and modern and loads fast.
More info:
Kathryn
(Kathryn)
Kathryn is built specifically for accounting services. The theme offers a slider, multiple layouts, multiple sidebars, a variety of color options, is easy to use, search engine optimized, and is fully responsive (mobile-friendly). Although this theme can easily fit any profession you like, 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.
Go here for more info:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme)
This one was developed with the idea of professionalism within the accounting industry. It features an authoritative color scheme and layout elements designed specifically to help give your accounting website a professional look. 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 to learn more this theme:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate Theme For WordPress)
This is a free corporate theme built for professionals 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 and can also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. It’s a clean-looking and fast-loading theme.
Go here for more info:
Divi
(Divi Theme)
This is the most flexible theme in Elegant Themes‘ collection. Divi lets you create a unique, professional site using the page builder or beautiful pre-made layouts. You can change your layout as much as you need.
Divi’s page builder transforms elements into visual building blocks, allowing anyone to understand and redesign the structure of their web pages without editing any code.
(Divi Theme – Page Builder)
Divi comes with 40 content modules that you can drag and drop anywhere you want. This includes modules such as accordion, blog, code, email optin, image, map, person, pricing table, testimonial, video slider, fullwidth code, fullwidth portfolio, fullwidth post title, and more.. It is mobile-friendly and completely customizable. Themes start at $69 per year and includes access to all themes.
More info:
The Corporation
(The Corporation Theme For WordPress)
This theme was specifically created to make corporate websites look great.
The Corporation has a sleek page-based home page design with a nice slider. It also has a blog design. It comes with 6 color schemes. It also comes with multiple page templates which include contact pages, blog feeds, sitemaps, search page, gallery page, and more. Themes start at $69 per year and includes full access to over 80 stunning themes.
Go here to learn more about this theme:
Adviser
(Adviser – WordPress Theme)
The Adviser WordPress Theme was developed to help finance professionals build trust through clean web design. It’s ideal for businesses that provide services like investment advice or tax help. Adviser includes a recruitment page with hiring announcements and where to send applications. It also includes a built-in lease calculator. It includes widgets and multiple shortcodes, and includes the drag-and-drop visual composer.
More info:
Tax Help
(Tax Help – WordPress Theme)
Tax Help Theme was built for financial companies, tax and finance advisors, and those that provide tax assistance. The theme is designed to showcase your services professionally to help build your business reputation. It has different blog styles, uses a drag-and-drop visual composer, includes a shortcode builder, the Revolution Slider, and additional custom shortcodes.
Go here to learn more about this WordPress theme:
Finance Business
(Finance Business – WordPress Theme)
Finance Business was specifically built for businesses that provide financial services including tax help, consulting, corporate, finance, insurance, loans, accounting, and more. This theme includes a custom CMSMasters Visual Content Composer plugin, around one hundred shortcodes that let you add charts and financial content, custom drag-and-drop composer, 2 premium sliders, page options, color management, animations, and a whole lot more.
More information:
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, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic with WordPress plugins and themes.
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