In Part 1 of this guide on ways to build your accounting web presence, we provided in-depth information on the following areas:
- Challenges Professional Accountants Face Online
- Opportunities For Accounting Businesses
- Your Website Pages
- Improve The Content On Your Website
In this section, we will continue looking at more ways to grow your accounting services business online. Topics covered below include:
- Ways Of Improving Web Traffic
- Generating Leads & Enquiries Using WordPress-Based Applications
- WordPress Plugins And Themes That Improve SEO, Create Better User Engagement And Increase Traffic Generation
To learn more about WordPress plugins and themes, see these articles:
- Using WordPress Plugins To Extend Your Website’s Functionality
- WP For Beginners – An Overview Of WordPress Themes
Tips For Improving Web Traffic
Your web traffic is an important part of your online business growth. In this section, we explore ways to improve SEO, increase user engagement and generate more web traffic with plugins.
Optimizing Your Website For Search Engines
There are so many ways that WordPress helps improve SEO:
- URLs – Set the permalinks to use the title of the posts as the URL of your pages.
- Tags – WordPress lets you specify the keywords that you want your article pages to be indexed by in the search engines.
- Categories – Create search engine-friendly categories for keeping your content organized and easy to find.
- Post Excerpts – Create an excerpt that search engines will display.
- Images – title images with keywords for improved search engine results.
- Internal Content Linking – WordPress provides a built-in feature that lets you easily create internal links
- Pinging – Set up your site to automatically notify other search directories immediately upon publishing a new post on your website.
How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With Plugins
In addition to the built-in features of WordPress, the WordPress community makes available quite a number of plugins that will improve your accounting website’s SEO, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your site.
For example, you can use the plugins below to improve your site’s SEO:
- All in One SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress XML sitemap plugin
- Page-List – WordPress site map plugin (for visitors)
(A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your site’s SEO)
Other ways to improve your site’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more traffic to your site are to add a forum, newsletters, comments, and social sharing. Here are some plugins that can help:
- BuddyPress – Run a social community on WordPress.
- bbPress – Run a discussion forum on your WordPress site.
- E-Newsletter – E-Newsletter lets you send professional email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WP dashboard, without requiring a 3rd party subscription.
- Disqus – This plugin lets you power discussions and increases engagement on your website or blog.
- Social Media Feather – Add social buttons and features that allow visitors to share your content online to your website or blog.
(You can add social sharing to your site easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
Ways To Generate More Leads & Enquiries With WordPress-Based Tools
Let’s now discuss ways to improve sales and generate more leads and enquiries.
Adding A Newsletter
Adding a newsletter is a great way to build a list of subscribers. It provides a number of benefits including:
- Sends targeted traffic
- Keeps readers from forgetting about you
- Provides updates
- Provides you with a targeted marketing channel
- It’s a way to provide special products or services to a select audience
- Increases interaction
- Provides you with an additional way for readers to share your content
A proven strategy for attracting new subscribers to your email newsletter is to provide high value information and give users free gifts or bonus items in exchange for their details. This could be a guide, checklists for handling tax, access to tax calculators, coupons, membership access to subscriber-only content, contests, etc.
Add Contact Forms
A contact form provides an easy and simple way for readers to get in touch. Visitors can report issues, ask questions to specific departments, request quotes, send suggestions for improvements and more.
A contact form provides many benefits including:
- Reduces spam
- Automated response
- Giving you control over what gets sent to you
- You can keep your email address private
- Contact forms can be added to any page or post
- Looks professional
- Convenient for visitors
One of the most popular WordPress contact form plugins is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7)
This plugin is easy to install and set up and allows you to create multiple contact forms to your site, customize your forms and the email contents, add fields, and more.
The plugin supports international languages, Ajax-powered submissions, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.
Another feature to consider is to segment your contact form so prospects can choose which aspect of your business they are contacting your company about. This ensures that visitors’ requests reach the right person.
Map
Adding a map to your website helps your visitors and customers find you.
Inserting maps (e.g. Google Maps), into your website also provides many benefits, such as:
- Maps improve local SEO
- Visitors can easily find you
- Shows location of events
(Adding a map to your site helps your visitors and clients find you)
Some of the more popular Google Maps plugins for WordPress include:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
WordPress Plugins That Improve Your SEO, Increase User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation
WordPress Financial Plugins
WordPress lets you add a number of plugins to your accounting or financial services website that will immediately add a range of functional tools for site visitors. Here are some of these plugins:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators)
This is a free collection of 400+ calculators that you can provide to users on your website and embed into your pages, posts, or sidebars using shortcodes. The plugin also supports internationalization
Note: Most of them aren’t focused specifically on accounting, but there are quite a few you can use for:
- Mortgage
- Loans
- Tax
- Credit
- And more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes)
With this plugin you get a widget that shows a number of different stock quotes per portfolio. You can show as many portfolios as you want.
(Show Stock Quotes – WordPress Plugin – Stock Portfolio)
For more details, go here}:
Custom Stock Ticker
(Custom Stock Ticker)
This free plugin lets you add a custom stock ticker to any page, post, or sidebar using shortcodes.
Custom Stock ticker comes with loads of 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.
Customize the appearance by changing width, height, background color, opacity, scrolling speed, number of stocks displayed at one time, font family, font size, text color, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator Plugin For WordPress)
This free calculator allows your site visitors to calculate indicative repayments. This is a great financial tool for calculating auto loans, real estate, or other large loans.
(Finance Calculator WP Plugin – Loan Calculators)
Finance Calculator also contains an application form that sends a notification message to the email address you specify.
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 WordPress Plugin)
WP-Invoice lets WordPress blog owners send itemized invoices to their clients.
This plugin lets you integrate billing into WordPress. You can send itemized invoices, set up recurring billing and expand plugin functionality with both free and premium add-ons that let you manage locations, accept electronic signatures from clients, create PDF versions of invoices, provide quotes, create checkout forms, and more.
The plugin ties into the WordPress user management database to keep track of clients and their information, and integrates with PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, 2Checkout, Interkassa, and many 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, see invoice receipts and invoice history, create e-mail notification 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 WP Plugin)
This complete business management solution includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, helpdesk with knowledgebase and ticket management system, CRM and many additional features.
(All In One Business Management Application – WordPress Plugin – Client Invoicing)
All In One Business Management Application supports different languages, is fully customizable and provides powerful tools like 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 customers and invoicing, 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 – WordPress Plugin – Client Invoice)
It integrates with several online payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
Accounting And Financial Services – WordPress Themes
To get the most benefit out of growing your business online with WordPress, it’s best to choose a theme specifically suited for accounting. Below is a list of some of the best accountancy themes available. With the themes listed below you can own a professional-looking 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 a turn-key theme created for accountants and accountancy firms. It’s a responsive theme with 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 Accounting Pro using premium add-ons.
More info:
Accountancy
(Accountancy – WordPress Theme)
Accountancy offers a variety of built-in styles and layouts to give your accounting website a professional look and feel.
This fully responsive (mobile-friendly) theme includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial section, it’s lightweight, search engine friendly, and fast loading. It provides the flexibility you need without bloating your theme with features you don’t need. The cost of purchasing includes free updates and 1 year of support.
Go here for more details about using this theme:
Accounting
(Accounting Theme)
This premium theme includes a drag-and-drop builder that allows you to design your website any way you want. It also provides unlimited sidebars and custom widgets, four different header types, a custom admin panel, four color schemes, custom slider, three different blog types, and is responsive. Accountancy looks clean and modern and is fast to load.
More info:
Kathryn
(Kathryn – WordPress Theme)
This one is developed specifically for accounting businesses. It has a slider, multiple layouts, multiple sidebars, widgetized home page, flexible rotator, call to action boxes, author boxes for single or multiple bloggers, a variety of colors, is easy to use, search engine optimized, and is fully responsive (mobile-friendly). Although this theme can easily fit any profession, it builds a great looking accounting theme. It includes a license for the Soliloquy slider plugin and is a separate purchase from the Genesis Framework.
More information:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme – WordPress Theme)
This one was designed to enhance 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 responsive and includes pages for your accounting services, contact details section with consultation requests (downloadable as a CSV file), testimonials section, and a blog.
More information:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate Theme For WordPress)
WP Advocate is a free corporate theme developed specifically for professional service providers such as accountants and attorneys. You can use the bundled images or upload your own. It includes a custom post type adding staff profiles. It will also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. WP Advocate is a clean-looking and fast-loading theme.
Visit the theme website to learn more about this WordPress theme:
Divi
(Divi WP Theme)
Divi is one of the most flexible themes in Elegant Themes‘ entire collection of WordPress themes. Divi lets you create a professional site using its page builder or beautiful and unique pre-made layouts. You can change your layout to your heart’s content.
The builder transforms elements into visual building blocks, allowing you to understand and edit the structure of their page without editing any code.
(Divi Theme For WordPress – Flexible Page Builder)
Divi comes with 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. Divi is responsive and completely customizable. Prices start at $69 per year and includes full access to over 80 beautifully-designed themes.
To learn more about using this WordPress theme, visit this site:
The Corporation
(The Corporation WordPress Theme)
The Corporation Theme from Elegant Themes was specifically created to make corporate websites look good.
This theme has a sleek and professional page-based home page design with a eye-catching slider. It also has a blog design. It has six color schemes. It also comes with multiple page templates that include contact pages, blog feeds, sitemaps, search page, gallery page, and more. Themes start at $69 per year and includes access to over 80 stunning themes.
To learn more about this theme, visit the theme website:
Adviser
(Adviser Theme)
Adviser was specifically designed to help those in the financial industry to build trust through clean web design. It’s perfect for those that provide services such as investing advice or tax help. The theme includes a recruitment page with hiring announcements and where to send applications. It also includes a lease calculator. It includes widgets and multiple shortcodes, and includes the drag-and-drop visual composer.
To learn more about using this WordPress theme, visit this website:
Tax Help
(Tax Help Theme)
This premium theme was designed specifically for financial organizations, tax and financial advisors, and those that provide tax services. The theme is designed to show your services in a professional way to help establish your business reputation. It has a range of blog styles, uses a drag-and-drop visual composer, includes a shortcode builder, the Revolution Slider, and additional custom shortcodes.
For more information, go here:
Finance Business
(Finance Business)
This one was built specifically for organizations that provide financial services including tax help, consulting, corporate, insurance, finance, accounting, loans, and more. The 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 lots more.
For more information, 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
We hope that you have found this comprehensive guide on ways to improve your accounting website with WordPress themes and plugins helpful.
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