In Part 1 of this article on ways to improve your accounting business online, we provided practical tips and suggestions on the following topics:
- Challenges Accounting Services Face Online
- Opportunities For Accountants
- Your Web Pages
- Tips For Improving The Content On Your Site
In this section, we discuss more ways to grow your accounting business online. Areas covered below include:
- Ways To Improve Web Traffic Using WordPress
- Generate New Leads & Enquiries
- How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Visitors To Your Site Generation With WordPress Plugins & Themes
To learn more about WordPress plugins and themes, go here:
Improve Website Traffic
Web traffic is a vital part of your business growth. In this section, we explore ways to improve your accounting website using WordPress.
Optimize Your Site For Search Engines (SEO) With WordPress
There are loads of ways WordPress can help to improve SEO:
- SEO-Friendly – WordPress lets you set the permalinks to use the title of the posts as the web address of your pages.
- Post Tags – Specify the keywords that you want search engines to index your article pages (posts) for.
- Categories – Add search engine-friendly categories for your posts and products.
- Post Excerpts – Create the description for your posts that will show to search engine users.
- Images – title images with keywords for better search results.
- Internal Linking – WordPress provides a built-in feature that allows you to easily link internal content
- Pinging – Set up your site to automatically notify (ping) other search directories the moment a new post is published on your site.
WordPress Plugins That Can Improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Increase User Engagement And Generate More Visitors
As well as the built-in features of WordPress, there are dozens of plugins for WordPress that improve SEO, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your website.
For example, you can use the plugins below to improve your SEO:
- Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress XML sitemap plugin
- Page-List – WordPress site map plugin (for visitors)
(Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO)
Other things you can do to improve your accounting site’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more visitors to your website are to add a forum, newsletters, commenting, and social features. Here are some useful WordPress plugins that can help (many of the plugins described below are also free):
- BuddyPress – BuddyPress allows you to run a social network on WordPress, with member profiles, messaging, user groups, activity streams, and more.
- bbPress – Set up your own online forum on your WordPress website.
- E-Newsletter – E-Newsletter allows you to send email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WP dashboard.
- Disqus – This WordPress plugin lets you power discussions and helps to increase engagement on your website.
- Social Media Feather – Add social sharing features on your site.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their website with free or inexpensive plugins)
Ways To Generate Leads & Enquiries
Let’s discuss now ways to improve your sales and generate leads and enquiries.
Adding An Email Newsletter
Adding an email newsletter is an excellent way to retain and grow your readership. It] provides a number of benefits, like:
- Sends targeted traffic to your website
- Keeps your business at the forefront of your reader’s minds
- Provides updates that can save businesses time and money
- Provides you with a highly targeted marketing channel
- It’s a way to provide special services or products to a select audience
- Provides regular opportunities for increasing user interaction
- Provides additional opportunities for subscribers to share your content
A proven strategy for enticing visitors to become subscribers is to provide high value information and give users free gifts in exchange for their details. This can be a time-saving guide, tips for handling finances, access to financial calculators, discount coupons, membership access to videos, contests, etc.
Adding Contact Forms
Contact forms provide an easy and simple way for prospective customers to get in touch with you. Users can report issues, contact specific departments, request quotes, give suggestions for new services or products and more.
Contact forms provide many benefits including:
- Reduces spam
- Set up automated responses
- Giving you control over what is sent to you
- Allows you to keep your email address private
- They can be added to any post or page
- Looks professional
- Convenience for site visitors
A popular contact form plugin is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 Plugin)
This plugin allows you to insert multiple contact forms to your pages and posts, customize the form and the mail contents, add fields, and more.
International languages, Ajax-powered submissions, CAPTCHA, and spam filtering is also supported.
Something to consider is to segment your contact form so prospective customers can choose which department they want to contact. This will help you to get the comment to the right person.
Provide Maps
Adding maps to your website helps your visitors and clients find you.
A map is a useful tool for several reasons:
- A map helps to improve local SEO
- Allows customers to better plan their visits and appointments
- Show location of events
(Adding a map helps your visitors and customers find you)
Below are some of the more popular plugins that let you embed, customize and display maps on your website:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
Improving Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Drive More Traffic Using WordPress Plugins And Themes
Accounting And Financial Services Plugins For WordPress
WordPress provides a number of plugins you can add to your website that will immediately make available a range of functional tools for site visitors. Here are just some of these:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators – WordPress Plugin)
This is a free collection of over 400 calculators that you can display on your website. The plugin also supports internationalization
Most of them aren’t focused on accounting, but there are quite a few you can use for:
- Mortgage
- Payments
- Tax
- Credit
- And lots more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes – WordPress Plugin)
This free plugin gives you a widget that displays a number of different stock quotes per portfolio. You can show as many portfolios as you like.
(Show Stock Quotes – Stock Portfolio)
For more details, go here}:
Custom Stock Ticker
(Custom Stock Ticker – WordPress Plugin)
This plugin lets you add a custom stock ticker to any page, post, or sidebar with shortcodes.
The plugin provides several customizable ticker. Choose from built-in themes or customize it yourself to match the look and feel of your website. You can also create custom stocks for specific categories.
Appearance customizations include colors, size, speed, text, and symbols, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator Plugin For WordPress)
This free plugin lets your visitors calculate indicative repayments. It’s great for calculating repayments on automotive loans, property loans, or any other large loan.
(Finance Calculator WordPress Plugin – Loan Calculator)
The Finance Calculator plugin 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 – WordPress Plugin)
WP-Invoice lets WordPress blog owners send itemized invoices to their clients.
WP-Invoice lets you integrate billing into WordPress. You can send clients itemized invoices, set up recurring billing and expand plugin functionality with free and premium add-ons, like business location, electronic signature, PDF creation, quoting, checkout forms, and more.
The plugin ties into the WP user management database to keep track of your clients and their information, and integrates with payment processors like PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, and others.
Plugin features include adding custom payments and charges, inserting pre-defined line items and discounts, quickly viewing invoice status and progression, easily filtering and finding invoices, showing invoice receipts and invoice history, creating notification e-mail templates, accessing reports (collected vs uncollected invoices, 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 system includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, help desk with support ticket management system, client relationship management and lots more.
(All In One Business Management Application Plugin – Invoicing)
All In One Business Management Application supports international languages, is fully customizable and provides powerful 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)
iBilling is a scalable business software that lets you manage and communicate with clients, track 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 – Client Invoice)
iBilling Accounting and Billing Software integrates with several payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
WordPress Themes - Financial Services
To get the best features and professional look for your website, it’s best to choose a theme specifically for accounting businesses. Below is a list of some of the best themes themes available for accounting. These themes allow you to own a professional-looking accounting website within minutes and save hundreds to thousands of dollars on the cost of website design.
Accounting Pro
(Accounting Pro – WordPress Theme)
This is an inexpensive turn-key theme 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 (gives you an improved WordPress editor), a sidebar manager, performs auto resizing for images, and lots more.
You can customize Accounting Pro with premium add-ons.
Visit this website to learn more about using this WordPress theme:
Accountancy
(Accountancy WP Theme)
Accountancy Theme comes in a variety of styles and layouts to help make your accounting site look and feel professional.
This fully responsive (mobile-friendly) theme includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial section, it’s lightweight, search engine optimized, and fast loading. Accountancy provides what you need without bloating your theme with features you don’t need. The cost of purchase includes free updates and one year of support.
To learn more about this WordPress theme, visit the theme website:
Accounting
(Accounting Theme For WordPress)
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 with custom widgets, four different header types, a custom administration panel, different color schemes, custom slider, 3 blog types, and is fully responsive (mobile-friendly). It looks clean and modern and loads fast.
Go here for more details:
Kathryn
(Kathryn)
Kathryn is created for accounting businesses. Kathryn provides multiple layouts, slider, multiple sidebars, widgetized home page, flexible rotator, call to action boxes, author boxes for single or multiple bloggers, various color choices, is easy to use, inexpensive, 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 plugin and is a separate purchase from the Genesis Framework.
To learn more about this WordPress theme, visit this website:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme – WordPress Theme)
This premium WordPress theme was developed with the idea of professionalism within the accounting industry. It features an authoritative color scheme and layout elements designed specifically to make your accounting site look professional while not looking dull. It’s a turn-key installation but you can still modify it if you want. It’s mobile-friendly and includes pages for your services, contact 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)
This is a corporate theme built for professionals such as accountants and attorneys. Use the theme’s bundled images or upload your own. WP Advocate includes a custom post type for employee profiles and can also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. WP Advocate is a clean-looking and fast-loading theme.
More information:
Divi
(Divi Theme For WordPress)
This premium theme for WordPress is one of the most flexible themes in Elegant Themes‘ entire collection of WordPress themes. Divi lets you create a unique, professional website using the page builder or beautiful and unique pre-made layouts. You can change your layout as much as you need.
Divi’s page builder transforms elements into visual building blocks, allowing you to understand and change the structure of their pages without touching a single line of code.
(Divi Theme – Page Builder)
Divi has 40 content modules that you can drag and drop anywhere you want. These include bar counter, blog, contact form, countdown timer, filterable portfolio, login, portfolio, pricing table, testimonial, text, fullwidth image, fullwidth portfolio, fullwidth post title, and more.. Divi is mobile-friendly and fully customizable. Theme prices start at $69 per year and includes full access to over 80 themes.
For more information, go here:
The Corporation
(The Corporation – WordPress Theme)
The Corporation was designed specifically to create great-looking corporate sites.
The Corporation has a page-based home page design with a prominent slider, blog design, six unique unique color schemes, multiple page templates that include contact pages, blog feeds, sitemaps, search page, gallery page, and more. Prices start at $69 per year and includes access to 80+ sleek business themes.
More info:
Adviser
(Adviser WordPress Theme)
This theme 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 like investment advice or tax advice. The Adviser theme includes a recruitment page with hiring announcements and where to send applications, a built-in lease calculator, widgets and multiple shortcodes, and a drag-and-drop visual composer..
Visit this website to learn more this WordPress theme:
Tax Help
(Tax Help)
This premium theme for WordPress was specifically developed for financial companies, tax and finance advisors, and firms offering tax assistance. Tax Help is designed to showcase your services professionally to help establish your business reputation. It comes with a range of blog styles, uses a drag-and-drop visual composer, includes a shortcode builder, the Revolution Slider, and many custom shortcodes.
To learn more about this theme, visit this site:
Finance Business
(Finance Business Theme For WordPress)
This one was designed for organizations 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. It also has around one hundred shortcodes that let you add charts and financial content. It also includes a custom drag-and-drop composer, two premium sliders, page settings, color management features, animated elements, and a lot more.
More info:
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 ways of improving your business online using WordPress.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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