In Part 1 of this article on ways to build your accounting business online, we provided in-depth information on the following areas:
- Online Challenges For Accounting & Financial Businesses
- Opportunities For Accountants In The Web Economy
- Your Website Pages
- Ways To Improve Your Content
In this section, we will continue exploring more ways to grow your accounting services business online. Areas covered below include:
- Improving Web Traffic With WordPress
- Generate New Leads & Enquiries
- How To Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With Plugins
For more information about WordPress plugins and themes, see these articles:
- Using WP Plugins To Extend Your Website’s Functionality
- WordPress For Beginners – An Introduction To WordPress Themes
Tips For Improving Website Traffic With WordPress
Your web traffic is an important part of your online business growth. This section will help you improve your web traffic.
Optimize Your Website For Search Engines
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.
- Tags – Choose the keywords that you want your articles to be indexed for in the search engines.
- Categories – Add SEO-friendly categories for your posts and products.
- Post Excerpts – Set the description for your posts that will show to search engine users.
- Images – add search-optimized titles to your content images for better search results.
- Internal Linking – WordPress provides a built-in feature that lets you easily link your content to other posts and pages
- Pinging – Set up your site to automatically notify other search directories as soon as a new post is published on your website.
Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With WordPress Plugins
As well as the built-in features of WordPress, there are various plugins that will improve your accounting website’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more visitors to your site.
Here are some plugins you can use to improve your SEO:
- Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress XML sitemap plugin
- Page-List – WordPress site map plugin (for visitors)
(A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your website’s SEO)
Other ways to improve SEO, increase engagement and drive more traffic to your business are to add a forum, newsletters, commenting, and social sharing. Here are some more powerful WordPress plugins that can help (many of the plugins listed below can be downloaded at no cost):
- BuddyPress – This plugin allows you to set up and manage your own social network on your website, with member profiles, messaging, activity streams, user groups, and more.
- bbPress – Use this plugin to set up an online community forum on your website.
- E-Newsletter – Use E-Newsletter to send email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WP site.
- Disqus – Power discussions and helps to increase user engagement on your website or blog.
- Social Media Feather – Add powerful social sharing features and buttons on your posts and pages.
(You can add social sharing to your website easily using WordPress plugins)
Generate More Leads & Enquiries Using WordPress
Let’s now discuss how to improve sales and generate leads and enquiries online.
Provide An Email Newsletter
Adding an email newsletter is a great way to grow and retain your readership. It] provides many benefits and advantages, like:
- Sends targeted traffic to your website
- Keeps your business at the forefront of your reader’s minds
- Keeps readers updated
- Provides a targeted marketing channel
- Allows you to provide special products or services to a select audience
- Increases interaction
- Provides additional ways for your content to be shared around with other potential customers
A proven strategy for enticing your visitors to subscribe to your email newsletter is to provide users with valuable content and give them free gifts in exchange for their personal details. This can be a time-saving guide, tips for handling tax, access to tax calculators, coupons, access to courses, contests, etc.
Contact Forms
A contact form provides an easy and simple way for readers to contact you. A contact form also allows visitors to provide feedback, contact specific departments, ask for a quote, and more.
A contact form provides many benefits and advantages, like:
- Reducing spam
- Set up automated responses
- Gives you control over what gets sent to you
- Allows you to keep your email address private
- Contact forms can be added to any post or page
- Looks professional
- Convenient for users
One of the most popular WordPress contact form plugins is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 Plugin)
This free plugin is easy to install and configure and allows you to insert and manage multiple contact forms into any post or page, customize the form and the mail contents, add fields, and more.
The plugin 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 customers can select which aspect of your business they are contacting your company about. This helps visitors get the comment to the right person.
Provide Maps
Adding maps helps your visitors and customers find you.
Integrating maps (e.g. Google Maps), with your WordPress site also provides visitors with a number of benefits, such as:
- A map helps to increase local SEO
- Visitors can easily find you
- Shows location of events
(A map helps your visitors and clients find you)
Below are some of the more plugins that let you embed, customize and display Google maps on your WordPress site:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
WordPress Plugins That Improve Your SEO, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation
WordPress Plugins - Accounting
WordPress lets you add a number of plugins to your accounting or financial services site that will immediately make available a range of functional tools for visitors. Here are some of these:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators WP Plugin)
This is a free collection of 400+ calculators. You can embed them into your pages, posts, or sidebars using shortcodes. It also supports internationalization
Most of the calculators aren’t focused on accounting, but there are quite a few you can use for:
- 401k
- Loans
- Leases
- Debit
- 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 Plugin For WordPress – Stock Portfolio)
For more details, go here}:
Custom Stock Ticker
(Custom Stock Ticker WordPress Plugin)
With this plugin you can add a custom stock ticker to any sidebar, post or page with shortcodes.
Custom Stock ticker offers loads of customizable ticker. You can choose from built-in skins or customize it yourself to match your site. You can also create custom stocks for specific categories.
Appearance customizations include width, height, scrolling speed, background color, opacity, number of stocks displayed simultaneously, typeface, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator)
This free plugin allows users to calculate indicative repayments online. It’s great for calculating repayments on auto loans, property loans, or any other large loan.
(Finance Calculator WP Plugin – Loan Calculators)
Finance Calculator also contains an application form that sends 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 – WordPress Plugin)
WP-Invoice lets you send itemized invoices to clients.
WP-Invoice lets you integrate billing into WordPress. You can send out itemized invoices. It even allows you to set up recurring billing. WP-Invoice can be expanded through both free and premium add-ons that let you manage locations, accept electronic signatures, create PDF invoices, provide quotes, create checkout forms, and more.
The plugin ties into your WP user management database to keep track of your clients and their information, and integrates with payment processors like PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, and several others.
Plugin features include adding custom payments and charges, adding 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 email templates, displaying 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 is a complete business management system that includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, help desk with ticket management system, client relationship management and many more features.
(All In One Business Management Application – 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 Plugin)
iBilling is a scalable business software that lets you manage clients and invoices, track your company’s net worth and cash flow, send single-click payment reminders and payment confirmations, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software Plugin – Invoice)
It allows you to get paid faster online by integrating with several payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
Accounting And Financial Services Themes For WordPress
To benefit the most from using WordPress, it’s best to choose a theme specifically for accounting businesses. Below is a list of some of the best accountancy themes available. These themes allow you to 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)
Accounting Pro is a turn-key theme built for accountants and accountancy 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-resizing for images, and a whole lot more.
You can customize Accounting Pro using premium add-ons.
More info:
Accountancy
(Accountancy – WordPress Theme)
This premium WordPress theme comes in a variety of built-in styles and layouts to help make your accounting website look and feel professional.
This mobile-friendly theme includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial, it’s lightweight, search engine optimized, and fast loading. Accountancy provides the flexibility you need without bloating your theme with features you don’t need. Your purchase price includes free updates and 1 year of support.
More info:
Accounting
(Accounting)
This premium WordPress theme includes a drag-and-drop builder that allows you to design your site any way you want. The theme also has unlimited sidebars and custom widgets, four different header types, a custom administration panel, different color schemes, a custom slider, three different blog types, and is mobile-friendly. It looks clean and modern and is fast to load.
Visit the theme site for more details about this WordPress theme:
Kathryn
(Kathryn – WordPress Theme)
This one is created specifically for accounting businesses. The theme offers a slider, multiple layouts, multiple sidebars, widgetized home page, flexible rotator, call to action boxes, author boxes for single or multiple bloggers, many color choices, is easy to use, inexpensive, search optimized, and is responsive (mobile-friendly). 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.
Visit the theme website for more details about this theme:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme – Theme For WordPress)
This theme was designed to exude professionalism within the accounting industry. Every color, layout element, icon, menu item, page structure, call-to-action, etc., was designed specifically to help give your accounting business website a professional look. It’s a turn-key installation but you can still modify it if you want. It’s fully responsive and includes pages for your accounting services, contact details section with consultation requests (downloadable as a CSV file), testimonials, and a blog.
More info:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate Theme For WordPress)
WP Advocate is a free 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 staff profiles and can also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. WP Advocate is a clean-looking and fast-loading theme.
For more information, go here:
Divi
(Divi)
Divi is the most flexible theme in Elegant Themes‘ entire theme collection. You can create a unique, professional site using the page builder or beautiful pre-made layouts. You can change your layout as much as you need.
The builder transforms elements into visual building blocks, allowing you to understand and change the structure of their pages without editing a single line of code.
(Divi WordPress Theme – Flexible Page Builder)
It has 40 content modules that you can drag and drop anywhere you want. This includes modules such as multiple layouts, a slider, you can place pricing tables, testimonials, call-to-action, and lots more. Divi is mobile-friendly and fully customizable. Prices start at $69 per year and includes full access to 80+ themes.
Visit this website to learn more about using this WordPress theme:
The Corporation
(The Corporation Theme For WordPress)
This premium WordPress theme from Elegant Themes was built specifically to create great-looking corporate websites.
This theme has a page-based home page design with a prominent, flashy slider, blog design, six different different color schemes, multiple page templates which include contact pages, blog feeds, sitemaps, search page, gallery page, and more. Theme prices start at $69 per year and includes access to 80+ themes.
For more details about this WordPress theme, visit this website:
Adviser
(Adviser WordPress Theme)
This one was specifically designed to help professionals in the financial industry to build trust through clean design. It’s perfect for businesses that provide services like investing advice or tax help. 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.
Go here for more information:
Tax Help
(Tax Help Theme For WordPress)
This one was specifically built for financial organizations, tax and financial advisors, and firms that provide tax services. Tax Help is designed to showcase your services professionally and help grow your professional reputation. It has different blog styles, uses a drag-and-drop visual composer, includes a shortcode builder, the Revolution Slider, and additional custom shortcodes.
To learn more about this WordPress theme, visit the theme site:
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, finance, corporate, insurance, loans, accounting, and more. Finance Business 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 the custom drag-and-drop composer, 2 premium sliders, page options, color management, animations, and a whole lot more.
Go here for 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 comprehensive guide has helped you learn WordPress plugins and themes for improving SEO, increasing user engagement and generating more visitors to your accounting website.
Subscribe below to receive 101+ useful WordPress tips that will help you grow your business …
***
"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
***