In Part One of this guide on ways to build your accounting business web presence, we provided in-depth tips and suggestions on the following topics:
- Challenges Professional Accountants Face Online
- Opportunities For Accounting Businesses
- Essential Web Pages
- Ways To Improve Your Web Content
In this section, we discuss more ways to grow your accounting services business online. Areas covered include:
- Ways Of Improving Web Traffic
- Ways To Generate More Leads & Enquiries
- How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Drive More Visitors To Your Website Using Plugins And Themes
For more information about WordPress plugins and themes, see the articles below:
- Add New Features And Functionality To Your WordPress Website With Plugins
- WordPress For Newbies – An Overview Of Themes
Your Accounting Website – How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Drive More Visitors With WordPress Plugins
Your web traffic is vital to your business growth. In this section we explore ways to help you improve your web traffic using WordPress.
Optimize Your Website For SEO With WordPress
There are many ways WordPress can help to improve SEO:
- SEO-Friendly – configure the permalinks to create search engine-optimized URLS for your articles and posts.
- Tags – WordPress lets you choose the keywords that you want your article pages (posts) to be indexed by in the search engines.
- Post Categories – Add categories for keeping your content organized and easy to find.
- Excerpts – Create an excerpt that will show to search engine users.
- Images – title images with keywords for better search engine results.
- Internal Content Linking – WordPress has a built-in feature that allows you to easily link internal content
- Pinging – WordPress can be configured to automatically notify (ping) other sites and directories the moment a new post is published on your site.
WordPress Plugins For Improving SEO, Better User Engagement And Driving More Web Traffic
As well as the built-in features of WordPress, there are a number of WordPress plugins that will improve your website’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more traffic to your business.
For example, here are some plugins you can use to improve your site’s 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 (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your SEO)
Other ways 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 some more WordPress plugins that can help:
- BuddyPress – This free WordPress plugin lets you set up your own social networking community on WordPress.
- bbPress – Use bbPress to run your own online discussion forum on your site.
- E-Newsletter – Use E-Newsletter to send professional email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WP dashboard, without a 3rd party subscription.
- Disqus – Disqus lets you power discussions and helps to increase engagement on your website or blog.
- Social Media Feather – Add powerful social sharing features on your posts and pages.
(You can add social sharing buttons to your website easily with free or inexpensive plugins)
How To Generate Leads & Enquiries
Let’s now take a look at how to improve sales and generate more leads and enquiries for your business.
Provide A Newsletter
Providing a newsletter is an excellent way to build a subscriber list. Adding a newsletter provides a number of benefits and advantages including:
- Drives targeted traffic to your site
- Keeps your business at the forefront of your reader’s minds
- Provides updates that could save businesses time and money
- Provides you with a targeted marketing channel
- It’s a way to offer special products or services to a select audience
- Provides regular opportunities for user engagement
- Provides you with additional ways for your content to be shared around with other potential customers
One of the things you can do to get visitors to become subscribers is to provide users with information of high value and give them something valuable for free in exchange for their details. This could be a special report, checklists for handling finances, access to tax calculators, discount coupons, access to subscriber-only content, contests, etc.
Contact Forms
Contact forms make it easy and simple for prospective customers to get in touch with you. Readers can report issues, contact specific departments, ask for a quote, send suggestions and more.
Contact forms provide a number of benefits and advantages including:
- Reducing spam
- Set up automated responses
- Giving you control over what is sent to you
- You can keep your email address private
- Can be added to any page or post
- Improves the professional look of your site
- Convenient for visitors
One of the most popular WordPress contact form plugins is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7)
Contact Form 7 lets you insert multiple contact forms into any page on your site, customize the forms and the email contents, add fields, and more.
International languages, Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, and spam filtering is supported.
Another option to consider is to add sections to your contact form so users can choose the topic they are contacting your company about. This ensures that visitors’ requests reach the right person.
Provide A Map
Adding a map to your website helps your visitors and clients find you.
A map is a useful tool for several reasons:
- A map increases local SEO
- Visitors can easily find you
- Displays location of events
(Adding maps to your site helps your visitors and customers find you)
Popular Google Maps plugins include:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Drive More Traffic Using WordPress Plugins & Themes
Accounting And Financial Services – WordPress Plugins
WordPress makes available a number of plugins you can add to your site that will immediately make available a range of functional tools for users. Here are just some of these plugins:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators Plugin For WordPress)
This is a free collection of over 400 calculators. You can embed these into your pages, posts, or sidebars using shortcodes. It supports internationalization
Most of the calculators aren’t focused specifically on accounting, but there are quite a few you can use for:
- 401k
- Rate of return
- Tax
- Credit
- And more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes – WordPress Plugin)
This plugin installs a widget that displays a number of different stock quotes per portfolio. You can show as many widgets as you want.
(Show Stock Quotes Plugin For WordPress – Stock Portfolio)
For more details, go here}:
Custom Stock Ticker
(Custom Stock Ticker Plugin)
This free plugin lets you add custom stock tickers to any sidebar, page or post with shortcodes.
This plugin comes with loads of customizable ticker. Choose from built-in skins or customize these yourself to match the look and feel of your site. You can also create custom stocks for individual categories.
Customize the appearance by changing width, height, background color, number of stocks displayed simultaneously, text color, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator – WordPress Plugin)
This free plugin allows users to calculate indicative repayments. This is a useful financial tool for auto loans, property loans, or other large loans.
(Finance Calculator Plugin – Loan Calculators)
This plugin also contains an application form that will send a notification message to a specified email address.
It will display payment protection, calculate 12 to 60 months loans and create a form that can be placed in any page or post.
For more details, go here}:
WP-Invoice
(WP-Invoice Plugin)
WP-Invoice lets WordPress blog owners send itemized invoices to their clients.
This plugin 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 versions of your invoices, create quotes, create single-page checkout forms, and more.
The plugin ties into your WordPress user management database to keep track of clients and their information, and integrates with PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, 2Checkout, Interkassa, and several others.
WP-Invoice features include adding custom payments and charges, creating pre-defined line items and discounts, quickly viewing invoice status and progression, filtering and finding invoices, showing invoice receipts and invoice history, creating email notification templates, viewing 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 – WordPress Plugin)
This complete business management solution includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, help desk with ticketing system, client relationship management and lots more.
(All In One Business Management Application – Invoicing)
The plugin supports multiple languages, is fully customizable and provides additional tools such as document management, notice board, and more.
For more details, go here}:
iBilling – Accounting And Billing Software
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software WP Plugin)
This is a scalable business software that lets you manage clients and invoicing, tracks your company’s cash flow and net worth, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software Plugin For WordPress – Invoice)
iBilling Accounting and Billing Software integrates with several online payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
WordPress Themes For Accounting
To benefit the most from using WordPress, we recommend choosing a theme specifically suited for accounting. Below is a list of some of the best themes themes available for accounting firms. These themes allow you to own a professional-looking accounting website within minutes.
Accounting Pro
(Accounting Pro Theme)
This is an inexpensive turn-key theme for accountants and accountancy firms. It’s responsive, has a drag-and-drop page-builder, offers several page templates, custom menu features, a content composer (which improves on the standard WordPress editor), a sidebar manager, performs auto resizing for images, and a whole lot more.
Accounting Pro can be expanded with premium add-ons.
More information:
Accountancy
(Accountancy WP Theme)
This one has a variety of built-in styles and layouts that helps make your accounting site look and feel professional.
It includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial section, and more. It’s lightweight, search optimized, fast loading, and is responsive. Accountancy Theme 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.
Go here for more info:
Accounting
(Accounting WP Theme)
This theme includes a drag-and-drop builder so you can design your website any way you want. The theme also provides unlimited sidebars and custom widgets, four different header types, a custom admin panel, four color schemes, a custom slider, 3 blog types, and is fully responsive (mobile-friendly). It is a clean-looking, modern and fast loading theme.
Visit the theme website for more information about this WordPress theme:
Kathryn
(Kathryn WP Theme)
This premium WordPress theme was designed specifically for accounting services. It has multiple layouts, slider, multiple sidebars, widgetized home page, flexible rotator, call to action boxes, author boxes for single or multiple bloggers, many colors, is easy to use, inexpensive, search optimized, and is mobile-friendly. Although it can easily fit 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.
More information:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme – WordPress Theme)
This one was built to exude professionalism within the accounting industry. Every color, layout element, icon, menu item, page structure, call-to-action, etc., is specifically designed to give your accounting business site 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 services, contact section with consultation requests (downloadable as a CSV file), testimonials section, and a blog.
Go here for more information:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate WP Theme)
WP Advocate is a corporate theme developed for professional service providers such as accountants and attorneys. Use the theme’s bundled images or upload your own. WP Advocate includes a custom post type adding employee profiles and can also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. WP Advocate is a clean-looking and fast-loading theme.
More info:
Divi
(Divi Theme For WordPress)
This theme is the most flexible theme in Elegant Themes‘ collection. You can create a unique, professional site using the page builder or beautiful and unique pre-made layouts. You can change your layout as much as you need.
The builder transforms web elements into visual building blocks, allowing anyone to understand and redesign the structure of their page without editing a single line of code.
(Divi Theme – Flexible Page Builder)
Divi comes with 40 content modules that you can drag and drop anywhere you want. These include multiple layouts, a slider, you can place pricing tables, testimonials, call-to-action, and lots more. It is mobile-friendly and fully customizable. Elegant Theme prices start at $69 per year and includes access to over 80 sleek business themes.
For more information, go here:
The Corporation
(The Corporation – WordPress Theme)
This theme was specifically built to make corporate websites look great.
This theme has a sleek and professional page-based home page design with a nice slider. It also has a blog design. It comes with six color schemes. It also has multiple page templates that include contact pages, blog feeds, sitemaps, search page, gallery page, and more. Themes start at $69 per year and includes full access to all stunning themes.
Go here to learn more this WordPress theme:
Adviser
(Adviser Theme)
This premium theme for WordPress was built specifically to help finance professionals build trust with a clean business design. It’s perfect for businesses that provide services like investment advice or tax help. It includes a recruitment page with hiring announcements and where to send applications, lease calculator, widgets and multiple shortcodes, and the drag-and-drop visual composer..
For more details, go here:
Tax Help
(Tax Help – WordPress Theme)
This theme was developed for financial companies, tax and finance advisors, and firms offering tax assistance. It’s designed to showcase your services in a professional way to help establish your professional reputation. It comes with a range of blog styles, uses a drag-and-drop visual composer, includes a shortcode builder, the Revolution Slider, and additional custom shortcodes.
More information:
Finance Business
(Finance Business WordPress Theme)
Finance Business was designed for firms that provide any type of financial service including tax help, consulting, corporate, insurance, finance, accounting, loans, and more. The theme includes a custom CMSMasters Visual Content Composer plugin. It also has around 100 shortcodes that let you add charts and financial content. It also includes a custom drag-and-drop composer, two premium sliders, page options, color management features, animations, and a whole lot more.
Visit the theme site to learn more about this WordPress theme:
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 article has helped you learn how to improve your accounting business online using WordPress.
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