In Part One of this comprehensive guide on ways to improve your accounting web presence, we provided in-depth information on the following areas:
- Online Challenges For The Accounting Profession
- Opportunities For Accountants In The Web Economy
- Your Website Pages
- Tips For Improving The Content On Your Site
In this section, we discuss more ways to grow your accounting business online. Topics covered below include:
- How To Improve Web Traffic
- Ways To Generate Leads & Enquiries
- WordPress Plugins & Themes That Can Help To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Generate More Visitors
To learn more about WordPress plugins and themes, see the articles below:
- Using WordPress Plugins Enhance Your Blog’s Capability
- WordPress For Beginners – An Overview Of Themes
Ways Of Improving Web Traffic
Web traffic is an important part of your business growth. In this section we explore ways to help you improve your web traffic.
Optimizing Your Site For SEO With WordPress
There are so many ways that WordPress helps optimize your accounting or financial services website for search engines:
- Search Engine-Friendly URLs – configure the permalinks to use the title of the post.
- Tags – Choose the keywords that you want search engines to index your posts for.
- Post Categories – Create search engine-friendly categories for your posts and products.
- Post Excerpts – WordPress lets you compose the description for your posts that search engines will display in their search result pages.
- Images – title your images with keywords for better search results.
- Internal Content Linking – WordPress has a built-in feature that lets you easily link your content to other posts and pages on your site
- Post Notification – WordPress can be configured to automatically notify other sites and directories immediately upon publishing new content on your website.
Improving Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Drive More Visitors To Your Website Using Plugins
As well as the built-in features of WordPress, there are a number of plugins for WordPress that will improve SEO, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your business.
For example, you can use the plugins below to improve your website’s search engine optimization:
- Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress sitemap plugin (for search engines)
- Page-List – WordPress site map plugin
(Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your site’s SEO)
Other WordPress tools you can use to improve your accounting or financial services site’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more web traffic to your site are to add a forum, newsletters, comments, and social sharing features. Here are a few powerful plugins that can help (many of the plugins described below can be downloaded at no cost):
- BuddyPress – This free plugin allows you to set up a social network on your WordPress site.
- bbPress – Run your own community forum on WordPress.
- E-Newsletter – Send professional email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WP dashboard.
- Disqus – This WordPress plugin lets you power discussions and increases user engagement on your website or blog.
- Floating Social – Add social buttons and features that allow visitors to share your content online on your pages and posts.
(You can add social sharing buttons to your site easily with WordPress plugins)
Ways To Generate More Leads & Enquiries
Let’s discuss now how to improve sales and generate leads and enquiries for your accounting business.
Adding An Email Newsletter
Adding an email newsletter is an excellent way to build a subscriber list. Adding an email newsletter provides several benefits and advantages, like:
- Drives targeted traffic
- Keeps your business at the forefront of your reader’s minds
- Provides useful updates
- Provides you with a highly targeted marketing channel
- It’s a way to provide special products or services to a select audience
- Provides new opportunities for improving engagement with your users
- Provides you with additional ways for readers to share your content
An effective strategy for attracting newsletter subscribers is to provide high value information and offer users a free gift in exchange for their details. This can be an exclusive guide, checklists for handling finances, access to tax calculators, discount coupons, membership access to subscriber-only content, contests, etc.
Contact Forms
Contact forms make it easy and simple for prospective clients to contact you. A contact form also lets readers report issues, ask questions to specific departments, request quotes, send suggestions and more.
Contact forms provide several benefits and advantages, like:
- Reduces spam
- Automated response
- Giving you control over what gets sent to you
- Allows you to keep your email address private
- They 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)
Contact form 7 is a free plugin that is easy to install and configure and lets you insert multiple contact forms on your pages and posts, customize your form and the email contents, add fields, and more.
Supports international languages, Ajax-powered submissions, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.
Something to consider is to add sections to your contact form so users can choose which department they want to contact. This ensures that contact form requests reach the right person.
Provide Maps
A map helps your visitors and customers find you.
Adding maps (e.g. Google Maps) to your website also provides users with a number of benefits, such as:
- A map increases local SEO
- Allows clients to better plan their visits or appointments
- Display location of events
(Adding a map to your website helps your visitors and clients find you)
Here are just some of the more popular plugins that let you embed, customize and display Google maps on your website:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Generate More Web Traffic Using Plugins
Financial WordPress Plugins
WordPress makes available a number of plugins you can add to your accounting website that will immediately make available a range of functional tools for your site visitors. Here are just some of these plugins:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators – WordPress Plugin)
This is a free collection of over 400 calculators that you can provide to users on your website. Internationalization is supported.
Most of the calculators aren’t focused on accounting, but there are quite a few you can use for:
- 401k
- Rate of return
- Tax
- Credit
- And lots more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes)
This free plugin gives you a widget that displays up to 20 different stock quotes per portfolio. You can display as many widgets as you want.
(Show Stock Quotes WP Plugin – Stock Portfolio)
For more details, go here}:
Custom Stock Ticker
(Custom Stock Ticker WP Plugin)
With this plugin you can add a custom stock ticker to any post, page or sidebar using shortcodes.
This plugin includes a number of customizable ticker. Choose from built-in themes or customize it yourself. It’s easy to customize it so it matches your website. You can also create custom stocks for individual categories.
Appearance customization features include width, height, background color, opacity, scrolling speed, number of stocks displayed at one time, typeface, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator WordPress Plugin)
This free calculator lets users calculate indicative repayments. This is a useful financial tool for auto loans, property loans, or any other large loan.
(Finance Calculator Plugin For WordPress – Loan Calculator)
Finance Calculator also contains an application form that will send a notification message to a specified email address.
Other features of this plugin include showing 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)
WP-Invoice lets you send itemized invoices to clients.
WP-Invoice lets you integrate billing into WordPress. You can send itemized invoices. It even allows you to set up recurring billing. WP-Invoice can be expanded through both free and premium add-ons, like business location, electronic signature, PDF creation, quoting, single-page checkout forms, and more.
The plugin ties into your 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.
The plugin gives you the ability to add custom payments and charges, insert pre-defined line items and discounts, quickly view invoice status and progression, filter and find invoices, see invoice receipts and invoice history, create notification e-mail templates, access reports (collected vs uncollected invoices, 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 management system, client relationship management and lots more.
(All In One Business Management Application – Client Invoice)
The plugin supports different languages, is fully customizable and provides powerful tools such as document management, to do app, and more.
For more details, go here}:
iBilling – Accounting And Billing Software
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software Plugin For WordPress)
iBilling 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 Plugin – Client Invoicing)
iBilling Accounting and Billing Software integrates with several online payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
WordPress Financial Themes
To benefit the most from using WordPress to grow your business online, we recommend choosing a theme specifically for accounting businesses. Below is a list of some of the best WordPress 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 premium WordPress theme 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, custom menu features, a content composer (gives you an improved WordPress editor), a sidebar manager, auto-resized images, and a whole lot more.
You can customize this theme with premium add-ons.
More info:
Accountancy
(Accountancy Theme For WordPress)
This theme comes with a variety of built-in styles and layouts that helps give your accounting site a professional look and feel.
This responsive (mobile-friendly) theme includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial, it’s lightweight, SEO friendly, and fast loading. Accountancy provides the features your business needs without bloating your theme. Free updates and 1 year of support is included with the cost of purchase.
More info:
Accounting
(Accounting – WordPress Theme)
This premium theme includes a drag-and-drop builder so you can design your site any way you want. It also has unlimited sidebars and custom widgets, four different types of headers, a custom admin panel, four color schemes, a custom slider, 3 blog types, and is responsive (mobile-friendly). It is a clean-looking, modern and fast loading theme.
To learn more about using this theme, go here:
Kathryn
(Kathryn – WordPress Theme)
This premium WordPress theme was developed for accounting businesses. Kathryn offers a slider, multiple layouts, multiple sidebars, a variety of color options, is easy to use, inexpensive, search optimized, and is fully responsive. Although this theme can easily fit any profession, it builds a great looking accounting theme. It includes a license for the Soliloquy WordPress slider plugin and is a separate purchase from the Genesis Framework.
For more details, go here:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme – WordPress Theme)
This one was created to enhance professionalism within the accounting industry. It features an authoritative color scheme and layout elements specifically designed to help make your accounting business website look professional while not looking dull. It’s a turn-key installation but you can still modify it if you want. It’s responsive (mobile-friendly) and includes pages for your services, contact section with consultation requests (downloadable as CSV), testimonials section, and a blog.
More information:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate Theme)
WP Advocate 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. WP Advocate also includes a custom post type adding employee profiles. It will also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. It’s clean-looking and fast-loading.
For more information, go here:
Divi
(Divi Theme For WordPress)
This theme is one of the most flexible themes in Elegant Themes‘ entire theme collection. Divi lets you create any kind of professional site you want 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 web elements into visual building blocks, allowing anyone to understand and easily redesign the structure of their pages without touching any code.
(Divi WP Theme – Flexible Page Builder)
Divi comes with 40 content modules that you can drag and drop anywhere you want. These modules include accordion, call to action, code, countdown timer, image, map, person, shop, testimonial, video, fullwidth code, fullwidth portfolio, fullwidth slider, and more.. Divi is fully responsive and completely customizable. Theme prices start at $69 per year and includes access to over 80 sleek business themes.
Go here to learn more about this WordPress theme:
The Corporation
(The Corporation WP Theme)
The Corporation WordPress Theme was specifically built to make corporate websites look good.
The Corporation has a sleek and professional page-based home page design with a prominent slider, blog design, 6 unique different color schemes, multiple page templates that include contact pages, blog feeds, sitemaps, search page, gallery page, and more. Elegant Theme prices start at $69 per year and includes full access to 80+ stunning themes.
More information:
Adviser
(Adviser Theme For WordPress)
This premium WordPress theme was specifically designed to help finance industry professionals build trust online with a clean business design. It’s ideal for those that provide services such as investing or tax help. It 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 information:
Tax Help
(Tax Help Theme For WordPress)
This theme was designed for financial companies, tax and financial advisors, and firms that offer tax services. This theme is designed to showcase your services professionally to help build your professional reputation. It provides different blog styles, uses the drag-and-drop visual composer, includes a shortcode builder, the Revolution Slider, and many custom shortcodes.
More info:
Finance Business
(Finance Business – WordPress Theme)
This premium WordPress theme was specifically designed for firms that provide financial services including consulting, tax help, finance, corporate, insurance, loans, accounting, and more. This theme 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, two premium sliders, page options, color management features, animated elements, and a whole lot more.
To learn more about this theme, 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
Hopefully, you have found this comprehensive guide on WordPress plugins and themes for improving search engine optimization, increasing user engagement and driving more web traffic useful.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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