In Part One of this comprehensive guide on ways to build your accounting business presence online, we covered the following topics:
- Challenges Professional Accountants Face Online
- Opportunities For Professional Accountants
- How To Improve Your Web Pages
- Tips On How To Improve The Content On Your Site
In this section, we discuss more ways to grow your accounting business online. Topics covered below include:
- Ways To Improve Web Traffic Using WordPress
- Tips For Generating Leads & Enquiries
- How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation Using WordPress Plugins & Themes
For more information about WordPress plugins and themes, see the articles below:
- Using WordPress Plugins To Improve Your Blog’s Features And Functionality
- WordPress For Business – An Overview Of WordPress Themes
Online Business Tips For Accountants – How To Improve Your Business Online Using WordPress
Web traffic is an important part of your online business growth. In this section we explore ways to help you improve your web traffic using WordPress.
Optimize Your Website For Search Engines (SEO)
There are many ways that WordPress helps improve SEO:
- URLs – configure the permalinks to use the title of the posts as the web address of your pages.
- Tags – WordPress lets you select the keywords that you want search engines to index your article pages (posts) for.
- Post Categories – Add SEO-friendly categories for archiving and organizing your content.
- Post Excerpts – WordPress lets you compose descriptions for your posts that will display in search results.
- Images – add search-optimized titles to your content images for improved search engine results.
- Internal Content Linking – WordPress has a built-in feature that allows you to easily link internal content
- Pinging – Configure your site to automatically notify other search directories whenever a new post is published on your website.
WordPress Plugins For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Better User Engagement And Web Traffic Generation
In addition to the built-in features of WordPress, the WP community makes available dozens of plugins that will improve your accounting website’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.
For example, here are some plugins you can use to improve your SEO:
- Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress XML sitemap plugin
- WP Tree – WordPress site map plugin (for visitors)
(A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your website’s SEO)
Other ways to improve SEO, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your website are to add a forum, newsletters, comments, and social features. Here are a few more useful plugins that can help (many of the plugins listed below are also free):
- BuddyPress – Run a social network on your website.
- bbPress – Run an online forum on your website.
- E-Newsletter – This plugin lets you send professional email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WordPress site.
- Disqus – Disqus lets you power discussions and helps to increase user engagement on your website or blog.
- Floating Social – This WordPress plugin lets you add social sharing features on your site.
(You can add social sharing to your website easily using WordPress plugins)
Ways To Generate Leads & Enquiries
In this section we show you ways to improve sales and generate new leads and enquiries.
Add An Email Newsletter
Adding a newsletter is a great way to retain and grow your readership. Adding an email newsletter provides several benefits and advantages including:
- Drives targeted traffic to your site
- 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 products or services to a select audience
- Increases engaging with users
- Provides you with additional ways for subscribers to share your content
An effective way to attract newsletter subscribers is to provide them with valuable information and offer them free gifts or bonus items in exchange for their personal details. This could be a handy guide, tips for handling tax, access to tax calculators, discount coupons, membership access to subscriber-only content, contests, etc.
Add Contact Forms
Contact forms provide an easy and simple way for prospective customers to get in touch with you. Visitors can report issues, ask questions to specific departments, ask for quotes, give suggestions for improvements and more.
A contact form provides many benefits including:
- Reduces spam
- Automated response
- 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 website
- Convenient for visitors
One of the most popular WordPress contact form plugins is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 – WordPress Plugin)
Contact Form 7 is easy to install and set up and allows you to create and manage multiple contact forms on your pages and posts, customize the form and the email contents, add fields, and more.
The plugin also supports international languages, Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, spam filtering and so on.
Another option you may want to consider is to segment your contact form so prospective clients can select which aspect of your business they are contacting your company about. This ensures that visitors’ requests reach the right person.
Map Integration
Adding maps to your website helps your visitors and customers find you.
Adding maps (e.g. Google Maps) to your site also provides a number of benefits, such as:
- They help to improve local SEO
- Allows clients to better plan their meeting or appointments
- Show location of events
(Adding maps helps your visitors and clients find you)
Below are some plugins that let you embed, customize and display maps on your WordPress site:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
WordPress Plugins That Can Help To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Drive More Web Traffic
WordPress Financial Plugins
WordPress provides a number of plugins you can add to your accounting site that will immediately add a range of practical tools for your site visitors. Here are some of these plugins:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators Plugin)
This plugin provides a free collection of 400+ calculators. You can embed these into your pages, posts, or sidebars using shortcodes. Internationalization is supported.
Note: Most of the calculators aren’t focused specifically on accounting, but there are quite a few for:
- Mortgage
- Rate of return
- Leases
- Equity
- And many more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes WP Plugin)
With this plugin you get a widget that displays a number of different stock quotes per portfolio. You can display 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 free plugin lets you add custom stock tickers to any sidebar, page or post with shortcodes.
This plugin provides several customizable features. You can choose from built-in skins or customize these yourself to match your site. You can also create custom stocks for individual categories.
Appearance customizations include height, width, background color, number of stocks displayed at one time, text color, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator Plugin For WordPress)
This free plugin allows your users to calculate indicative repayments online. It’s great for calculating automotive loans, property loans, or any other large loan.
(Finance Calculator Plugin – Loan Calculator)
This plugin also contains an application form that will send 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 a form that can be placed in any page or post.
For more details, go here}:
WP-Invoice
(WP-Invoice Plugin)
WP-Invoice is ideal for WordPress business users with clients to bill.
This plugin integrates billing into WordPress. You can send itemized invoices, set up recurring billing and expand functionality with both free and premium add-ons, like business location, electronic signature, PDF creation, quoting, checkout forms, and more.
The plugin ties into WP’s user management database to keep track of your clients and their information, and integrates with PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, 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, seeing invoice receipts and invoice history, creating notification email 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 WP Plugin)
This is a complete business management system that includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, help desk with support ticketing system, client relationship management and lots more.
(All In One Business Management Application Plugin For WordPress – Invoice)
The plugin supports different languages, is fully customizable and provides additional tools like document management, notice board, and more.
For more details, go here}:
iBilling – Accounting And Billing Software
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software Plugin)
This is a scalable business software that lets you manage customer data and invoicing, track your company’s cash flow and net worth, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software Plugin For WordPress – Invoicing)
It integrates with several payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
Financial WordPress Themes
To get the most benefit out of growing your business online with WordPress, it’s best to choose a theme specifically for accounting businesses. Here is a list of some of the best WordPress themes available for accounting. With the themes listed below you can own a professional accounting website within minutes and save hundreds to thousands of dollars on the cost of web design.
Accounting Pro
(Accounting Pro Theme)
This premium theme is a turn-key theme for accountants and accounting firms. It’s responsive, has a drag-and-drop page-builder, offers several page templates, custom menus, a content composer (gives you an improved WordPress editor), a sidebar manager, auto-resizing for images, and lots more.
Accounting Pro can be customized using premium add-ons.
For more details, go here:
Accountancy
(Accountancy Theme For WordPress)
This premium theme for WordPress comes with a variety of built-in styles and layouts to help give your accounting site a professional look and feel.
It includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial section, and more. It’s lightweight, search optimized, loads fast, and is responsive. Accountancy Theme provides the features your business needs without bloating your theme. Free updates and 1 year of support is included with your purchase.
For more details, go here:
Accounting
(Accounting Theme)
This premium WordPress 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, different color schemes, custom slider, three different blog types, and is mobile-friendly. It is a clean-looking, modern and fast loading theme.
Go here for more details about this theme:
Kathryn
(Kathryn)
This premium WordPress theme was developed for accountants. It has a slider, multiple layouts, multiple sidebars, many colors, is easy to use, inexpensive, search optimized, and is fully responsive. Although this theme could easily suit 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.
More info:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme – Theme For WordPress)
Accounting WordPress Theme was built to exude professionalism within the accounting industry. It features an authoritative color scheme and elements designed specifically to make your accounting website look professional while not looking dull. 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, and a blog.
More info:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate Theme For WordPress)
This is a free corporate theme developed specifically for professionals such as accountants and attorneys. You can use the bundled images or upload your own. It includes a custom post type for staff profiles. It will also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. WP Advocate is clean and fast-loading.
More info:
Divi
(Divi WordPress Theme)
This is one of the most flexible themes in Elegant Themes‘ entire collection of WordPress themes. Divi lets you create a unique, professional site using its page builder or beautiful and unique pre-made layouts. You can modify your layout as much as you need.
Divi’s page builder transforms web elements into visual building blocks, allowing anyone to understand and change the structure of their page without touching code.
(Divi – Flexible Page Builder)
It comes with 40 content modules that you can drag and drop anywhere you want. It has multiple layouts, a slider, you can place pricing tables, testimonials, call-to-action, and lots more. It is fully responsive and completely customizable. Theme prices start at $69 per year and includes access to 80+ themes.
For more details, go here:
The Corporation
(The Corporation – WordPress Theme)
The Corporation was specifically created to make corporate websites look great.
It has a page-based home page design with a nice slider, blog design, six unique different color schemes, multiple page templates which include contact pages, blog feeds, sitemaps, search page, gallery page, and more. Prices start at $69 per year and includes full access to over 80 themes.
Go here for more details:
Adviser
(Adviser – WordPress Theme)
This premium theme was developed to help finance industry professionals build trust online with a clean business design. It’s ideal for businesses that provide services like investment advice or tax advice. 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.
More information:
Tax Help
(Tax Help – WordPress Theme)
Tax Help Theme was designed for financial organizations, tax and finance advisors, and businesses offering tax services. It’s designed to show your services professionally to help grow your business reputation. It has different blog styles, uses the drag-and-drop visual composer, includes a shortcode builder, the Revolution Slider, and additional custom shortcodes.
More info:
Finance Business
(Finance Business Theme For WordPress)
This premium theme for WordPress was designed for businesses that provide any type of financial service such as consulting, tax help, insurance, corporate, finance, loans, accounting, and more. The theme includes a custom CMSMasters Visual Content Composer plugin. It also has around 100 shortcodes that includes charts and financial content. It also includes the custom drag-and-drop composer, 2 premium sliders, page settings, color management features, animations, and a whole lot more.
Visit the theme website for more information 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 guide has helped you learn ways of improving your accounting website using WordPress.
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