In Part 1 of this step-by-step guide on ways to build your accounting business presence online, we provided in-depth information on the following topics:
- Challenges Accountants Face Online
- Opportunities For Accountants In The Digital Economy
- Essential Website Pages
- Tips For Improving The Content On Your Website
In this section, we will continue looking at more ways to grow your accounting business online. Areas covered include:
- Tips For Improving Traffic With WordPress
- Ways To Generate More Leads & Enquiries With WordPress
- WordPress Plugins That Can Improve SEO, Create Better User Engagement And Increase Traffic Generation
To learn more about WordPress plugins and themes, go here:
- Adding New Features And Functionality To Your Web Site With Plugins
- WP For Beginners – An Introduction To WordPress Themes
How To Improve Website Traffic
Web traffic is an integral part of your online business growth. In this section we explore ways to help you improve your web traffic.
Optimize Your Website For Search Engines
There are many ways that WordPress helps optimize your accounting or financial services website for search engines:
- SEO-Friendly – Set the permalinks to create search engine-optimized URLS for your article pages.
- Post Tags – Choose the keywords that you want search engines to index your article pages for.
- Categories – Add SEO-friendly categories for your posts and products.
- Excerpts – Create descriptions for your posts that visitors will see in the search engine results.
- Images – add search-optimized titles to your images for better search results.
- Content Linking – WordPress provides a built-in feature that allows you to easily create internal links for faster indexing of your content
- Post Notification – Set up your WordPress site to automatically notify other search directories immediately upon publishing new content on your site.
WordPress Plugins That Can Help To Improve SEO, Increase User Engagement And Drive More Traffic
As well as the built-in features of WordPress, there are quite a number of plugins that will improve SEO, increase engagement and drive more visitors to your business.
Here are some plugins you can use to improve your SEO:
- Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress sitemap plugin
- Page-List – WordPress site map plugin (for visitors)
(Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your website’s search engine optimization)
Other ways to improve your accounting website’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more web traffic to your website are to add a forum, newsletters, comments, and social sharing. Here are some useful plugins that can help (many of the plugins listed below are also free):
- BuddyPress – Set up your own social network on your website.
- bbPress – This free plugin helps you set up your own forum on your website.
- E-Newsletter – Use E-Newsletter to send email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WP site.
- Disqus – use this WordPress plugin to power discussions and increases engagement on your website.
- Social Media Feather – This WordPress plugin lets you add social buttons and features that allow visitors to share your content online on your pages and posts.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their site using 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 accounting or financial services business.
Add A Newsletter
Adding a newsletter is an excellent way to retain and grow your readership. Adding email newsletters] provides several benefits, like:
- Sends targeted traffic to your website
- Keeps your business at the forefront of your reader’s minds
- Provides updates
- Provides a highly targeted marketing channel
- Allows you to provide special products or services to a select audience
- Increases interaction
- Provides you with other ways for readers to share your content
A proven strategy for attracting subscribers is to provide high value content and offer users free gifts or bonus items in exchange for their details. This could be a handy guide, checklists for handling finances, access to tax calculators, discount coupons, membership access to videos, contests, etc.
Provide A Contact Form
A contact form makes it easy and simple for readers to get in touch. A contact form also allows users to send feedback, ask questions to specific departments, request quotes, give suggestions for new services or products and more.
Contact forms provide a number of benefits and advantages, like:
- Reduces spam
- Set up automated responses
- Gives you control over what gets sent to you
- Allows you to keep your email address private
- Can be added to any post or page
- Looks professional
- Convenient for site visitors
One of the most popular contact form plugins for WordPress is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7)
This free contact form plugin allows you to add multiple contact forms, customize the forms and the mail contents, add fields, and more.
International languages, Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, and Akismet spam filtering is also supported.
Another feature to consider is to add sections to your contact form so visitors can select which department they want to contact. This ensures that contact form requests reach the right person.
Add A Map
Maps help your visitors and customers find you.
A map is a useful tool for several reasons:
- Maps help to improve local SEO
- Helps visitors find you easily
- Show location of events
(Adding maps to your website helps your visitors and clients find you)
Here are just some 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 & Themes For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Better User Engagement And Web Traffic Generation
WordPress Plugins For Accountants
WordPress lets you add a number of plugins to your website that will immediately make available a range of practical tools for your site visitors. Here are just some of the plugins you can choose from:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators Plugin For WordPress)
This is a free collection of 400+ calculators. You can embed them into your posts, pages, or sidebars using shortcodes. Internationalization is supported.
Note: Most of them aren’t focused specifically on accounting, but there are a few you can use for:
- Interest rate
- Payments
- CD
- Equity
- And many more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes)
This plugin gives you a widget that displays a number of different stock quotes per portfolio. You can display as many widgets as you like.
(Show Stock Quotes – Stock Portfolio)
For more details, go here}:
Custom Stock Ticker
(Custom Stock Ticker)
With this plugin you can add a custom stock ticker to any post, page or sidebar with shortcodes.
The plugin includes several customizable ticker. You can choose from built-in skins or customize these yourself to match 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 WordPress Plugin)
This free plugin allows your site visitors to calculate indicative repayments online. This is a useful tool for calculating repayments on car loans, property, or any other large loan.
(Finance Calculator – WordPress Plugin – Loan Calculator)
This plugin also contains an application form that will send a notification message to the email address you specify.
It will display 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 WP Plugin)
WP-Invoice is ideal for WordPress site owners with clients to bill.
WP-Invoice integrates 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, quote creation, 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, and several others.
The plugin lets you add custom payments and charges, create pre-defined line items and discounts, view invoice status and progression, filter and find invoices, show invoice receipts and invoice history, create e-mail notification templates, view reports (collected vs uncollected invoices, ten 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 WordPress Plugin)
This complete business management solution includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, help desk with ticketing system, client relationship management and many additional features.
(All In One Business Management Application – WordPress Plugin – Invoice)
The plugin supports multiple 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)
iBilling is a scalable business software that lets you manage customers and invoices, track your company’s net worth and cash flow, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software WordPress Plugin – Client Invoice)
iBilling integrates with several online payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
Accounting WordPress Themes
To benefit the most from using WordPress to grow your business online, we recommend choosing a theme specifically suited for accounting businesses. Below is a list of some of the best accounting themes available. These themes allow you to have a professional accounting website within minutes and save hundreds to thousands of dollars on the cost of website design.
Accounting Pro
(Accounting Pro WP Theme)
Accounting Pro is an inexpensive turn-key theme created for accountants and accounting firms. It’s a responsive theme with 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, performs auto resizing for images, and lots more.
You can easily expand Accounting Pro with premium add-ons.
Visit the theme site to learn more about using this theme:
Accountancy
(Accountancy – WordPress Theme)
This premium WordPress theme comes with a variety of built-in styles and layouts to help give your accounting website a professional look and feel.
It includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial, and more. It’s lightweight, search optimized, loads fast, and is responsive. Accountancy Theme provides the features your business needs without bloating your theme. Your purchase includes free updates and 1 year of support.
For more details, go here:
Accounting
(Accounting WP Theme)
This premium theme includes a drag-and-drop builder that allows you to design your website any way you want. It also has unlimited sidebars and custom widgets, four different types of headers, a custom admin panel, different color schemes, custom slider, 3 blog types, and is fully responsive. Accountancy is a clean-looking, modern and fast loading theme.
For more information, go here:
Kathryn
(Kathryn – WordPress Theme)
Kathryn is designed for accounting services. The theme allows you to use WordPress as a true CMS and provides a slider, multiple layouts, multiple sidebars, flexible rotator, a variety of color choices, is easy to use, inexpensive, SEO friendly, and is fully responsive (mobile-friendly). Although it can easily fit any profession you want it to, it builds a great looking accounting theme. It includes a license for the Soliloquy slider plugin and is a separate purchase from the Genesis Framework.
More info:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme – Theme For WordPress)
This premium theme for WordPress was developed with the idea of professionalism within the accounting industry. It features an authoritative color scheme and layout elements designed specifically to help make your accounting business website look professional without 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 details section with consultation requests (downloadable as a CSV file), testimonials, and a blog.
Go here for more information:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate Theme)
WP Advocate is a free corporate theme built for professional service providers such as accountants and attorneys. Use the bundled images or upload your own. It includes a custom post type adding employee profiles and can also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. It’s clean-looking and fast-loading.
Go here for more information:
Divi
(Divi Theme For WordPress)
Divi is one of the most flexible themes in Elegant Themes‘ entire collection. Divi lets you create any style of professional site you want using its page builder or pre-made layouts. You can change your layout as much as you need.
The builder transforms web elements into visual building blocks, allowing you to understand and easily redesign the structure of their page without editing any code.
(Divi – Page Builder)
It has 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 fully responsive and fully customizable. Elegant Theme prices start at $69 per year and includes full access to all stunning themes.
More information:
The Corporation
(The Corporation)
This theme was developed specifically to make corporate websites look great.
It has a sleek and professional page-based home page design with a prominent, flashy slider, blog design, 6 unique 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+ professional themes.
Go here for more details:
Adviser
(Adviser WP Theme)
This premium WordPress theme was built specifically to help professionals in the financial industry to build trust online with a clean business design. It’s ideal for businesses that provide services such as investments or tax help. Adviser includes a recruitment page with hiring announcements and where to send applications, lease calculator, multiple shortcodes and widgets, and a drag-and-drop visual composer..
More info:
Tax Help
(Tax Help)
Tax Help was built specifically for financial companies, tax and finance advisors, and those offering tax services. Tax Help is designed to showcase your services in a professional way and help build your professional reputation. It has a range of blog styles, uses a drag-and-drop visual composer, includes a shortcode builder, the Revolution Slider, and many custom shortcodes.
More info:
Finance Business
(Finance Business Theme)
Finance Business Theme was specifically designed for firms that provide any type of financial service including consulting, tax help, insurance, corporate, finance, loans, accounting, and more. This 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 the custom drag-and-drop composer, two premium sliders, page options, color management, animated elements, and a lot more.
Visit this site to learn more about this 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 WordPress plugins & themes for improving search engine optimization, better user engagement and web traffic generation.
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