In Part 1 of this step-by-step guide on ways to improve your accounting web presence, we provided many practical tips and suggestions on the following areas:
- Challenges Professional Accountants Face Online
- Opportunities For Accountants In The Web Economy
- Essential Web Pages
- Tips On How To Improve Your Web Content
In this section, we explore more ways to grow your accounting business online. Areas covered below include:
- How To Improve Web Traffic
- Generating New Leads & Enquiries Using WordPress-Based Applications
- Improve SEO, Increase User Engagement And Drive More Web Traffic Using WordPress Plugins And Themes
For more information about WordPress plugins and themes, see these articles:
- WordPress Plugins – The Easy Way To Extend Your Web Site’s Capabilities
- WordPress For Newbies – An Overview Of Themes
Your Accounting Website – How To Improve SEO, Increase User Engagement And Drive More Visitors With WordPress Plugins & Themes
Web traffic is an important part of your online business growth. This section will help you improve your web traffic using WordPress.
Optimize Your Site For SEO With WordPress
There are loads of ways that WordPress helps improve your accounting or financial services website’s SEO:
- SEO-Friendly – Set the permalinks to create search engine-optimized URLS for your article pages.
- Tags – Choose the keywords that you want your posts to be indexed for in the search engines.
- Categories – Create SEO-friendly categories for your posts and products.
- Excerpts – Set the description for your posts that search engines will show in their search result pages.
- Images – add search-optimized titles to your images for better search engine results.
- Internal Linking – WordPress has a built-in feature that allows you to easily create internal links for faster indexing of pages
- Pinging – Configure your site to automatically notify other sites and directories as soon as a new post is published on your website.
WordPress Plugins For Improving SEO, Better User Engagement And Web Traffic Generation
In addition to the built-in features of WordPress, there are a number of WordPress plugins that will improve your website’s SEO, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your website.
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
(Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your website’s SEO)
Other things you can do to improve your website’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more traffic to your site are to add a forum, newsletters, comments, and social sharing. Here are some more plugins that can help:
- BuddyPress – This free plugin allows you to set up your own social community on your WordPress website, with member profiles, activity streams, messaging, user groups, and more.
- bbPress – This plugin helps you set up and manage a forum on WordPress.
- E-Newsletter – Send email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WordPress dashboard, without 3rd-party subscriptions.
- Disqus – Power discussions and helps to increase user engagement on your website or blog.
- Social Media Feather – Easily add social buttons and features that allow visitors to share your content online on your website.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their website using WordPress plugins)
Generating More Leads & Enquiries Using WordPress
Let’s discuss now ways to improve your sales and generate leads and enquiries.
Provide A Newsletter
Providing a newsletter is a great way to build a list of subscribers. It provides a number of benefits, like:
- Sends targeted traffic to your website
- Keeps your business at the forefront of your reader’s minds
- Provides updates
- Provides you with a targeted marketing channel
- Allows you to offer special products or services to a select audience
- Increases user interaction
- Provides you with additional ways for your content to be shared with new prospective clients
An effective way to attract subscribers is to provide them with valuable content and give them free gifts in exchange for their details. This can be an exclusive report, checklists for handling tax, access to tax calculators, discount coupons, membership access to courses, contests, etc.
Add Contact Forms
A contact form makes it easy and simple for readers to contact you. Contact forms also allow users to send feedback, contact specific departments, ask for quotes, send suggestions for new services or products and more.
A contact form provides a number of benefits and advantages, like:
- Reduces spam
- Set up automated responses
- Giving you control over what gets sent to you
- You can keep your email address private
- Different forms can be added to any post or page
- Improves the professional look of your site
- Convenient for users
A popular contact form plugin for WordPress is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 WP Plugin)
This free plugin allows you to create multiple contact forms into any page or post, customize your forms and the mail contents, add fields, and more.
International languages, Ajax-powered submissions, CAPTCHA, and Akismet spam filtering is also supported.
Something else to consider is to add sections to your contact form so users can select which topic they are contacting your company about. This ensures that visitors’ requests reach the right person.
Map Integration
Adding maps helps your visitors and clients find you.
Inserting maps, such as Google Maps, into your WordPress site also provides visitors with a number of benefits, such as:
- They improve local SEO
- Customers can better plan their visits and appointments
- Display location of events
(A map helps your visitors and clients find you)
Below are some popular plugins that let you embed, customize and display Google maps on your site:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
Improving Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Generate More Visitors With Plugins And Themes
Accounting And Financial Services Plugins For WordPress
WordPress lets you add a number of plugins to your website that will immediately make available a range of functional tools for your site visitors. Here are just some of the plugins you can choose from:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators Plugin)
This is a free collection of 400+ calculators that you can display on your website and embed 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
- Tax
- Credit
- And lots more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes WordPress Plugin)
With this plugin you get a widget that shows up to 20 different stock quotes per portfolio. You can display as many widgets as you want.
(Show Stock Quotes Plugin – Stock Portfolio)
For more details, go here}:
Custom Stock Ticker
(Custom Stock Ticker Plugin)
With this plugin you can place custom stock tickers on any sidebar, page or post using shortcodes.
This plugin comes with loads of customizable features. Choose from built-in skins or customize it yourself to match your site. You can also add custom stocks to individual categories.
Appearance customization features include height, width, background color, number of stocks displayed simultaneously, font size, text color, font family, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator WordPress Plugin)
This free calculator allows users to calculate indicative repayments online. It’s great for calculating car loans, property loans, or other large loans.
(Finance Calculator Plugin – Loan Calculator)
Finance Calculator also contains an application form that will send a notification message to the email address you specify.
It will show 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 – WordPress Plugin)
WP-Invoice lets you send itemized invoices to clients.
This plugin integrates billing into WordPress. You can send 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 the WP user management database to keep track of clients and their information, and integrates with PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, and others.
The plugin gives you the ability to add custom payments and charges, add pre-defined line items and discounts, view invoice status and progression, easily filter and find invoices, see invoice receipts and invoice history, create notification email templates, view reports (collected vs uncollected invoices, 10 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 complete business management system includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, help desk with knowledgebase and support ticketing management system, client relationship management and lots more.
(All In One Business Management Application WP Plugin – Client Invoice)
All In One Business Management Application 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 For WordPress)
iBilling is a scalable business software that lets you manage client data and invoicing, tracks your company’s cash flow and net worth, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software Plugin For WordPress – Client Invoicing)
iBilling integrates with several online payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
Accounting And Financial Services Themes For WordPress
To get the most benefit out of growing your business online with WordPress, we recommend choosing a theme specifically for accounting businesses. Here is a look at some of the best accountancy themes available. With these themes 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 For WordPress)
This premium theme for WordPress is a turn-key theme for accountants and accountancy firms. It’s a responsive theme with a drag-and-drop page-builder, has several page templates, custom menus, a content composer (gives you an improved WordPress editor), a sidebar manager, performs auto resizing for images, and a whole lot more.
Accounting Pro can be customized with premium add-ons.
More info:
Accountancy
(Accountancy – WordPress Theme)
This theme comes with a variety of 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 engine optimized, fast loading, and is responsive. Accountancy Theme provides the flexibility you need without bloating your theme with features you don’t need. Free updates and one year of support is included with the cost of purchasing.
More information:
Accounting
(Accounting WordPress Theme)
Accounting 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 administration panel, different color schemes, custom slider, 3 blog types, and is responsive. It looks clean and modern and loads fast.
Go here to learn more this theme:
Kathryn
(Kathryn WordPress Theme)
This premium theme was built specifically for accounting services. The theme allows you to use WordPress as a true CMS and provides multiple layouts, slider, multiple sidebars, call to action boxes, many colors, is easy to use, search optimized, and is mobile-friendly. Although this theme could easily suit any profession, it builds a great looking accounting theme. It includes a license for the Soliloquy WordPress responsive slider plugin and must be purchased separately from the Genesis Framework.
For more information, go here:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme – WordPress Theme)
Accounting WordPress Theme was developed to exude professionalism within the accounting industry. Every color, layout element, icon, menu item, page structure, call-to-action, etc., is designed specifically to give your accounting website a professional look. It’s a turn-key installation but you can still modify it if you want. It’s mobile-friendly and includes pages for your accounting services, contact form section with consultation requests (downloadable as a CSV file), testimonials section, and a blog.
For more information, go here:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate Theme)
WP Advocate is a free corporate theme developed for professional service providers such as accountants and attorneys. Use the theme’s bundled images or upload your own. WP Advocate also includes a custom post type adding employee profiles and can also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. WP Advocate is clean-looking and loads fast.
Go here for more details:
Divi
(Divi – WordPress Theme)
This premium theme for WordPress is the most flexible theme in Elegant Themes‘ entire collection of WordPress themes. Divi lets you create any kind of professional site you want using its page builder or 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 web pages without editing a single line of code.
(Divi – Page Builder)
Divi has 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 fully customizable. Theme prices start at $69 per year and includes full access to 80+ stunning themes.
More info:
The Corporation
(The Corporation Theme For WordPress)
This theme from Elegant Themes was specifically designed to create good-looking corporate websites.
This theme has a page-based home page design with a prominent slider, blog design, six unique different color schemes, multiple page templates which include contact pages, blog feeds, sitemaps, search page, gallery page, and more. Themes start at $69 per year and includes full access to over 80 sleek business themes.
More info:
Adviser
(Adviser)
This theme was designed specifically to help finance industry professionals build trust through clean design. It’s perfect for those that provide services such as investments or tax help. The theme includes a recruitment page with hiring announcements and where to send applications, lease calculator, widgets and multiple shortcodes, and a drag-and-drop visual composer..
Go here for more details:
Tax Help
(Tax Help Theme For WordPress)
Tax Help was developed for financial companies, tax and financial advisors, and those that provide tax services. Tax Help is designed to show your services professionally to help grow 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.
Visit the theme site for more details about using this theme:
Finance Business
(Finance Business)
This theme was built specifically for organizations that provide any type of financial service such as tax help, consulting, corporate, insurance, finance, accounting, loans, and more. The theme includes a custom CMSMasters Visual Content Composer plugin, around one hundred shortcodes that let you add charts and financial content, a custom drag-and-drop composer, two premium sliders, page options, color management, animated elements, and a lot more.
To learn more about this theme, visit this website:
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 WordPress plugins that improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more visitors to your accounting website.
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