In Part 1 of this comprehensive article on ways to improve your accounting business web presence, we provided in-depth information on the following areas:
- Challenges Accountants Face Online
- Online Opportunities For Accounting Businesses
- Improve Your Website Pages
- Improving The Content On Your Site
In this section, we continue looking at more ways to grow your accounting business online. Areas covered below include:
- Ways Of Improving Web Traffic
- How To Generate More Leads & Enquiries
- How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Traffic Generation Using Plugins And Themes
To learn more about WordPress plugins and themes, go here:
Improve Website Traffic
Your web traffic is a vital part of your online business growth. In this section, you will learn ways of improving search engine optimization, improve user engagement and increase web traffic to your accounting site generation with WordPress plugins.
Optimizing Your Site For SEO Using WordPress
There are loads of ways that WordPress helps improve your website’s SEO:
- URLs – configure the permalinks to use the title of the post.
- Tags – WordPress lets you specify the keywords that you want your article pages (posts) to be indexed for in the search engines.
- Post Categories – Create categories for archiving and organizing your content.
- Post Excerpts – WordPress lets you compose the description for your posts that visitors will see in the search engine results.
- Images – title your images with keywords for better search engine results.
- Internal Linking – WordPress has a built-in feature that lets you easily link internal content
- Pinging – WordPress can be set up to automatically notify (ping) other sites and directories immediately upon publishing a new post on your site.
WordPress Plugins For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Increasing User Engagement And Traffic Generation
In addition to the built-in features of WordPress, there are quite a number of WordPress plugins that will improve your website’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more traffic to your website.
For example, you can use the plugins below to improve your website’s SEO:
- Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress sitemap plugin (lists all of your pages and posts for search engines)
- Page-List – WordPress site map plugin (for visitors)
(A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your SEO)
Other things you can do to improve your accounting or financial services website’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more visitors to your business are to add a forum, newsletters, commenting, and social sharing. Here are some more powerful WordPress plugins that can help:
- BuddyPress – BuddyPress can be used to run a social network on your WordPress site.
- bbPress – Use the bbPress plugin to run an online discussion forum on your website.
- E-Newsletter – Send email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WP dashboard, without requiring 3rd-party subscriptions.
- Disqus – Disqus lets you power discussions and helps to increase engagement on your site.
- Social Media Feather – Easily add social buttons and features that allow visitors to share your content online to your website.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
How To Generate More Leads & Enquiries
Let’s now take a look at how to improve sales and generate leads and enquiries online.
Providing A Newsletter
Adding an email newsletter is an excellent way to build a subscriber list. Adding email newsletters] provides several benefits and advantages, like:
- Drives targeted traffic to your website
- Keeps your business at the forefront of your reader’s minds
- Provides useful updates
- Provides you with a highly targeted marketing channel
- Allows you to offer special products or services to a select audience
- Provides regular opportunities for interaction
- Provides additional ways for your content to be shared online with other potential customers
One of the best ways to get visitors to subscribe to your newsletter 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, coupons, membership access to subscriber-only content, contests, etc.
Provide A Contact Form
Contact forms make it easy and simple for readers to contact you. Visitors can provide feedback, contact specific departments, ask for a quote, send suggestions for improvements and more.
Contact forms provide a number of benefits and advantages, like:
- Reduces spam
- Set up automated responses
- Gives 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
- Convenience for visitors
A very popular contact form plugin for WordPress is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7)
This free plugin is easy to install and set up and lets you create multiple contact forms, customize the forms and the mail contents, add fields, and more.
Contact Form 7 also supports international languages, Ajax-powered submissions, CAPTCHA, spam filtering and so on.
Another feature you may want to consider is to segment your contact form so visitors can select the topic they want to discuss. This ensures that contact form requests reach the right person.
Add A Map
A map helps your visitors and clients find you.
Adding maps (e.g. Google Maps) to your site also provides users with a number of benefits, such as:
- They help to increase local SEO
- Allows customers to better plan their visits or appointments
- Shows location of events
(A map helps your visitors and clients find you)
Here are some 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
Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Drive More Visitors To Your Accounting Services Site With WordPress Plugins And Themes
Financial Plugins For WordPress
WordPress lets you add a number of plugins to your website to immediately add a range of practical tools for site visitors. Here are just some of these:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators WordPress Plugin)
This plugin provides a free collection of 400+ calculators that you can display on your website. It supports internationalization
Note: Most of the calculators aren’t focused on accounting, but there are a few you can use for:
- 401k
- Rate of return
- Leases
- Equity
- And many more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes)
With this plugin you get a widget that shows a number of different stock quotes per portfolio. You can display as many widgets as you want.
(Show Stock Quotes – 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 using shortcodes.
Custom Stock ticker provides loads of customizable ticker. You can choose from built-in skins or customize these yourself to match the look and feel of your site. You can also add custom stocks to individual categories.
Customize the appearance by changing width, height, background color, scrolling speed, opacity, number of stocks displayed at one time, text color, font family, font size, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator)
This free calculator lets your visitors calculate indicative repayments. It’s great for automotive loans, property loans, or any other large loan.
(Finance Calculator WP Plugin – Loan Calculators)
The Finance Calculator plugin also contains an application form that sends a notification message to a specified email address.
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 WordPress blog owners send itemized invoices to their clients.
This plugin lets you integrate billing into WordPress. You can send out itemized invoices. It also allows you to set up recurring billing. It can be expanded through both free and premium add-ons, like business location, electronic signature, PDF creation, quote creation, 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 others.
You can 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, access 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 Plugin For WordPress)
This is a complete business management system that includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, help desk with knowledgebase and support ticket management system, CRM and lots more.
(All In One Business Management Application – WordPress Plugin – Client Invoicing)
The plugin supports international 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, send single-click payment reminders and payment confirmations, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software Plugin For WordPress – Client Invoicing)
iBilling Accounting and Billing Software lets you get paid faster online by integrating with several online payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
WordPress Accounting Themes
To benefit the most from using WordPress to grow your business online, it’s best to choose a theme specifically for accounting businesses. Below is a list of some of the best accountancy themes available. These themes allow you to have a professional-looking accounting website within minutes.
Accounting Pro
(Accounting Pro – WordPress Theme)
This premium theme for WordPress is a 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 (which improves on the standard WordPress editor), a sidebar manager, performs auto resizing for images, and lots more.
You can customize Accounting Pro with premium add-ons.
Visit this website to learn more about using this theme:
Accountancy
(Accountancy – WordPress Theme)
Accountancy comes with a variety of styles and layouts that helps give your accounting site a professional look and feel.
This mobile-friendly theme includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial, it’s lightweight, SEO friendly, and loads fast. Accountancy provides what you need without bloating your theme with features you don’t need. The cost of purchase includes free updates and one year of support.
Go here for more information:
Accounting
(Accounting)
Accounting Theme includes a drag-and-drop builder so you can design your website any way you want. It also has unlimited sidebars with custom widgets, four different header types, a custom admin panel, different color schemes, custom slider, three different blog types, and is responsive (mobile-friendly). It looks clean and modern and is fast to load.
More info:
Kathryn
(Kathryn – WordPress Theme)
Kathryn is a child theme for the Genesis Framework created specifically for accounting businesses. It comes with multiple layouts, slider, multiple sidebars, flexible rotator, a variety of color options, is easy to use, inexpensive, SEO friendly, and is responsive (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 must be purchased separately from the Genesis Framework.
More info:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme – WP 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 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 mobile-friendly and includes pages for your accounting services, contact form section with consultation requests (downloadable as a CSV file), testimonials, and a blog.
Go here to learn more about using this theme:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate Theme)
This is a free corporate theme designed specifically for professional service providers such as accountants and attorneys. You can use the bundled images or upload your own. It also includes a custom post type adding employee profiles. It will also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. It’s a clean-looking and fast-loading theme.
Go here for more information about this WordPress theme:
Divi
(Divi Theme)
This theme 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 the page builder or pre-made layouts. You can change your layout to your heart’s content.
The builder transforms web elements into visual building blocks, allowing anyone to understand and edit the structure of their pages without editing a single line of code.
(Divi – WordPress Theme – Flexible Page Builder)
Divi comes with 40 content modules that you can drag and drop anywhere you want. These include bar counter, blurb, circle counter, divider, filterable portfolio, login, person, shop, testimonial, toggle, fullwidth image, fullwidth portfolio, fullwidth post title, and more.. Divi is fully responsive and fully customizable. Elegant Theme prices start at $69 per year and includes access to over 80 professional themes.
Go here to learn more this theme:
The Corporation
(The Corporation Theme)
The Corporation was developed specifically to make corporate websites look good.
This theme has a sleek page-based home page design with a prominent slider, blog design, six unique color schemes, multiple page templates that include contact pages, blog feeds, sitemaps, search page, gallery page, and more. Theme prices start at $69 per year and includes full access to over 80 professional themes.
More information:
Adviser
(Adviser Theme For WordPress)
This premium WordPress theme was designed specifically to help those in the financial industry to build trust online with a clean business design. It’s perfect for businesses that provide services like investing advice or tax advice. The theme 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..
Visit this website to learn more about this WordPress theme:
Tax Help
(Tax Help)
This one was specifically built for financial organizations, tax and finance advisors, and those offering tax assistance. The theme is designed to show your services in a professional way to help grow your business reputation. It provides a range of blog styles, uses the drag-and-drop visual composer, includes a shortcode builder, the Revolution Slider, and many custom shortcodes.
More information:
Finance Business
(Finance Business WP Theme)
This premium theme for WordPress was developed for firms that provide any type of financial service such as tax help, consulting, finance, corporate, insurance, accounting, loans, 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, 2 premium sliders, page options, color management features, animated elements, and a whole lot more.
To learn more about this theme, visit the theme 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 and themes for improving search engine optimization, increasing user engagement and traffic generation.
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