In Part One of this article on ways to improve your accounting business web presence, we covered the following topics:
- Challenges Accountants Face Online
- Opportunities For Accountants In The Online Economy
- Basic Web Pages
- How To Improve Your Web Content
In this section, we discuss more ways to grow your accounting services business online. Areas covered below include:
- Improving Traffic
- Generate More Leads & Enquiries Using WordPress
- WordPress Plugins & Themes That Improve Search Engine Optimization, Create Better User Engagement And Generate More Visitors To Your Site
To learn more about WordPress plugins and themes, go here:
Ways Of Improving Website Traffic With WordPress
Your web traffic is vital to your online business growth. In this section we explore ways to help you improve your web traffic using WordPress.
Optimizing Your Website For Search Engines With WordPress
There are many ways WordPress can help to improve SEO:
- SEO-Friendly – Set the permalinks to use the title of the post.
- Post Tags – WordPress lets you select the keywords that you want your posts to be indexed for in the search engines.
- Post Categories – Add search engine-friendly categories for archiving and organizing your content.
- Excerpts – WordPress lets you compose the description for your posts that search engines will display in their search result pages.
- Images – add search-optimized titles to your images for better search results.
- Internal Content Linking – WordPress provides a built-in feature that allows you to easily create internal links
- Post Notification – WordPress can be set up to automatically notify (ping) other search directories immediately upon publishing a new post on your site.
WordPress Plugins That Can Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation
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 site’s SEO:
- All in One SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress sitemap plugin (lists all of your pages and posts for indexing by search engines)
- WP Tree – WordPress site map plugin (for visitors)
(A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your SEO)
Other things you can do to improve SEO, increase engagement and drive more visitors to your site are to add a forum, newsletters, commenting, and social sharing. Here are a few fantastic plugins that can help (many of the plugins listed below are also free):
- BuddyPress – This free plugin lets you set up a social community on your site.
- bbPress – Set up a community forum on your site.
- E-Newsletter – Use this WordPress plugin to send professional email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WP site.
- Disqus – use this plugin to power discussions and increases engagement on your site.
- Floating Social – This plugin lets you add powerful social sharing features and buttons on your website.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their site with free or inexpensive plugins)
Generating Leads & Enquiries
This section explains ways to improve your sales and generate leads and enquiries online.
Adding A Newsletter
Providing an email newsletter is an excellent way to build a subscriber list. Adding an email newsletter provides a number of benefits, like:
- Sends targeted traffic to your website
- Keeps your business at the forefront of your reader’s minds
- Provides useful updates
- Provides you with a targeted marketing channel
- Allows you to provide special products or services to a select audience
- Provides regular opportunities for improving user interaction
- Provides you with additional ways for subscribers to share your content
A proven way to attract subscribers to your email newsletter is to provide them with valuable information and give them free gifts in exchange for their details. This can be an exclusive report, checklists for handling finances, access to tax calculators, discount coupons, access to subscriber-only content, contests, etc.
Contact Forms
Contact forms provide an easy and simple way for readers to get in touch with you. Contact forms also let users report problems, contact specific departments, request a quote, send suggestions for improvements and more.
Contact forms provide many benefits and advantages, like:
- Reduces spam
- Set up automated responses
- 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 site
- Convenience for users
A very popular contact form plugin is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 Plugin)
This free plugin is easy to install and set up and lets you insert and manage multiple contact forms on your website, customize your forms and the email contents, add fields, and more.
The plugin also supports international languages, Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, spam filtering and so on.
Another feature to consider is to add sections to your contact form so prospective customers can choose the topic they are contacting your company about. This ensures that visitors’ requests reach the right person.
Add Maps
Adding maps helps your visitors and clients find you.
A map is a very useful tool for several reasons:
- They help to improve local SEO
- Customers can better plan their meeting or appointments
- Show location of events
(Maps help your visitors and customers find you)
Popular map plugins include:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
WordPress Plugins For Improving SEO, Increasing User Engagement And Traffic Generation
Accounting And Financial Services WordPress Plugins
WordPress lets you add a number of plugins to your website to immediately add a range of practical tools for site visitors. Here are some of these plugins:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators Plugin For WordPress)
This is a free collection of over 400 calculators. You can embed them into your posts, pages, or sidebars using shortcodes. Internationalization is supported.
Note: Most of the calculators aren’t focused specifically on accounting, but there are a few for:
- Interest rate
- Rate of return
- Tax
- Equity
- And many more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes Plugin)
With this plugin you get a widget that shows up to 20 different stock quotes per portfolio. You can show as many widgets as you like.
(Show Stock Quotes Plugin – 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, post or page using shortcodes.
This plugin offers several customizable ticker. You can choose to use built-in themes or customize these yourself to match your site. You can also create custom stocks for specific categories.
Appearance customization features include width, height, background color, opacity, scrolling speed, number of stocks displayed simultaneously, font family, text color, font size, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator WP Plugin)
This free plugin allows users to calculate indicative repayments online. It’s great for automotive loans, property loans, or other large loans.
(Finance Calculator Plugin – Loan Calculators)
Finance Calculator also contains an application form that will send a notification message to a specified email address.
Other features of this plugin include displaying 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 Plugin For WordPress)
WP-Invoice is ideal for WordPress users with clients to bill.
WP-Invoice lets you integrate billing into WordPress. You can send itemized invoices, set up recurring billing and expand plugin functionality with both free and premium add-ons that let you manage locations, accept electronic signatures from clients, create PDF invoice versions, create quotes, create single-page checkout forms, and more.
The plugin ties into your WordPress user management database to keep track of your clients and their information, and integrates with PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, and several others.
The plugin lets you add custom payments and charges, add pre-defined line items and discounts, quickly view invoice status and progression, filter and find invoices, show invoice receipts and invoice history, create notification email templates, access 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 is a complete business management system that includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, help desk with knowledgebase and ticketing system, CRM and lots more.
(All In One Business Management Application Plugin – Client Invoicing)
The plugin supports multiple languages, is fully customizable and provides additional tools such as document management, notice board, and more.
For more details, go here}:
iBilling – Accounting And Billing Software
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software)
iBilling is a scalable business software that lets you manage customer data and invoices, track your company’s net worth and cash flow, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software WP Plugin – Invoice)
iBilling Accounting and Billing Software 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. Here is a list of some of the best WordPress themes available for accounting businesses. These themes allow you to have a professional-looking accounting website within minutes.
Accounting Pro
(Accounting Pro Theme)
This premium WordPress theme is a turn-key theme for accountants and accountancy firms. It’s a responsive theme with 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-resized images, and a whole lot more.
Accounting Pro can be expanded by installing premium add-ons.
For more information, go here:
Accountancy
(Accountancy)
This premium WordPress theme comes in a variety of 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, search optimized, and fast loading. It provides the flexibility you need without bloating your theme with features you don’t need. Free updates and one year of support is included in your purchase.
To learn more about using this WordPress theme, visit this website:
Accounting
(Accounting – WordPress Theme)
This premium theme for WordPress includes a drag-and-drop builder that allows you to design your site any way you want. It also has unlimited sidebars and custom widgets, four different header types, a custom admin panel, different color schemes, custom slider, three different blog types, and is responsive (mobile-friendly). Accountancy looks clean and modern and is fast to load.
More info:
Kathryn
(Kathryn)
Kathryn is a premium child theme for the Genesis Framework that’s created specifically for accounting businesses. It has a slider, multiple layouts, multiple sidebars, widgetized home page, various color choices, is easy to use, inexpensive, search optimized, and is responsive (mobile-friendly). Although it could easily suit 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.
For more information, go here:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme)
This one was designed to exude professionalism within the accounting industry. Every color, layout element, icon, menu item, page structure, call-to-action, etc., was designed specifically to help give your accounting business site a professional look. 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 accounting services, contact section with consultation requests (downloadable as a CSV file), testimonials section, and a blog.
To learn more about this WordPress theme, go here:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate)
This is a free corporate theme designed specifically for professional service providers such as accountants and attorneys. You can use the theme’s bundled images or upload your own. WP Advocate includes a custom post type for staff profiles and can also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. It’s clean and loads fast.
For more information, go here:
Divi
(Divi – WordPress Theme)
This premium theme is one of the most flexible themes in Elegant Themes‘ entire collection of WordPress themes. You can create a unique, professional site using its page builder or beautiful pre-made layouts. You can modify your layout to your heart’s content.
Divi’s page builder transforms elements into visual building blocks, allowing you to understand and easily redesign the structure of their page without touching any code.
(Divi – WordPress Theme – Flexible Page Builder)
It comes with 40 content modules that you can drag and drop anywhere you want. This includes accordion, call to action, circle counter, countdown timer, gallery, map, person, sidebar, testimonial, text, fullwidth code, fullwidth portfolio, fullwidth slider, and more.. It is fully responsive and completely customizable. Elegant Theme prices start at $69 per year and includes access to over 80 beautifully-designed themes.
Visit this site to learn more about using this theme:
The Corporation
(The Corporation Theme)
This premium WordPress theme was created specifically to create great-looking corporate sites.
This theme has a sleek page-based home page design with a prominent slider. It also has a blog design and features that toggle on and off. It comes with six different color schemes. It also comes with 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 over 80 professional themes.
Go here for more details:
Adviser
(Adviser Theme)
This one was built specifically to help finance industry professionals build trust with a clean business design. It’s ideal for businesses that provide services like investments or tax advice. It includes a recruitment page with hiring announcements and where to send applications. It also includes a lease calculator. It includes widgets and multiple shortcodes, and includes the drag-and-drop visual composer.
More information:
Tax Help
(Tax Help Theme)
Tax Help was specifically developed for financial organizations, tax and finance advisors, and those offering tax assistance. The theme is designed to show your services professionally to help build your professional reputation. It has a range of blog styles, uses the drag-and-drop visual composer, includes a shortcode builder, the Revolution Slider, and additional custom shortcodes.
To learn more about using this theme, visit the theme website:
Finance Business
(Finance Business Theme)
Finance Business Theme was built for businesses that provide financial services such as tax help, consulting, finance, insurance, corporate, loans, accounting, and more. It 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 settings, color management features, animations, and a lot more.
More information:
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 to improve your website with WordPress themes and plugins.
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