In Part One of this guide on ways to grow your accounting business web presence, we covered the following areas:
- Challenges Accountants Face Online
- Opportunities For Accounting Businesses In The Online Economy
- Your Website Pages
- Tips For Improving The Content On Your Website
In this section, we discuss more ways to grow your accounting business online. Areas covered below include:
- Improve Web Traffic With WordPress
- Generating More Leads & Enquiries Using WordPress
- Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With WordPress Plugins And Themes
For more information about WordPress plugins and themes, see these articles:
- Using WP Plugins – The Easy Way To Enhance Your Blog’s Functionality
- WordPress For Newbies – An Overview Of WordPress Themes
Grow Your Accounting Website – Improving SEO, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With Plugins
Your web traffic is an integral part of your business growth. In this section, we discuss ways of improving SEO, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your accounting site with plugins.
Optimize Your Site For SEO
There are lots of ways that WordPress helps optimize your website for search engines:
- Search Engine-Friendly URLs – configure the permalinks to create search engine-optimized web addresses for your article pages.
- Tags – WordPress lets you select the keywords that you want your article pages (posts) to be indexed for in the search engines.
- Post Categories – Create SEO-friendly categories for your posts and products.
- Excerpts – Set descriptions for your posts that visitors will see in the search engine results.
- Images – add search-optimized titles to your images for improved search results.
- Internal Content Linking – WordPress has a built-in feature that lets you easily link internal content
- Post Notification – Set up your site to automatically notify (ping) other sites and directories whenever a new post is published on your site.
WordPress Plugins That Can Help Improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Improve User Engagement And Generate More Web Traffic
In addition to the built-in features of WordPress, there are quite a number of plugins that improve your accounting or financial services website’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more traffic to your site.
For example, you can install the plugins below to improve your site’s search engine optimization:
- All in One SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress sitemap plugin
- WP Tree – WordPress site map plugin
(Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO)
Other things you can do to improve SEO, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your website are to add a forum, newsletters, commenting, and social sharing. Here are a few more WordPress plugins that can help (many of the plugins listed below can be downloaded at no cost):
- BuddyPress – This free plugin can be used to set up a social community on your WordPress site.
- bbPress – This free plugin allows you to set up your own community forum on your site.
- E-Newsletter – This plugin lets you send professional email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WordPress dashboard, without 3rd-party subscriptions.
- Disqus – Disqus lets you power discussions and increases user engagement on your website.
- Floating Social – Use this plugin to add social sharing features and buttons on your posts and pages.
(You can add social sharing buttons to your site easily using WordPress plugins)
How To Generate More Leads & Enquiries
Let’s discuss now ways to improve your sales and generate new leads and enquiries for your business.
Adding An Email Newsletter
Adding an email newsletter is a great way to build a list of subscribers. Adding newsletters] provides several benefits and advantages, like:
- Drives targeted traffic
- Keeps readers from forgetting about you
- Provides useful updates
- Provides a highly targeted marketing channel
- Allows you to offer special services or products to a select audience
- Increases engagement with users
- Provides additional opportunities for your content to be shared around with others
An effective strategy for getting visitors to subscribe to your email newsletter is to provide high value information and offer users a free gift in exchange for their details. This can be a guide, checklists for handling tax, access to financial calculators, discount coupons, access to subscriber-only content, contests, etc.
Provide Contact Forms
A contact form makes it easy and simple for readers to get in touch. A contact form also lets users send feedback, contact specific departments, ask for quotes, and more.
A contact form provides a number of benefits including:
- Reducing spam
- Set up automated responses
- Gives you control over what is sent to you
- Allows you to keep your email address private
- Different forms can be added to any page or post
- Looks professional
- Convenience for visitors
A very popular contact form plugin for WordPress is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 Plugin)
Contact form 7 is a free plugin that lets you add and manage multiple contact forms on your pages and posts, customize the forms and the email contents, add fields, and more.
International languages, Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, and spam filtering is also supported.
Something to consider is to segment your contact form so prospects can choose the aspect of your business they are contacting your company about. This helps visitors get the comment to the right person.
Map
Adding maps to your site helps your visitors and customers find you.
Inserting maps, such as Google Maps, into your website also provides users with a number of benefits, such as:
- They help to improve local SEO
- Visitors can easily find you
- Displays location of events
(Adding maps helps your visitors and customers find you)
Popular map plugins for WordPress include:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
WordPress Plugins And Themes That Can Help To Improve SEO, Increase User Engagement And Drive More Visitors To Your Accounting Services Website
WordPress Plugins - Accounting Businesses
WordPress lets you add a number of plugins to your accounting site to immediately add a range of practical tools for visitors. Here are some of these plugins:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators Plugin For WordPress)
This plugin provides a free collection of over 400 calculators that you can provide to users on your website and embed into your posts, pages, or sidebars using shortcodes. The plugin supports internationalization
Most of the calculators aren’t focused specifically on accounting, but there are quite a few you can use for:
- Mortgage
- Loans
- Tax
- Equity
- And more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes – WordPress Plugin)
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 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 a custom stock ticker to any sidebar, post or page using shortcodes.
This plugin provides several customizable ticker. Choose from built-in skins or customize it yourself. It’s easy to customize it so it matches your site. You can also create custom stocks for individual categories.
Customize the appearance by changing width, height, scroll speed, opacity, background color, number of stocks displayed simultaneously, typeface, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator Plugin)
This free calculator lets your site visitors calculate indicative repayments online. This is a useful tool for calculating repayments on vehicle loans, property loans, or any other large loan.
(Finance Calculator – WordPress Plugin – Loan Calculators)
The Finance Calculator plugin also contains an application form that sends a 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 Plugin For WordPress)
WP-Invoice lets WordPress blog owners send itemized invoices to their clients.
WP-Invoice integrates billing into WordPress. You can send out itemized invoices. It even allows you to set up recurring billing. It can be expanded through both free and premium add-ons that let you manage locations, accept electronic signatures from clients, create PDF versions of invoices, provide quotes, create checkout forms, and more.
The plugin ties into your WordPress user management database to keep track of clients and their information, and integrates with payment processors like PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, and others.
WP-Invoice features include adding custom payments and charges, adding pre-defined line items and discounts, quickly viewing invoice status and progression, filtering and finding invoices, seeing invoice receipts and invoice history, creating e-mail notification 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 WordPress Plugin)
This complete business management solution includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, helpdesk with knowledgebase and support ticket system, client relationship management and lots more.
(All In One Business Management Application Plugin For WordPress – Client Invoicing)
All In One Business Management Application supports international 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 Plugin For WordPress)
iBilling is a scalable business software that lets you manage and communicate with customers, tracks your company’s cash flow and net worth, send single-click payment reminders and payment confirmations, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software – WordPress Plugin – Client Invoice)
It integrates with several payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
Financial WordPress Themes
To benefit the most from using WordPress, it’s best to choose a theme specifically suited for accounting. Here is a list of some of the best accountancy themes available. With the themes listed below you can have a professional-looking accounting website within minutes and save hundreds to thousands of dollars on the cost of website design.
Accounting Pro
(Accounting Pro Theme For WordPress)
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, has several page templates, custom menu features, a content composer (gives you an improved WordPress editor), a sidebar manager, auto-resized images, and a whole lot more.
You can customize this theme with premium add-ons.
For more information, go here:
Accountancy
(Accountancy Theme For WordPress)
Accountancy Theme comes in a variety of built-in styles and layouts to give your accounting site a professional look and feel.
This fully responsive theme includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial section, it’s lightweight, search optimized, and fast loading. Accountancy 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 your purchase.
For more details about this theme, go here:
Accounting
(Accounting)
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, four color schemes, a custom slider, three different blog types, and is fully responsive. It is a clean-looking, modern and fast loading theme.
More information:
Kathryn
(Kathryn Theme)
This premium theme was developed specifically for accounting businesses. The theme offers a slider, multiple layouts, multiple sidebars, many colors, is easy to use, search engine optimized, and is responsive (mobile-friendly). Although this theme can easily fit any profession, it builds a great looking accounting theme. It includes a license for the Soliloquy plugin and is a separate purchase from the Genesis Framework.
For more information, go here:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme – WordPress Theme)
This premium theme for WordPress was created 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 make your accounting website look professional without 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 accounting services, contact details section with consultation requests (downloadable as CSV), testimonials section, and a blog.
Go here for more information:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate – WordPress Theme)
WP Advocate 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. It will also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. It’s clean-looking and fast-loading.
For more details, go here:
Divi
(Divi Theme For WordPress)
This premium theme is the most flexible theme in Elegant Themes‘ entire collection of WordPress themes. Divi lets you create a unique, professional website using its page builder or pre-made layouts. You can change your layout to your heart’s content.
The builder transforms elements into visual building blocks, allowing you to understand and easily edit the structure of their web pages without editing any code.
(Divi Theme – Flexible Page Builder)
Divi 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 responsive and fully customizable. Prices start at $69 per year and includes access to over 80 themes.
Visit the theme site to learn more about using this WordPress theme:
The Corporation
(The Corporation – WordPress Theme)
The Corporation WordPress Theme from Elegant Themes was built specifically to create good-looking corporate websites.
This theme has a page-based home page design with a eye-catching slider. It also has a blog design. It comes with 6 color schemes. It also has 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 full access to all professional themes.
More information:
Adviser
(Adviser – WordPress Theme)
This premium theme for WordPress was specifically developed to help finance professionals build trust online through clean web design. It’s perfect for those that provide services like investment advice or tax help. Adviser includes a recruitment page with hiring announcements and where to send applications. It also includes a built-in lease calculator. It includes multiple shortcodes and widgets, and includes the drag-and-drop visual composer.
Visit the theme website to learn more about using this theme:
Tax Help
(Tax Help Theme For WordPress)
This premium WordPress theme was built specifically for financial organizations, tax and financial advisors, and firms offering tax assistance. It’s designed to showcase your services in a professional way to help grow your business reputation. It has different 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 WordPress Theme)
This one was built for firms that provide financial services such as tax help, consulting, insurance, finance, corporate, loans, accounting, and more. Finance Business includes a custom CMSMasters Visual Content Composer plugin, around one hundred shortcodes that let you add charts and financial content, custom drag-and-drop composer, two premium sliders, page options, color management features, animated elements, 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
We hope that you have found this guide on how to improve your accounting or financial services business online using WordPress plugins and themes useful.
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