In Part One of this step-by-step article on ways to improve your accounting business presence online, we provided many practical tips and suggestions on the following areas:
- Challenges Professional Accountants Face Online
- Online Opportunities For Accounting Professionals
- How To Improve Your Web Pages
- Ways To Improve Your Web Content
In this section, we continue exploring more ways to grow your accounting services business online. Areas covered include:
- Improve Web Traffic With WordPress
- Ways To Generate New Leads & Enquiries Using WordPress-Based Applications
- Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Drive More Web Traffic Using WordPress Plugins & Themes
For more information about WordPress plugins and themes, go here:
- Adding New Functionality To Your Blog With Plugins
- WordPress For Beginners – An Overview Of WordPress Themes
Tips For Accountants – WordPress Plugins For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Better User Engagement And Driving More Visitors To Your Site
Web traffic is vital to your online business growth. This section discusses ways of improving search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more traffic with WordPress plugins.
Optimizing Your Site For Search Engines
There are so many ways WordPress can help to improve SEO:
- SEO-Friendly – configure the permalinks to create search engine-optimized web addresses for your posts.
- Post Tags – WordPress lets you select the keywords that you want search engines to index your article pages (posts) for.
- Post Categories – Create categories for keeping your content organized and easy to find.
- Excerpts – WordPress lets you compose an excerpt that will display to search engine users.
- Images – title images with keywords for improved search engine 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 other sites and directories the moment a new post is published on your site.
How To Improve SEO, Increase User Engagement And Drive More Visitors Using WordPress Plugins
As well as the built-in features of WordPress, there are dozens of WordPress plugins that improve your accounting website’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more visitors to your site.
For example, you can use the plugins below to improve your SEO:
- Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress sitemap plugin
- WP Tree – WordPress site map plugin (for visitors)
(Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO)
Other things you can do to improve your site’s SEO, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your website are to add a forum, newsletters, comments, and social sharing features. Here are a few more plugins that can help (many of the plugins listed below can be downloaded at no cost):
- BuddyPress – BuddyPress can be used to set up a social community on your website, with member profiles, messaging, user groups, activity streams, and more.
- bbPress – Set up an online forum on your WordPress website.
- E-Newsletter – E-Newsletter allows you to send email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WP dashboard, without a third party subscription.
- Disqus – Disqus lets you power discussions and increases user engagement on your website or blog.
- Floating Social – This plugin lets you add social buttons and features that allow visitors to share your content online to your website.
(You can add social sharing features to your site easily using WordPress plugins)
Generating New Leads & Enquiries With WordPress
Let’s discuss now how to improve sales and generate new leads and enquiries online.
Adding An Email Newsletter
Adding a newsletter is a great way to build a list of subscribers. It] provides a number of benefits and advantages including:
- Drives targeted traffic to your site
- Keeps your business at the forefront of your reader’s minds
- Provides useful updates
- Provides you with a targeted marketing channel
- Allows you to offer special products or services to a select audience
- Provides regular opportunities for user engagement
- Provides you with another way for readers to share your content
One of the best ways to get visitors to become subscribers is to provide users with information of high value and give them a free gift in exchange for their personal details. This could be a time-saving guide, tips for handling tax, access to tax calculators, discount coupons, membership access to videos, contests, etc.
Provide A Contact Form
Contact forms make it easy and simple for readers to get in touch. A contact form also lets visitors send feedback, ask questions to specific departments, request a quote, and more.
A contact form provides many benefits, 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 page or post
- Looks professional
- Convenient for users
A very popular contact form plugin for WordPress is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 – WordPress Plugin)
Contact form 7 is a free plugin that allows you to add multiple contact forms to your pages and posts, customize your form and the email contents, add fields, and more.
Supports international languages, Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, spam filtering and so on.
Something else to consider is to add sections to your contact form so visitors can select the aspect of your business they are contacting your company about. This helps you get the comment to the right person.
Provide A Map
A map helps your visitors and customers find you.
Integrating maps, such as Google Maps, with your website also provides visitors with a number of benefits, such as:
- A map increases local SEO
- Helps visitors find your office easily
- Displays location of events
(Adding a map to your website helps your visitors and clients find you)
Here are some plugins that let you embed, customize and display Google maps on your website:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
WordPress Plugins And Themes That Improve Your Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Drive More Visitors To Your Accounting Services Site
Accounting And Financial Services 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 the plugins you can choose from:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators Plugin)
This plugin provides a free collection of over 400 calculators that you can display on your website. Internationalization is supported.
Note: Most of them aren’t focused specifically on accounting, but there are a few for:
- Mortgage
- Payments
- Leases
- Equity
- And more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes Plugin For WordPress)
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 WP Plugin – Stock Portfolio)
For more details, go here}:
Custom Stock Ticker
(Custom Stock Ticker WP Plugin)
With this plugin you can add a custom stock ticker to any sidebar, page or post with shortcodes.
This plugin comes with a number of customizable features. Choose from built-in skins or customize these yourself to match the look and feel of your site. You can also create custom stocks for specific categories.
Appearance customizations include width, height, background color, scroll speed, opacity, number of stocks displayed simultaneously, text color, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator Plugin For WordPress)
This free plugin allows your site visitors to calculate indicative repayments. It’s great for calculating automotive loans, real estate loans, or any other large loan.
(Finance Calculator Plugin For WordPress – Loan Calculator)
The plugin also contains an application form that will send a notification message to a specified email address.
Other features of this plugin include showing payment protection, calculating 12 to 60 months loans and creating 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 lets you integrate billing into WordPress. You can send clients itemized invoices. It even allows you to set up recurring billing. WP-Invoice can be expanded through both free and premium add-ons, like business location, electronic signature, PDF creation, quoting, checkout forms, and more.
The plugin ties into WP’s user management database to keep track of clients and their information, and integrates with payment processors like PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, and many others.
WP-Invoice features include adding custom payments and charges, adding pre-defined line items and discounts, viewing invoice status and progression, easily filtering and finding invoices, showing invoice receipts and invoice history, creating notification email templates, displaying reports (collected vs uncollected invoices, 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, helpdesk with support ticket system, client relationship management and lots more.
(All In One Business Management Application – Client Invoicing)
The plugin supports multiple languages, is fully customizable and provides powerful tools such as document management, to do app, 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, track your company’s net worth and cash flow, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software – Client Invoice)
iBilling allows you to get paid faster by integrating with several payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
WordPress Financial Themes
To get the best features and professional look for your website, it’s best to choose a theme specifically suited for accounting businesses. Below is a list of some of the best themes themes available for accounting businesses. These themes allow you to own a professional-looking accounting website within minutes.
Accounting Pro
(Accounting Pro WordPress Theme)
This premium theme is an inexpensive turn-key theme for accountants and accountancy firms. It’s responsive, has a drag-and-drop page-builder, has 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.
You can customize Accounting Pro using premium add-ons.
To learn more about using this WordPress theme, go here:
Accountancy
(Accountancy WP Theme)
This premium theme offers a variety of built-in styles and layouts to help give your accounting site a professional look and feel.
This fully responsive theme includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial, it’s lightweight, search optimized, and fast loading. It provides the features your business needs without bloating your theme. Your purchase price includes free updates and one year of support.
Visit the theme site to learn more this theme:
Accounting
(Accounting Theme For WordPress)
This premium WordPress theme includes a drag-and-drop builder so you can design your site any way you want. It also has unlimited sidebars and custom widgets, four different types of headers, a custom admin panel, four color schemes, a custom slider, 3 blog types, and is responsive (mobile-friendly). It looks clean and modern and is fast to load.
Go here for more details:
Kathryn
(Kathryn Theme)
This one is a premium child theme for the Genesis Framework that’s created for accounting services. It has multiple layouts, slider, multiple sidebars, widgetized home page, flexible rotator, call to action boxes, author boxes for single or multiple bloggers, various color choices, is easy to use, inexpensive, search optimized, and is responsive (mobile-friendly). Although it could easily suit 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.
To learn more about this WordPress theme, go here:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme)
This premium WordPress theme was created to enhance professionalism within the accounting industry. It features authoritative colors and elements specifically designed to 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 responsive and includes pages for your services, contact form section with consultation requests (downloadable as CSV), testimonials section, and a blog.
More information:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate – WordPress Theme)
WP Advocate is a free corporate theme specifically designed for professional service providers such as accountants and attorneys. You can use the theme’s bundled images or upload your own. It includes a custom post type adding staff profiles and can also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. WP Advocate is a clean and fast-loading theme.
Go here to learn more about this theme:
Divi
(Divi Theme For WordPress)
Divi is the most flexible theme in Elegant Themes‘ entire collection. You can create a professional site using its page builder or pre-made layouts. You can modify your layout as much as you need.
Divi’s page builder transforms web elements into visual building blocks, allowing you to understand and change the structure of their web pages without touching a single line of code.
(Divi – Flexible Page Builder)
It comes with 40 content modules that you can drag and drop anywhere you want. These modules include bar counter, call to action, contact form, email optin, filterable portfolio, map, portfolio, shop, tabs, text, fullwidth header, fullwidth menu, fullwidth post title, and more.. Divi is mobile-friendly and completely customizable. Prices start at $69 per year and includes full access to 80+ stunning themes.
For more information, go here:
The Corporation
(The Corporation – WordPress Theme)
This theme from Elegant Themes was developed specifically to make corporate sites look great.
It has a sleek page-based home page design with a nice slider. It also has a blog design and features that toggle on and off. It comes with 6 different color schemes. It also has multiple page templates that include contact pages, blog feeds, sitemaps, search page, gallery page, and more. Themes start at $69 per year and includes access to all beautifully-designed themes.
To learn more about this theme, visit this website:
Adviser
(Adviser – WordPress Theme)
Adviser was specifically built to help finance industry professionals build trust through clean design. It’s ideal for businesses that provide services such as investing advice or tax help. It 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..
More information:
Tax Help
(Tax Help – WordPress Theme)
Tax Help was specifically developed for financial companies, tax and finance advisors, and firms that offer tax assistance. The theme is designed to showcase your services professionally to help grow your professional reputation. It comes with 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 WordPress Theme)
Finance Business Theme was built for organizations that provide any type of financial service such as tax help, consulting, finance, insurance, corporate, 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, 2 premium sliders, page options, color management, animations, and a lot more.
More info:
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, you have found this comprehensive guide on ways of improving search engine optimization, increase user engagement and increase web traffic generation using WordPress plugins and themes helpful.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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