In Part One of this article on ways to improve your accounting web presence, we covered the following areas:
- Challenges Accountants Face Online
- Opportunities For Accounting Businesses In The Digital Economy
- Your Website Pages
- Improve Your Web Content
In this section, we explore more ways to grow your accounting services business online. Topics covered below include:
- Improving Web Traffic Using WordPress
- Tips For Generating Leads & Enquiries
- How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Increase Traffic Generation Using WordPress Plugins And Themes
To learn more about WordPress plugins and themes, see these articles:
- Using WordPress Plugins To Improve Your Web Site’s Features And Functionality
- WordPress For Business – An Introduction To Themes
Your Accounting Website – WordPress Plugins That Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Generate More Web Traffic
Web traffic is vital to your online business growth. This section discusses WordPress plugins for improving search engine optimization, better user engagement and web traffic generation.
Optimize Your Website For Search Engines (SEO)
There are loads of ways that WordPress helps improve your accounting website’s SEO:
- Search Engine-Friendly URLs – WordPress lets you set the permalinks to use the title of the posts as the web address of your pages.
- Tags – Specify the keywords that you want your article pages to be indexed by in the search engines.
- Categories – Add categories for archiving and organizing your content.
- Excerpts – WordPress lets you compose the description for your posts that will show in search results.
- Images – title images with keywords for better search results.
- Internal Content Linking – WordPress provides a built-in feature that allows you to easily link your content to other posts
- Pinging – Configure your site to automatically notify other sites and directories immediately upon publishing a new post on your website.
WordPress Plugins For Improving SEO, Increasing User Engagement And Driving More Web Traffic
In addition to the built-in features of WordPress, the WP community makes available many plugins that improve your website’s SEO, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your site.
Here are some plugins you can use to improve your site’s SEO:
- Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress XML sitemap plugin (for search engines)
- WP Tree – WordPress site map plugin (for visitors)
(A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your SEO)
Other things you can do to improve SEO, increase engagement and drive more visitors to your website are to add a forum, newsletters, commenting, and social sharing. Here are a few plugins that can help (many of the plugins described below can be downloaded at no cost):
- BuddyPress – Run your own online social networking community on your WordPress website.
- bbPress – Use this free plugin to set up and manage an online community forum on your website.
- E-Newsletter – E-Newsletter lets you send professional email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WP dashboard.
- Disqus – Disqus lets you power discussions and helps to increase user engagement on your site.
- Monarch – Use this plugin to add social buttons and features that allow visitors to share your content online on your site.
(You can add social features to your website easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
Generating More Leads & Enquiries With WordPress-Based Applications
This section looks at how to improve your sales and generate leads and enquiries online.
Adding A Newsletter
Adding an email newsletter is an excellent way to build a list of subscribers. It] provides many benefits and advantages, like:
- Drives targeted traffic to your site
- Keeps your business at the forefront of your reader’s minds
- Provides useful updates
- Provides a highly targeted marketing channel
- It’s a way to provide special products or services to a select audience
- Provides regular opportunities for user interaction
- Provides you with additional opportunities for subscribers to share your content
A proven way to attract subscribers is to provide users with high value information and give them a free gift in exchange for their personal details. This could be an exclusive report, checklists for handling finances, access to financial calculators, discount coupons, membership access to courses, contests, etc.
Adding A Contact Form
Contact forms make it easy and simple for readers to contact you. A contact form also allows readers to report problems, contact specific departments, ask for a quote, and more.
Contact forms provide several benefits including:
- Reducing spam
- Automated response
- Giving you control over what gets sent to you
- Allows you to keep your email address private
- Contact forms can be added to any post or page
- Improves the professional look of your website
- Convenient for site visitors
A very popular contact form plugin for WordPress is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 Plugin)
Contact Form 7 is easy to install and set up and lets you create and manage multiple contact forms into any page or post, customize your form and the email contents, add fields, and more.
International languages, Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, and Akismet spam filtering is supported.
Another option you may want to consider is to segment your contact form so prospects can select the topic they want to discuss. This ensures that contact form requests reach the right person.
Provide A Map
Adding maps to your website helps your visitors and clients find you.
Inserting maps (e.g. Google Maps), into your WordPress site also provides users with many benefits, such as:
- They increase local SEO
- Helps visitors find your office easily
- Shows location of events
(Adding maps to your site helps your visitors and clients find you)
Popular map plugins include:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
Improving SEO, Improve User Engagement And Increase Traffic To Your Accounting Or Financial Services Business Generation With Plugins & Themes
Financial WordPress Plugins
WordPress lets you add a number of plugins to your accounting site that will immediately add a range of functional tools for your site visitors. Here are some of these:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators WP Plugin)
This plugin provides 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.
Most of them aren’t focused on accounting, but there are quite a few you can use for:
- Mortgage
- Loans
- Leases
- Equity
- And lots more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes WordPress Plugin)
This plugin installs a widget that displays 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 post, page or sidebar with shortcodes.
Custom Stock ticker offers loads of customizable features. Choose from built-in skins or customize these yourself to match your website. You can also add custom stocks to individual categories.
Appearance customization features include width, height, background color, scroll speed, opacity, number of stocks displayed simultaneously, typeface, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator Plugin)
This free plugin lets your users calculate indicative repayments. This is a great tool for vehicle loans, real estate, or any other large loan.
(Finance Calculator Plugin For WordPress – Loan Calculator)
Finance Calculator also contains an application form that sends a notification message to the email address you specify.
Other features of this plugin include showing 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)
WP-Invoice is ideal for WordPress business users with clients to bill.
This plugin lets you integrate billing into WordPress. You can send clients itemized invoices. It also allows you to set up recurring billing. WP-Invoice can be expanded through both free and premium add-ons that let you manage locations, accept electronic signatures, create PDF invoices, create quotes, create single-page 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, 2Checkout, USAePay, and many others.
You can add custom payments and charges, create pre-defined line items and discounts, view invoice status and progression, easily filter and find invoices, see invoice receipts and invoice history, create notification e-mail templates, access 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 is a complete business management system that includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, help desk with support ticketing system, CRM and lots more.
(All In One Business Management Application – Client Invoice)
The plugin supports multiple languages, is fully customizable and provides powerful 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 and communicate with clients, track your company’s cash flow and net worth, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software Plugin For WordPress – Client Invoice)
iBilling Accounting and Billing Software integrates with several online payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
Financial WordPress Themes
To benefit the most from using WordPress to grow your business online, we recommend choosing a theme specifically for accounting. Here is a look at some of the best themes themes available for accountancy businesses. These themes allow you to own a professional-looking accounting website within minutes.
Accounting Pro
(Accounting Pro)
This premium WordPress theme is an inexpensive turn-key theme for accountants and accountancy firms. It’s responsive, has a drag-and-drop page-builder, offers several page templates, custom menus, a content composer (which improves on the standard WordPress editor), a sidebar manager, performs auto resizing for images, and a whole lot more.
You can easily customize this theme through premium add-ons.
To learn more about using this theme, visit this site:
Accountancy
(Accountancy Theme For WordPress)
This inexpensive theme comes with a variety of styles and layouts to give your accounting website a professional look and feel.
It includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial, and more. It’s lightweight, SEO friendly, fast loading, and fully responsive. Accountancy provides what you need without bloating your theme. Free updates and 1 year of support is included in your purchase.
More information:
Accounting
(Accounting)
This premium theme for WordPress includes a drag-and-drop builder so you can design your website any way you want. The theme also has unlimited sidebars and custom widgets, four different types of headers, a custom administration panel, different color schemes, a custom slider, 3 blog types, and is mobile-friendly. Accountancy looks clean and modern and is fast to load.
More info:
Kathryn
(Kathryn)
Kathryn is designed for accounting businesses. It has multiple layouts, slider, multiple sidebars, widgetized home page, flexible rotator, call to action boxes, author boxes for single or multiple bloggers, many colors, is easy to use, inexpensive, SEO friendly, and is fully responsive. 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.
More info:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme – WordPress Theme)
This premium theme was designed with the idea of professionalism within the accounting industry. It features authoritative colors and elements designed specifically to help give your accounting 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 details section with consultation requests (downloadable as a CSV file), testimonials, and a blog.
Visit this site for more details about using this WordPress theme:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate Theme For WordPress)
WP Advocate is a free corporate theme designed specifically for professionals such as accountants and attorneys. You can use the theme’s bundled images or upload your own. It includes a custom post type adding employee profiles. It will also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. WP Advocate is clean and loads fast.
More info:
Divi
(Divi)
This premium theme for WordPress is one of the most flexible themes in Elegant Themes‘ entire theme collection. Divi lets you create a unique, professional website using its page builder or beautiful pre-made layouts. You can change your layout to your heart’s content.
Divi’s page builder transforms web elements into visual building blocks, allowing you to understand and easily edit the structure of their page without touching any code.
(Divi – WordPress Theme – Flexible Page Builder)
Divi has 40 content modules that you can drag and drop anywhere you want. This includes audio player, call to action, circle counter, email optin, gallery, login, portfolio, shop, social media follow, toggle, fullwidth code, fullwidth map, fullwidth slider, and more.. It is mobile-friendly and fully customizable. Themes start at $69 per year and includes access to 80+ stunning themes.
More information:
The Corporation
(The Corporation Theme For WordPress)
This one was built specifically to create good-looking corporate websites.
It has a page-based home page design with a nice slider, blog design, six different color schemes, multiple page templates which include contact pages, blog feeds, sitemaps, search page, gallery page, and more. Elegant Theme prices start at $69 per year and includes access to 80+ beautifully-designed themes.
Go here for more info:
Adviser
(Adviser)
The Adviser Theme was developed specifically to help finance industry professionals build trust online with a clean business design. It’s perfect for those that provide services like investing or tax advice. The theme includes a recruitment page with hiring announcements and where to send applications, lease calculator, widgets and multiple shortcodes, and the drag-and-drop visual composer..
More info:
Tax Help
(Tax Help Theme)
This premium theme for WordPress was specifically built for financial organizations, tax and finance advisors, and businesses that offer tax services. This theme is designed to show your services professionally to help establish your business reputation. It has different blog styles, uses a drag-and-drop visual composer, includes a shortcode builder, the Revolution Slider, and additional custom shortcodes.
For more details, go here:
Finance Business
(Finance Business Theme)
Finance Business was built for organizations that provide any type of financial service including 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 a custom drag-and-drop composer, two premium sliders, page options, color management, animated elements, and lots more.
Visit the theme website to learn more about this WordPress theme:
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 for improving search engine optimization, better user engagement and driving more visitors.
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