In Part 1 of this guide on ways to improve your accounting business online, we covered the following areas:
- Challenges Professional Accountants Face Online
- Opportunities For Accountants
- Your Website Pages
- Tips On How To Improve The Content On Your Site
In this section, we discuss more ways to grow your accounting services business online. Areas covered include:
- How To Improve Traffic
- Ways To Generate More Leads & Enquiries With WordPress-Based Tools
- Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With Plugins & Themes
For more information about WordPress plugins and themes, see the articles below:
- Using WordPress Plugins – The Easy Way To Enhance Your Web Site’s Capabilities
- WordPress For Beginners – An Overview Of WordPress Themes
Grow Your Accounting Website – Improving Your Business Online Using WordPress
Your web traffic is vital to your business growth. In this section we explore ways to help you improve your web traffic using WordPress.
Optimize Your Site For Search Engines With WordPress
There are loads of ways WordPress can help to optimize your accounting website for search engines:
- Search Engine-Friendly URLs – Set the permalinks to create search engine-optimized web addresses for your article pages (called posts).
- Post Tags – WordPress lets you specify the keywords that you want search engines to index your posts for.
- Post Categories – Add categories for archiving and organizing your content.
- Excerpts – Create an excerpt that will appear in search results.
- Images – add search-optimized titles to your images for better search engine results.
- Content Linking – WordPress has a built-in feature that allows you to easily create internal links for faster indexing of pages
- Post Notification – Set up your WordPress site to automatically notify (ping) other sites and directories the moment a new post is published on your website.
WordPress Plugins That Can Help To Improve SEO, Increase User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation
In addition to the built-in features of WordPress, the WordPress development community makes available various plugins that will improve SEO, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your website.
For example, you can use the plugins below to improve your website’s SEO:
- All in One SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress XML sitemap plugin (lists all of your pages for search engines)
- Page-List – WordPress site map plugin
(A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your SEO)
Other ways to improve SEO, increase engagement and drive more visitors to your site are to add a forum, newsletters, commenting, and social sharing features. Here are a few more useful WordPress 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 networking community on your WordPress site, with member profiles, user groups, messaging, activity streams, and more.
- bbPress – This free plugin allows you to set up a discussion forum on your site.
- E-Newsletter – Send email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WordPress dashboard, without a 3rd party subscription.
- Disqus – Disqus lets you power discussions and helps to increase user engagement on your website or blog.
- Monarch – Use this WordPress plugin to add powerful social sharing features to your website.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their site with WordPress plugins)
Ways To Generate More Leads & Enquiries
In this section we’ll show you how to improve sales and generate new leads and enquiries online.
Adding A Newsletter
Providing a newsletter is an excellent way to build a subscriber list. It] provides a number of benefits and advantages, like:
- Drives targeted traffic to your site
- Keeps readers from forgetting about you
- Provides useful updates
- Provides you with a highly targeted marketing channel
- It’s a way to provide special services or products to a select audience
- Provides regular opportunities for increasing interaction
- Provides additional ways for your content to be shared around with other prospective customers
An effective strategy for attracting newsletter subscribers is to provide users with high value content and offer them an additional item of value for free in exchange for their personal details. This could be a guide, checklists for handling tax, access to financial calculators, coupons, membership access to videos, contests, etc.
Adding A Contact Form
A contact form makes it easy and simple for prospective clients to get in touch with you. Readers can report issues, ask questions to specific departments, request a quote, give suggestions for new services or products and more.
A contact form provides a number of benefits, like:
- Reduces spam
- Automated response
- Gives you control over what gets sent to you
- Allows you to keep your email address private
- Can be added to any post or page
- Looks professional
- Is convenient for site visitors
One of the most popular WordPress contact form plugins is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 – WordPress Plugin)
This free plugin allows you to 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 submissions, CAPTCHA, and spam filtering is supported.
Another option you may want to consider is to add sections to your contact form so visitors can choose the aspect of your business they are contacting your company about. This ensures that visitors’ requests reach the right person.
Provide A Map
Maps help your visitors and customers find you.
A map is a useful tool for several reasons:
- Maps improve local SEO
- Visitors can find your office more easily
- Shows location of events
(A map helps your visitors and customers find you)
Below are just some popular plugins that let you embed, customize and display Google maps on your WordPress site:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
WordPress Plugins And Themes For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Better User Engagement And Generating More Web Traffic
WordPress Plugins
WordPress provides a number of plugins you can add to your accounting site to immediately add a range of functional tools for visitors. Here are just some of the plugins you can choose from:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators Plugin For WordPress)
This is a free collection of 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 on accounting, but there are a few you can use for:
- Mortgage
- Loans
- Leases
- Credit
- And many more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes – WordPress Plugin)
This plugin lets you add a widget that shows a number of different stock quotes per portfolio. You can show as many portfolios as you want.
(Show Stock Quotes – WordPress Plugin – Stock Portfolio)
For more details, go here}:
Custom Stock Ticker
(Custom Stock Ticker)
This free plugin lets you add a custom stock ticker to any sidebar, page or post using shortcodes.
Custom Stock ticker provides several customizable ticker. Choose from built-in themes or customize it yourself to match your site. You can also add custom stocks to specific categories.
Appearance customizations include height, width, background color, number of stocks displayed simultaneously, text color, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator – WordPress Plugin)
This free calculator lets users calculate indicative repayments online. This is a great tool for automotive loans, property, or other large loans.
(Finance Calculator Plugin For WordPress – Loan Calculators)
The Finance Calculator plugin also contains an application form that will send a notification message to the email address you specify.
It will show payment protection, calculate 12 to 60 months loans and create forms that can be placed in any page or post.
For more details, go here}:
WP-Invoice
(WP-Invoice Plugin For WordPress)
WP-Invoice lets you send itemized invoices to clients.
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, like business location, electronic signature, PDF creation, quoting, single-page checkout forms, and more.
The plugin ties into your WordPress user management database to keep track of clients and their information, and integrates with PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, 2Checkout, PayPal Payments Pro, and others.
You can add custom payments and charges, create pre-defined line items and discounts, view invoice status and progression, filter and find invoices, show invoice receipts and invoice history, create e-mail notification templates, display 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 – WordPress Plugin)
This is a complete business management system that includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, help desk with knowledgebase and support ticketing management system, client relationship management and many added features.
(All In One Business Management Application WP Plugin – Client Invoicing)
All In One Business Management Application supports different 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 WP Plugin)
This is a scalable business software that lets you manage client data and invoices, track your company’s cash flow and net worth, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software – WordPress Plugin – Client Invoicing)
iBilling integrates with several payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
WordPress Financial Themes
To get the most benefit out of growing your business online with WordPress, it’s best to choose a theme specifically suited for accounting. Below is a list of some of the best accountancy themes available. These themes allow you to own a professional accounting website within minutes.
Accounting Pro
(Accounting Pro – WordPress Theme)
This premium theme is a turn-key theme designed for accountants and accounting firms. It’s a responsive theme with 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.
More info:
Accountancy
(Accountancy – WordPress Theme)
This premium WordPress theme comes in a variety of styles and layouts that helps make your accounting site look and feel professional.
It includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial, and more. It’s lightweight, search engine friendly, fast loading, and is responsive. Accountancy Theme provides the features your business needs without bloating your theme. Free updates and 1 year of support is included with the price.
For more details about this theme, go here:
Accounting
(Accounting Theme For WordPress)
This theme includes a drag-and-drop builder so you can design your website any way you want. It also has unlimited sidebars and custom widgets, four different header types, a custom admin panel, four color schemes, custom slider, 3 blog types, and is responsive (mobile-friendly). Accountancy is a clean-looking, modern and fast-to-load theme.
To learn more about this WordPress theme, visit this site:
Kathryn
(Kathryn)
Kathryn is a child theme for the Genesis Framework designed specifically for accounting businesses. It comes with multiple layouts, slider, multiple sidebars, widgetized home page, a variety of color choices, is easy to use, inexpensive, search optimized, and is responsive. Although this theme could easily suit any profession you like, 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.
To learn more about about this WordPress theme, go here:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme)
This theme was developed to exude professionalism within the accounting industry. It features authoritative colors and elements designed specifically to give your accounting business website a professional look. It’s a turn-key installation but you can still modify it if you want. It’s fully responsive and includes pages for your services, contact section with consultation requests (downloadable as a CSV file), testimonials section, and a blog.
More information:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate Theme For WordPress)
This is a corporate theme built for professional service providers such as accountants and attorneys. You can use the bundled images or upload your own. It includes a custom post type for employee profiles and can also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. It’s a clean and fast-loading theme.
More information:
Divi
(Divi – WordPress Theme)
This premium WordPress theme is the most flexible theme in Elegant Themes‘ collection. You can create a professional website using the page builder or pre-made layouts. You can modify your layout to your heart’s content.
The builder transforms web elements into visual building blocks, allowing you to understand and change the structure of their pages without editing a single line of code.
(Divi – WordPress Theme – Flexible Page Builder)
It comes with 40 content modules that you can drag and drop anywhere you want. These include accordion, call to action, contact form, email optin, image, number counter, post title, sidebar, social media follow, video, fullwidth header, fullwidth map, fullwidth post title, and more.. It is fully responsive and completely customizable. Prices start at $69 per year and includes access to 80+ beautifully-designed themes.
More information:
The Corporation
(The Corporation – WordPress Theme)
This premium WordPress theme was specifically developed to create good-looking corporate websites.
It has a sleek and professional page-based home page design with a prominent, flashy slider, blog design, 6 unique 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+ themes.
Go here for more info:
Adviser
(Adviser Theme For WordPress)
This premium theme for WordPress was designed specifically to help finance industry professionals build trust online with a clean business design. It’s ideal for those that provide services such as investments or tax advice. Adviser includes a recruitment page with hiring announcements and where to send applications. It also includes a lease calculator. It includes multiple shortcodes and widgets, and includes the drag-and-drop visual composer.
Go here for more info:
Tax Help
(Tax Help)
This premium theme for WordPress was designed for financial companies, tax and finance advisors, and firms that offer tax services. The theme is designed to showcase your services professionally to help grow your professional reputation. It provides different blog styles, uses a drag-and-drop visual composer, includes a shortcode builder, the Revolution Slider, and many custom shortcodes.
To learn more about about this WordPress theme, visit the theme website:
Finance Business
(Finance Business Theme)
This theme was designed specifically for businesses that provide financial services such as tax help, consulting, insurance, finance, corporate, loans, accounting, and more. This theme includes a custom CMSMasters Visual Content Composer plugin, around 100 shortcodes that includes charts and financial content, the custom drag-and-drop composer, two premium sliders, page options, color management features, animated elements, and a whole lot more.
Go here for more details:
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 article on WordPress plugins that improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and increase web traffic generation useful.
Subscribe below to receive 101+ useful WordPress tips that will help you grow your business …
***
"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com
***