In Part One of this step-by-step guide on ways to build your accounting business web presence, we provided in-depth tips and suggestions on the following areas:
- Online Challenges For The Accounting Profession
- Opportunities For Accounting Services
- Essential Pages
- Tips For Improving The Content On Your Site
In this section, we explore more ways to grow your accounting services business online. Areas covered include:
- Ways Of Improving Web Traffic
- Generating More Leads & Enquiries With WordPress
- Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Increase Traffic Generation With Plugins & Themes
For more information about WordPress plugins and themes, see the articles below:
- WP Plugins – Extending Your Website’s Features And Functionality
- WP For Beginners – An Overview Of Themes
Grow Your Accounting Website – How To Improve SEO, Increase User Engagement And Generate More Traffic Using Plugins And Themes
Your web traffic is an important part of your business growth. In this section we explore ways to help you improve your web traffic.
Optimizing Your Site For SEO
There are so many ways WordPress can help to optimize your website for search engines:
- URLs – WordPress lets you set the permalinks to use the title of the posts as the URL of your pages.
- Post Tags – WordPress lets you choose the keywords that you want your posts to be indexed for in the search engines.
- Post Categories – Add search engine-friendly categories for keeping your content organized and easy to find.
- Post Excerpts – Set the description for your posts that visitors will see in the search engine results.
- Images – add search-optimized titles to your content images for improved search engine results.
- Content Linking – WordPress provides a built-in feature that allows you to easily link your content to other posts and pages on your site
- Pinging – Configure your site to automatically notify (ping) other search directories as soon as a new post is published on your website.
WordPress Plugins That Can Help To Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Drive More Visitors To Your Site
As well as the built-in features of WordPress, the WordPress development community makes available quite a number of plugins that improve SEO, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your website.
For example, here are some plugins you can use to improve your SEO:
- All in One SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress sitemap plugin
- WP Tree – WordPress site map plugin (for visitors)
(Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO)
Other ways to improve SEO, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your site are to add a forum, newsletters, commenting, and social features. Here are some powerful plugins that can help (many of the plugins described below are also free):
- BuddyPress – This plugin lets you run your own social community on WordPress.
- bbPress – bbPress can be used to run a community forum on WordPress.
- E-Newsletter – E-Newsletter lets you send professional email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WP site.
- Disqus – use this WordPress plugin to power discussions and helps to increase engagement on your site.
- Social Media Feather – Use this WordPress plugin to add social buttons and features that allow visitors to share your content online to your pages and posts.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site with free or inexpensive plugins)
Ways To Generate New Leads & Enquiries Using WordPress
Let’s discuss now how to improve your sales and generate more leads and enquiries online.
Adding An Email Newsletter
Adding a newsletter is an excellent way to build a list of subscribers. Adding a newsletter provides many benefits including:
- Drives targeted traffic to your website
- Keeps readers from forgetting about you
- Provides updates
- Provides a highly targeted marketing channel
- Allows you to offer special services or products to a select audience
- Increases engaging with users
- Provides you with an additional way for your content to be shared online with others
A proven strategy for enticing visitors to subscribe is to provide high value content and offer users free gifts or bonus items in exchange for their personal details. This can be a guide, checklists for handling finances, access to tax calculators, discount coupons, membership access to subscriber-only content, contests, etc.
Adding Contact Forms
Contact forms provide an easy and simple way for readers to get in touch with you. Readers can report issues, contact specific departments, ask for a quote, and more.
A contact form provides many benefits and advantages, like:
- Reduces spam
- Automated response
- Giving you control over what is sent to you
- Allows you to keep your email address private
- They can be added to any post or page
- Looks professional
- More convenient for site visitors
A very popular contact form plugin for WordPress is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 WordPress Plugin)
This free plugin allows you to insert and manage multiple contact forms, customize the forms and the mail contents, add fields, and more.
International languages, Ajax-powered submissions, CAPTCHA, and spam filtering is also supported.
Something else to consider is to segment your contact form so prospective customers can choose which topic they are contacting your company about. This helps visitors get the comment to the right person.
Add A Map
A map helps your visitors and customers find you.
Integrating maps (e.g. Google Maps), with your WordPress site also provides many benefits, such as:
- A map improves local SEO
- Customers can better plan their meeting or appointments
- Shows location of events
(Maps help your visitors and customers find you)
Some of the more popular Google Maps plugins include:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
WordPress Plugins For Improving SEO, Better User Engagement And Generating More Visitors
Accounting WordPress Plugins
WordPress lets you add a number of plugins to your accounting or financial services site to immediately add a range of functional tools for users. Here are some of these:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators)
This is a free collection of 400+ calculators that you can provide to users on your website. The plugin also supports internationalization
Note: Most of them aren’t focused on accounting, but there are quite a few for:
- Interest rate
- Rate of return
- Leases
- Credit
- And more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes Plugin)
This plugin installs a widget that shows a number of different stock quotes per portfolio. You can show as many portfolios as you like.
(Show Stock Quotes Plugin For WordPress – Stock Portfolio)
For more details, go here}:
Custom Stock Ticker
(Custom Stock Ticker WP Plugin)
With this plugin you can place custom stock tickers on any sidebar, page or post using shortcodes.
This plugin comes with loads of customizable ticker. You can 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 specific categories.
Customize the appearance by changing colours, size, symbols, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator)
This free calculator allows your users to calculate indicative repayments online. This is a useful tool for automotive loans, property loans, or any other large loan.
(Finance Calculator – Loan Calculator)
This plugin also contains an application form that will send a message to the email address you specify.
It will display 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)
WP-Invoice lets WordPress blog owners send itemized invoices to their clients.
WP-Invoice lets you integrate billing into WordPress. You can send clients itemized invoices, set up recurring billing and expand plugin functionality with free and premium add-ons, like business location, electronic signature, PDF creation, quote creation, 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 payment processors like PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, and others.
Plugin features include adding custom payments and charges, creating pre-defined line items and discounts, viewing invoice status and progression, filtering and finding invoices, showing invoice receipts and invoice history, creating notification email templates, displaying 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)
This is a complete business management system that includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, help desk with knowledgebase and support ticket management system, client relationship management and lots more.
(All In One Business Management Application – WordPress Plugin – Invoicing)
All In One Business Management Application supports different 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 clients and invoicing, tracks your company’s net worth and cash flow, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software Plugin – Client Invoicing)
iBilling Accounting and Billing Software allows you to get paid faster online by integrating with several payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
Accounting Themes For WordPress
To get the most benefit out of growing your business online with WordPress, we recommend choosing a theme specifically for accounting. Below is a list of some of the best WordPress themes available for accounting. With the themes listed below you can have a professional-looking accounting website within minutes.
Accounting Pro
(Accounting Pro)
This premium WordPress theme is an inexpensive turn-key theme for accountants and accounting firms. It’s a responsive theme with 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, auto-resized images, and a whole lot more.
You can easily customize Accounting Pro using premium add-ons.
For more details about this theme, visit the theme site:
Accountancy
(Accountancy WP Theme)
Accountancy has a variety of built-in styles and layouts to help make your accounting website look and feel professional.
It includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial, and more. It’s lightweight, search optimized, fast loading, and is responsive. Accountancy provides what your business needs without bloating your theme. Your purchase includes free updates and one year of support.
Go here for more info:
Accounting
(Accounting Theme For WordPress)
This premium theme includes a drag-and-drop builder that allows you to design your website any way you want. It also has unlimited sidebars and custom widgets, four different header types, a custom administration panel, different color schemes, a custom slider, 3 blog types, and is responsive. It is a clean-looking, modern and fast loading theme.
To learn more about using this theme, visit this website:
Kathryn
(Kathryn Theme For WordPress)
This premium theme for WordPress was 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, a variety of colors, is easy to use, search optimized, and is mobile-friendly. Although this theme can easily fit any profession you like, it builds a great looking accounting theme. It includes a license for the Soliloquy plugin and must be purchased separately from the Genesis Framework.
Go here for more details:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme)
This theme was developed to exude professionalism within the accounting industry. It features an authoritative color scheme and elements specifically designed to help give your accounting website a professional look. It’s a turn-key installation but you can still modify it if you want. It’s mobile-friendly and includes pages for your services, contact form section with consultation requests (downloadable as CSV), testimonials section, and a blog.
For more information, go here:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate Theme For WordPress)
This is a free corporate theme built specifically for professionals such as accountants and attorneys. You can use the bundled images or upload your own. WP Advocate also includes a custom post type adding staff profiles and can also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. WP Advocate is clean and loads fast.
More info:
Divi
(Divi Theme)
This premium WordPress theme is the most flexible theme in Elegant Themes‘ entire collection of WordPress themes. You can create a professional website using its page builder or beautiful and unique 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 edit the structure of their web pages without editing a single line of code.
(Divi – WordPress Theme – Flexible Page Builder)
It has 40 content modules that you can drag and drop anywhere you want. These modules include multiple layouts, a slider, you can place pricing tables, testimonials, call-to-action, and lots more. It is responsive and completely customizable. Theme prices start at $69 per year and includes full access to over 80 sleek business themes.
Go here to learn more this theme:
The Corporation
(The Corporation WordPress Theme)
The Corporation was created specifically to create good-looking corporate websites.
This theme has a 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 6 unique 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 access to 80+ professional themes.
To learn more about this theme, go here:
Adviser
(Adviser Theme)
The Adviser WordPress Theme was developed to help professionals in the financial industry to build trust online with a clean business design. It’s ideal for those that provide services such as investing or tax help. It includes a recruitment page with hiring announcements and where to send applications, a built-in lease calculator, multiple shortcodes and widgets, and a drag-and-drop visual composer..
Go here to learn more about using this WordPress theme:
Tax Help
(Tax Help – WordPress Theme)
This one was specifically designed for financial organizations, tax and financial advisors, and firms providing tax assistance. This theme is designed to showcase your services professionally and help grow your professional reputation. It comes with different blog styles, uses a drag-and-drop visual composer, includes a shortcode builder, the Revolution Slider, and additional custom shortcodes.
More info:
Finance Business
(Finance Business Theme)
Finance Business WordPress Theme was designed for firms that provide any type of financial service including tax help, consulting, insurance, corporate, finance, loans, accounting, and more. It includes a custom CMSMasters Visual Content Composer plugin. It also has around one hundred shortcodes that includes charts and financial content. It also includes the custom drag-and-drop composer, 2 premium sliders, page options, color management features, animations, and a whole lot more.
Go here to learn more 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
We hope that you have found this comprehensive guide on WordPress plugins that improve SEO, improve user engagement and increase visitors to your site generation helpful.
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