In Part One of this guide on ways to build your accounting business web presence, we provided in-depth information on the following topics:
- Challenges Accounting Businesses Face Online
- Opportunities For Accounting Businesses In The Digital Economy
- Your Website Pages
- Improving Your Web Content
In this section, we discuss more ways to grow your accounting business online. Areas covered include:
- Tips For Improving Traffic With WordPress
- Generate Leads & Enquiries With WordPress
- WordPress Plugins For Improving SEO, Creating Better User Engagement And Driving More Visitors
For more information about WordPress plugins and themes, go here:
- Using WordPress Plugins – The Easy Way To Enhance Your Blog’s Capability
- WP For Business – An Overview Of Themes
Online Business Tips For Accountants – WordPress Plugins And Themes That Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Generate More Traffic
Web traffic is vital to your business growth. This section discusses ways of improving your accounting business online using WordPress plugins and themes.
Optimizing Your Website For Search Engines With WordPress
There are lots of ways WordPress can help to optimize your accounting or financial services website for search engines:
- SEO-Friendly – Set the permalinks to create search engine-optimized URLS for your articles and posts.
- Post Tags – Specify the keywords that you want search engines to index your article pages (posts) for.
- Categories – Create search engine-friendly categories for your posts and products.
- Excerpts – Create the description for your posts that search engines will display.
- Images – add search-optimized titles to your images for improved search results.
- Content Linking – WordPress provides a built-in feature that lets you easily link your content to other posts and pages
- Post Notification – Set up your WordPress site to automatically notify other sites and directories the moment a new post is published on your website.
Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation Using Plugins
In addition to the built-in features of WordPress, there are many plugins that improve your website’s SEO, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your site.
For example, you can use the plugins below to improve your site’s SEO:
- Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress sitemap plugin (for search engines)
- Page-List – WordPress site map plugin
(A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your SEO)
Other WordPress plugins you can use to improve SEO, increase engagement and drive more traffic to your business are to add a forum, newsletters, comments, and social sharing features. Here are a few more fantastic plugins that can help (many of the plugins listed below can be downloaded at no cost):
- BuddyPress – Use the BuddyPress plugin to set up and run your own online social networking community on WordPress.
- bbPress – Run your own online community forum on your website.
- E-Newsletter – E-Newsletter lets you send email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WordPress site.
- Disqus – Power discussions and helps to increase user engagement on your website or blog.
- Floating Social – Easily add social buttons and features that allow visitors to share your content online to your posts and pages.
(You can easily add social sharing to your website using free or inexpensive plugins)
Ways To Generate More Leads & Enquiries
Let’s discuss now how to improve sales and generate new leads and enquiries for your accounting business.
Add A Newsletter
Providing a newsletter is a great way to build a list of subscribers. Adding email newsletters] provides a number of benefits including:
- Drives targeted traffic to your website
- Keeps readers from forgetting about you
- Provides updates that could save businesses time and money
- Provides you with a highly targeted marketing channel
- Allows you to offer special services or products to a select audience
- Increases user engagement
- Provides another way for subscribers to share your content
An effective strategy for attracting new subscribers to your newsletter is to provide high value information and give users a free gift in exchange for their details. This could be a guide, checklists for handling tax, access to financial calculators, discount coupons, membership access to courses, contests, etc.
Adding Contact Forms
A contact form makes it easy and simple for prospective clients to get in touch. A contact form also allows users to provide feedback, contact specific departments, ask for quotes, and more.
Contact forms provide many benefits, like:
- Reducing spam
- Set up automated responses
- Gives you control over what is sent to you
- Allows you to keep your email address private
- They can be added to any page or post
- Improves the professional look of your site
- Convenience for users
A popular contact form plugin for WordPress is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 Plugin For WordPress)
This free contact form plugin is easy to install and set up and allows you to insert multiple contact forms into any post or page, customize your form and the mail contents, add fields, and more.
Supports international languages, Ajax-powered submissions, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.
Another option you may want to consider is adding sections to your contact form so visitors can choose which aspect of your business they are contacting your company about. This helps visitors get the comment to the right person.
Maps
Adding a map to your site helps your visitors and customers find you.
Maps are great tools for several reasons:
- They improve local SEO
- Visitors can find your office easily
- Shows location of events
(Adding maps to your website 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
Improving Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With WordPress Plugins
WordPress Plugins For Financial Services
WordPress lets you add a number of plugins to your website that will immediately make available a range of practical tools for visitors. Here are some of these:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators WP Plugin)
This is 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.
Note: Most of the calculators aren’t focused specifically on accounting, but there are a few for:
- 401k
- Rate of return
- Leases
- Credit
- And lots more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes Plugin)
This plugin gives you a widget that displays up to 20 different stock quotes per portfolio. You can show as many widgets as you want.
(Show Stock Quotes Plugin For WordPress – 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 page, post, or sidebar with shortcodes.
This plugin comes with a number of customizable ticker. You can choose to use built-in themes or customize these yourself to match the look and feel of your website. You can also add custom stocks to individual categories.
Appearance customization features include height, width, background color, opacity, scroll speed, number of stocks displayed at one time, text color, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator WP Plugin)
This free calculator allows your visitors to calculate indicative repayments online. This is a great financial tool for calculating auto loans, property loans, or other large loans.
(Finance Calculator Plugin For WordPress – Loan Calculator)
This plugin also contains an application form that will send a notification message to the email address you specify.
Other features of this plugin include displaying 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 lets WordPress blog owners send itemized invoices to their clients.
WP-Invoice lets you integrate billing into WordPress. You can send clients 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 your invoices, provide quotes, create 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 several others.
The plugin gives you the ability to add custom payments and charges, create pre-defined line items and discounts, quickly view invoice status and progression, filter and find invoices, show invoice receipts and invoice history, create e-mail notification templates, view reports (collected vs uncollected invoices, ten 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 For WordPress)
This complete business management system includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, help desk with knowledgebase and support ticketing system, client relationship management and many added features.
(All In One Business Management Application WP Plugin – Invoice)
All In One Business Management Application supports multiple languages, is fully customizable and provides additional tools like document management, notice board, and more.
For more details, go here}:
iBilling – Accounting And Billing Software
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software)
iBilling is a scalable business software that lets you manage client data and invoicing, track your company’s cash flow and net worth, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software Plugin For WordPress – Invoice)
It integrates with several payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
Accounting And Financial Services Themes For WordPress
To get the best features and professional look for your website, we recommend choosing a theme specifically for accounting businesses. Here is a list of some of the best accountancy themes available. With the themes listed below you can have a professional accounting website within minutes and save hundreds to thousands of dollars on the cost of web design.
Accounting Pro
(Accounting Pro Theme)
This premium WordPress theme is a turn-key theme for accountants and accounting firms. It’s responsive, has a drag-and-drop page-builder, offers several page templates, a custom menu feature, a content composer (gives you an improved WordPress editor), a sidebar manager, performs auto resizing for images, and lots more.
You can expand this theme by installing premium add-ons.
More information:
Accountancy
(Accountancy – WordPress Theme)
This theme comes in a variety of built-in styles and layouts to help make your accounting site look and feel professional.
It includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial, and more. It’s lightweight, search optimized, fast loading, and is responsive. It provides the flexibility you need without bloating your theme with features you don’t need. Your purchase includes free updates and 1 year of support.
Go here for more information:
Accounting
(Accounting Theme)
Accounting includes a drag-and-drop builder so you can design your website any way you want. It also provides unlimited sidebars with custom widgets, four different types of headers, a custom administration panel, different color schemes, custom slider, three different blog types, and is responsive. It is a clean-looking, modern and fast loading theme.
Go here for more details:
Kathryn
(Kathryn Theme For WordPress)
This one is created for accounting businesses. It has a slider, multiple layouts, multiple sidebars, widgetized home page, flexible rotator, call to action boxes, author boxes for single or multiple bloggers, a variety of color choices, is easy to use, search engine optimized, and is responsive. Although it could easily suit any profession, it builds a great looking accounting theme. It includes a license for the Soliloquy WordPress responsive slider plugin and is a separate purchase from the Genesis Framework.
For more details, go here:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme – WordPress Theme)
This premium theme for WordPress was created with the idea of professionalism within the accounting industry. Every color, layout element, icon, menu item, page structure, call-to-action, etc., was designed specifically to help 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 responsive and includes pages for your services, contact section with consultation requests (downloadable as CSV), testimonials section, and a blog.
To learn more about this WordPress theme, go here:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate)
WP Advocate is a corporate theme developed specifically for professionals such as accountants and attorneys. You can use the bundled images or upload your own. It includes a custom post type adding staff profiles. It will also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. It’s a clean-looking and fast-loading theme.
More info:
Divi
(Divi Theme)
This theme is one of the most flexible themes in Elegant Themes‘ collection. You can create any kind of professional site you want using the page builder or beautiful and unique pre-made layouts. You can change your layout as much as you need.
Divi’s page builder transforms elements into visual building blocks, allowing anyone to understand and easily edit the structure of their web pages without editing a single line of code.
(Divi Theme For WordPress – Page Builder)
It has 40 content modules that you can drag and drop anywhere you want. This includes modules such as multiple layouts, a slider, you can place pricing tables, testimonials, call-to-action, and lots more. Divi is fully responsive and fully customizable. Themes start at $69 per year and includes access to all stunning themes.
For more details, go here:
The Corporation
(The Corporation – WordPress Theme)
This premium WordPress theme was specifically designed to create good-looking corporate sites.
The Corporation has a sleek page-based home page design with a prominent slider. It also has a blog design. It has six color schemes. It also comes with multiple page templates that include contact pages, blog feeds, sitemaps, search page, gallery page, and more. Themes start at $69 per year and includes full access to 80+ stunning themes.
Go here to learn more about this theme:
Adviser
(Adviser)
This premium WordPress theme was specifically built to help businesses in the financial industry to build trust online with a clean business design. It’s perfect for businesses that provide services like investments or tax help. Adviser 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..
Go here to learn more about using this WordPress theme:
Tax Help
(Tax Help WP Theme)
Tax Help WordPress Theme was specifically built for financial companies, tax and finance advisors, and those that provide tax services. It’s designed to show your services professionally to help establish your professional reputation. It has a range of 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 theme, visit this website:
Finance Business
(Finance Business)
This one was built specifically for firms that provide any type of financial service including consulting, tax help, finance, insurance, corporate, accounting, loans, and more. This theme includes a custom CMSMasters Visual Content Composer plugin. It also has around 100 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.
For more information, go here:
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 comprehensive guide has helped you learn ways to improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and generate more visitors with WordPress plugins & themes.
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