In Part 1 of this comprehensive guide on ways to improve your accounting web presence, we provided in-depth tips and suggestions on the following areas:
- Online Challenges For The Accounting Profession
- Online Opportunities For Professional Accountants
- Improve Your Web Pages
- Tips For Improving Your Web Content
In this section, we continue exploring more ways to grow your accounting business online. Areas covered include:
- Improving Web Traffic
- Generate New Leads & Enquiries With WordPress-Based Tools
- WordPress Plugins And Themes That Can Help Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Increase Traffic Generation
For more information about WordPress plugins and themes, see the articles below:
- WP Plugins – The Easy Way To Extend Your Website’s Functionality
- WP For Business – An Introduction To WP Themes
Your Accounting Website – WordPress Plugins That Can Help Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation
Web traffic is an integral part of your business growth. This section will help you improve your web traffic using WordPress.
Optimize Your Site For Search Engines
There are so many ways WordPress can help to improve your website’s SEO:
- SEO-Friendly – Set the permalinks to create search engine-optimized URLS for your posts.
- Tags – Choose the keywords that you want search engines to index your article pages (posts) for.
- Post Categories – Add categories for keeping your content organized and easy to find.
- Excerpts – Set descriptions for your posts that will appear in search results.
- Images – title your images with keywords for improved search results.
- Internal Linking – WordPress has a built-in feature that allows you to easily link internal content
- Post Notification – Configure your site to automatically notify other sites and directories as soon as a new post is published on your website.
Improving SEO, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation Using Plugins
In addition to the built-in features of WordPress, there are dozens of WordPress plugins that will improve SEO, increase engagement and drive more visitors to your business.
For example, you can use the plugins below to improve your site’s search engine optimization:
- All in One SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress sitemap plugin (for search engines)
- Page-List – WordPress site map plugin
(Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your site’s SEO)
Other WordPress tools you can use to improve your accounting site’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more traffic to your site are to add a forum, newsletters, comments, and social sharing. Here are a few WordPress plugins that can help (many of the plugins listed below can be downloaded at no cost):
- BuddyPress – This free plugin lets you run your own social community on WordPress.
- bbPress – This free WordPress plugin allows you to run a community forum on your WordPress website.
- E-Newsletter – Use E-Newsletter to send email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WP dashboard, without requiring 3rd-party subscriptions.
- Disqus – This WordPress plugin lets you power discussions and helps to increase engagement on your site.
- Social Media Feather – Easily add powerful social sharing features to your pages and posts.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website using free or inexpensive plugins)
Ways To Generate Leads & Enquiries With WordPress-Based Tools
Let’s discuss now ways to improve your sales and generate leads and enquiries.
Providing A Newsletter
Adding a newsletter is an excellent way to build a subscriber list. Adding a newsletter provides a number of benefits and advantages, like:
- Drives targeted traffic to your website
- Keeps your business at the forefront of your reader’s minds
- Provides updates that could save businesses time and money
- Provides a highly targeted marketing channel
- It’s a way to offer special services or products to a select audience
- Provides regular opportunities for engaging with users
- Provides another way for subscribers to share your content
An effective way to attract newsletter subscribers is to provide them with valuable information and offer them something for free in exchange for their personal details. This can be an exclusive guide, checklists for handling tax, access to tax calculators, discount coupons, membership access to courses, contests, etc.
Add Contact Forms
A contact form provides an easy and simple way for readers to contact you. A contact form also lets users report issues, contact specific departments, request a quote, and more.
A contact form provides many benefits and advantages including:
- Reduces spam
- Set up automated responses
- Gives you control over what is sent to you
- You can keep your email address private
- Can be added to any page or post
- Improves the professional look of your website
- Convenient for site visitors
One of the most popular contact form plugins is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 WP Plugin)
This plugin allows you to insert and manage multiple contact forms to your website, customize the forms and the mail contents, add fields, and more.
International languages, Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, and Akismet spam filtering is supported.
Another feature to consider is to add sections to your contact form so prospects can choose the topic they are contacting you about. This will help you to get the comment to the right person.
Map Integration
Adding maps helps your visitors and customers find you.
Maps are very useful tools for several reasons:
- A map increases local SEO
- Helps visitors find your office easily
- Shows location of events
(Adding maps 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
WordPress Plugins And Themes For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Increasing User Engagement And Web Traffic Generation
Accounting And Financial Services Plugins For WordPress
WordPress lets you add a number of plugins to your accounting website that will immediately add a range of functional tools for your site visitors. Here are just some of the plugins you can choose from:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators Plugin)
This is a free collection of 400+ calculators. You can embed them into your pages, posts, or sidebars using shortcodes. It supports internationalization
Most of the calculators aren’t focused specifically on accounting, but there are quite a few for:
- 401k
- Payments
- Leases
- Equity
- And more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes – WordPress Plugin)
This plugin installs a widget that displays a number of different stock quotes per portfolio. You can display as many widgets as you like.
(Show Stock Quotes – Stock Portfolio)
For more details, go here}:
Custom Stock Ticker
(Custom Stock Ticker)
With this plugin you can add custom stock tickers to any page, post, or sidebar using shortcodes.
Custom Stock ticker includes loads of customizable features. You can choose to use built-in themes or customize it yourself. It’s easy to customize it so it matches your website. You can also create custom stocks for specific categories.
Appearance customizations include colours, size, speed, text, and symbols, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator WordPress Plugin)
This free calculator lets your users calculate indicative repayments online. It’s great for vehicle loans, property, or other large loans.
(Finance Calculator Plugin For WordPress – Loan Calculator)
The plugin also contains an application form that sends a notification message to a specified email address.
Other features of this plugin include displaying 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 is ideal for WordPress business users with clients to bill.
WP-Invoice integrates 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 your clients and their information, and integrates with PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, and many others.
Plugin features include adding custom payments and charges, creating pre-defined line items and discounts, viewing invoice status and progression, easily filtering and finding invoices, showing invoice receipts and invoice history, creating notification e-mail templates, accessing 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 Plugin For WordPress)
This complete business management system includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, helpdesk with knowledgebase and ticketing system, client relationship management and many additional features.
(All In One Business Management Application Plugin – Invoicing)
All In One Business Management Application supports international languages, is fully customizable and provides additional tools like 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)
This is a scalable business software that lets you manage clients and invoices, tracks your company’s net worth and cash flow, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software Plugin – Client Invoicing)
It integrates with several payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
Accounting – WordPress Themes
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 themes themes available for accounting firms. These themes allow you to own a professional-looking accounting website within minutes.
Accounting Pro
(Accounting Pro Theme)
Accounting Pro is a turn-key theme for accountants and accountancy firms. It’s responsive, has a drag-and-drop page-builder, has several page templates, custom menu features, a content composer (gives you an improved WordPress editor), a sidebar manager, auto-resized images, and a whole lot more.
You can easily expand Accounting Pro by installing premium add-ons.
More information:
Accountancy
(Accountancy Theme)
Accountancy Theme comes in a variety of built-in styles and layouts to help give your accounting website a professional look and feel.
It includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial, and more. It’s lightweight, SEO friendly, loads fast, and fully responsive. Accountancy Theme provides what your business needs without bloating your theme. Free updates and 1 year of support is included in your purchase.
For more details, go here:
Accounting
(Accounting)
This theme includes a drag-and-drop builder so you can design your site any way you want. The theme also has unlimited sidebars with custom widgets, four different header types, a custom administration panel, different color schemes, custom slider, three different blog types, and is mobile-friendly. It is a clean-looking, modern and fast-to-load theme.
Go here to learn more about using this theme:
Kathryn
(Kathryn WordPress Theme)
This premium theme was created for accounting services. The theme comes with a slider, multiple layouts, multiple sidebars, author boxes for single or multiple bloggers, many colors, is easy to use, search optimized, and is fully responsive (mobile-friendly). Although this theme can easily fit any profession, it builds a great looking accounting theme. It includes a license for the Soliloquy responsive slider plugin and is a separate purchase from the Genesis Framework.
More info:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme)
This premium theme was created to enhance professionalism within the accounting industry. Every color, layout element, icon, menu item, page structure, call-to-action, etc., is specifically designed to help make your accounting business site look professional while not looking dull. It’s a turn-key installation but you can still modify it if you want. It’s mobile-friendly and includes pages for your accounting services, contact form section with consultation requests (downloadable as CSV), testimonials section, and a blog.
For more information, go here:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate WP Theme)
WP Advocate is a corporate theme developed specifically for professionals such as accountants and attorneys. Use the theme’s bundled images or upload your own. WP Advocate also includes a custom post type for staff profiles and can also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. WP Advocate is clean-looking and loads fast.
More information:
Divi
(Divi)
Divi is one of the most flexible themes in Elegant Themes‘ entire theme collection. Divi lets you create any kind of professional website you want using its page builder or pre-made layouts. You can change your layout to your heart’s content.
Divi’s page builder transforms elements into visual building blocks, allowing you to understand and easily change the structure of their page without touching any code.
(Divi Theme For WordPress – Page Builder)
Divi has 40 content modules that you can drag and drop anywhere you want. This includes multiple layouts, a slider, you can place pricing tables, testimonials, call-to-action, and lots more. It is mobile-friendly and completely customizable. Themes start at $69 per year and includes full access to all stunning themes.
More information:
The Corporation
(The Corporation)
This premium theme was specifically built to create great-looking corporate websites.
It has a sleek and professional page-based home page design with a eye-catching slider, blog design, six different color schemes, 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 full access to 80+ sleek business themes.
For more information, go here:
Adviser
(Adviser WP Theme)
This premium theme was specifically designed to help finance industry professionals build trust online through clean web design. It’s perfect for businesses that provide services like investing or tax advice. Adviser includes a recruitment page with hiring announcements and where to send applications, a lease calculator, multiple shortcodes and widgets, and the drag-and-drop visual composer..
Go here for more details:
Tax Help
(Tax Help WP Theme)
This premium theme was specifically designed for financial organizations, tax and finance advisors, and those offering tax services. The theme is designed to showcase your services professionally and help build 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.
Go here for more info:
Finance Business
(Finance Business Theme For WordPress)
This premium theme for WordPress was designed specifically for businesses that provide financial services such as consulting, tax help, corporate, finance, insurance, accounting, loans, and more. It includes a custom CMSMasters Visual Content Composer plugin, around one hundred shortcodes that let you add charts and financial content, the custom drag-and-drop composer, 2 premium sliders, page settings, color management features, animated elements, and a lot more.
To learn more about about this theme, 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, you have found this article on ways of improving your website with WordPress plugins and themes helpful.
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