In Part 1 of this article on ways to improve your accounting business web presence, we covered the following areas:
- Online Challenges For Accounting & Financial Businesses
- Opportunities For Accounting Businesses
- Basic Web Pages
- Tips On How To Improve The Content On Your Site
In this section, we will continue exploring more ways to grow your accounting services business online. Topics covered include:
- How To Improve Web Traffic
- Generate New Leads & Enquiries
- How To Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation Using WordPress Plugins And Themes
For more information about WordPress plugins and themes, see the articles below:
Improving Web Traffic
Your web traffic is a vital part of your business growth. In this section we explore ways to help you improve your web traffic using WordPress.
Optimize Your Website For SEO Using WordPress
There are lots of ways that WordPress helps optimize your accounting or financial services website for search engines:
- URLs – WordPress lets you set the permalinks to create search engine-optimized URLS for your article pages (called posts).
- Post Tags – WordPress lets you select the keywords that you want search engines to index your articles for.
- Categories – Create categories for archiving and organizing your content.
- Excerpts – Create an excerpt that visitors will see in the search engine results.
- Images – add search-optimized titles to your images for improved search engine results.
- Content Linking – WordPress provides a built-in feature that allows you to easily link internal content
- Post Notification – Configure your site to automatically notify (ping) other search directories immediately upon publishing a new post on your site.
Improve SEO, Increase User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With WordPress Plugins
In addition to the built-in features of WordPress, there are also a number of plugins that will improve your accounting or financial services website’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more traffic to your site.
For example, here are some plugins you can use to improve your website’s SEO:
- Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress sitemap plugin (for search engines)
- Page-List – WordPress site map plugin (for visitors)
(A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your site’s SEO)
Other things you can do to improve SEO, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business are to add a forum, newsletters, comments, and social sharing. Here are some more WordPress plugins that can help (many of the plugins described below are also free):
- BuddyPress – This free plugin can be used to set up a social network on your site, with member profiles, messaging, activity streams, user groups, and more.
- bbPress – Set up your own community forum on your site.
- E-Newsletter – Use this plugin to send professional email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WordPress site.
- Disqus – Disqus lets you power discussions and helps to increase engagement on your site.
- Social Media Feather – This WordPress plugin lets you add social buttons and features that allow visitors to share your content online on your website.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website with WordPress plugins)
How To Generate Leads & Enquiries
Let’s discuss now ways to improve your sales and generate leads and enquiries for your business.
Providing An Email Newsletter
Adding an email newsletter is a great way to build a list of subscribers. It provides many benefits and advantages, like:
- Sends targeted traffic to your site
- Keeps readers from forgetting about you
- Provides updates
- Provides a targeted marketing channel
- It’s a way to provide special products or services to a select audience
- Provides regular opportunities for improving engagement with your users
- Provides you with another way for your content to be shared online with other prospective customers
One of the things you can do to get visitors to subscribe is to provide users with content of high value and give them a free gift in exchange for their personal details. This could be a special report, tips for handling tax, access to financial calculators, discount coupons, membership access to subscriber-only content, contests, etc.
Contact Forms
A contact form makes it easy and simple for readers to get in touch with you. Contact forms also let visitors report issues, ask questions to specific departments, request quotes, and more.
A contact form provides several benefits and advantages, like:
- Reducing spam
- Automated response
- Giving you control over what gets 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 visitors
A very popular WordPress contact form plugin is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 – WordPress Plugin)
This plugin is easy to install and configure and allows you to add and manage multiple contact forms into any page on your site, customize the forms and the mail contents, add fields, and more.
Supports international languages, Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, spam filtering and so on.
Another option you may want to consider is to segment your contact form so visitors can select which aspect of your business they are contacting you about. This ensures that visitors get the comment to the right person.
Add A Map
Maps help your visitors and customers find you.
Inserting maps, such as Google Maps, into your website also provides a number of benefits, such as:
- A map improves local SEO
- Clients can better plan their visits and appointments
- Show location of events
(Adding a map helps your visitors and clients find you)
Popular map plugins for WordPress include:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
Improving SEO, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation Using WordPress Plugins
WordPress Plugins For Accounting Services
WordPress makes available a number of plugins you can add to your accounting or financial services site that will 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 display on your website and embed into your pages, posts, or sidebars using shortcodes. The plugin also supports internationalization
Note: Most of them aren’t focused on accounting, but there are a few for:
- 401k
- Rate of return
- Leases
- Credit
- And many more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes – WordPress Plugin)
With this plugin you get a widget that displays up to 20 different stock quotes per portfolio. You can display as many portfolios as you want.
(Show Stock Quotes – Stock Portfolio)
For more details, go here}:
Custom Stock Ticker
(Custom Stock Ticker WP Plugin)
With this plugin you can add custom stock tickers to any post, page or sidebar with shortcodes.
Custom Stock ticker offers a number of customizable features. Choose from built-in themes or customize these yourself to match the look and feel of your website. You can also create custom stocks for individual categories.
Customize the appearance by changing height, width, background color, scroll speed, opacity, number of stocks displayed at one time, font size, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator Plugin)
This free plugin lets users calculate indicative repayments online. It’s great for auto loans, property, or any other large loan.
(Finance Calculator Plugin – Loan Calculators)
Finance Calculator also contains an application form that sends a notification message to a specified email address.
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 – WordPress Plugin)
WP-Invoice lets WordPress blog owners send itemized invoices to their clients.
WP-Invoice integrates billing into WordPress. You can send clients itemized invoices, set up recurring billing and expand plugin functionality with both free and premium add-ons that let you manage business, accept electronic signatures from clients, create PDF versions of invoices, create quotes, create single-page checkout forms, and more.
The plugin ties into WP’s user management database to keep track of clients and their information, and integrates with PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, and others.
You can add custom payments and charges, create pre-defined line items and discounts, quickly view invoice status and progression, easily filter and find invoices, see invoice receipts and invoice history, create email notification templates, access 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 solution includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, help desk with ticketing management system, CRM and many additional features.
(All In One Business Management Application WordPress Plugin – Invoicing)
The plugin supports international languages, is fully customizable and provides powerful tools like document management, to do app, 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 invoices, track your company’s cash flow and net worth, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software Plugin For WordPress – Client Invoicing)
iBilling Accounting and Billing Software allows you to get paid faster by integrating with several online payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
Accounting And Financial Services – WordPress Themes
To benefit the most from using WordPress, it’s best to choose a theme specifically suited for accounting. Below is a list of some of the best WordPress themes available for accountancy businesses. With these themes you can have a professional-looking accounting website within minutes.
Accounting Pro
(Accounting Pro Theme For WordPress)
This premium theme is a turn-key theme developed for accountants and accounting firms. It’s a responsive theme with a drag-and-drop page-builder, offers 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 a whole lot more.
Accounting Pro can be customized by installing premium add-ons.
To learn more about this theme, go here:
Accountancy
(Accountancy)
This premium theme for WordPress offers 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 section, and more. It’s lightweight, search optimized, loads fast, and is responsive. It provides the flexibility you need without bloating your theme with features you don’t need. Your purchase price includes free updates and one year of support.
Go here for more details:
Accounting
(Accounting WP Theme)
This one 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, four color schemes, custom slider, three different blog types, and is fully responsive. Accountancy looks clean and modern and loads fast.
To learn more about this WordPress theme, visit the theme site:
Kathryn
(Kathryn WordPress Theme)
This premium theme for WordPress was designed for accountants. It has a slider, multiple layouts, multiple sidebars, a variety of color options, is easy to use, search optimized, and is fully responsive. 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.
More info:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme – WordPress Theme)
This premium theme for WordPress was designed to exude professionalism within the accounting industry. It features authoritative colors and elements designed specifically to give your accounting website a professional look without looking dull. 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 CSV), testimonials, and a blog.
Visit this site to learn more about this WordPress theme:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate)
WP Advocate is a corporate theme developed for professional service providers such as accountants and attorneys. 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 clean and fast-loading.
More information:
Divi
(Divi Theme For WordPress)
This premium WordPress theme is one of the most flexible themes in Elegant Themes‘ collection. You can create a professional site using its page builder or beautiful and unique pre-made layouts. You can modify your layout to your heart’s content.
The builder transforms elements into visual building blocks, allowing you to understand and easily edit the structure of their pages without touching code.
(Divi – Flexible Page Builder)
It has 40 content modules that you can drag and drop anywhere you want. Modules include multiple layouts, a slider, you can place pricing tables, testimonials, call-to-action, and lots more. Divi is responsive and completely customizable. Prices start at $69 per year and includes access to over 80 beautifully-designed themes.
More info:
The Corporation
(The Corporation – WordPress Theme)
This premium theme was specifically created to make corporate websites look great.
The Corporation has a 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. Prices start at $69 per year and includes full access to 80+ beautifully-designed themes.
For more information, go here:
Adviser
(Adviser Theme For WordPress)
This premium theme was developed to help finance industry professionals build trust online through clean design. It’s perfect for those that provide services like investments or tax help. The Adviser theme includes a recruitment page with hiring announcements and where to send applications, lease calculator, multiple shortcodes and widgets, and the drag-and-drop visual composer..
More information:
Tax Help
(Tax Help – WordPress Theme)
This premium theme was built specifically for financial organizations, tax and financial advisors, and firms that offer tax assistance. This theme is designed to show your services professionally and 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.
Go here to learn more this theme:
Finance Business
(Finance Business Theme)
Finance Business WordPress Theme was built specifically for businesses that provide any type of financial service such as tax help, consulting, insurance, corporate, finance, loans, accounting, and more. This theme includes a custom CMSMasters Visual Content Composer plugin. It also has around one hundred shortcodes that includes charts and financial content. It also includes a custom drag-and-drop composer, 2 premium sliders, page settings, color management features, animated elements, and a lot more.
More information:
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 how to improve your accounting or financial services website with WordPress useful.
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