In Part 1 of this article on ways to build your accounting business web presence, we provided many practical tips and suggestions on the following topics:
- Challenges Professional Accountants Face Online
- Opportunities For The Accounting Profession In The Digital Economy
- How To Improve Your Web Pages
- Improve The Content On Your Site
In this section, we discuss more ways to grow your accounting services business online. Topics covered below include:
- Improving Web Traffic Using WordPress
- Generating More Leads & Enquiries
- Improve Search Engine Optimization, Increase User Engagement And Generate More Visitors To Your Website With WordPress Plugins
To learn more about WordPress plugins and themes, see these articles:
Improve Web Traffic
Web traffic is an integral part of your online business growth. In this section we explore ways to help you improve your web traffic using WordPress.
Optimize Your Site For SEO With WordPress
There are lots of ways WordPress can help to improve your accounting or financial services website’s SEO:
- SEO-Friendly – configure the permalinks to use the title of the posts as the web address of your pages.
- Tags – WordPress lets you select the keywords that you want search engines to index your article pages (posts) for.
- Categories – Create SEO-friendly categories for keeping your content organized and easy to find.
- Post Excerpts – WordPress lets you compose 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.
- Internal Linking – WordPress provides a built-in feature that allows you to easily create internal links for better indexing of your content
- Pinging – Configure your site to automatically notify (ping) other sites and directories the moment a new post is published on your site.
How To Improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Improve User Engagement And Generate More Traffic Using Plugins
As well as the built-in features of WordPress, the WordPress development community makes available also a number of plugins that will improve SEO, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your business.
For example, here are some plugins you can use to improve your website’s search engine optimization:
- All in One SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress sitemap plugin (lists all of your posts and 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, comments, and social features. Here are a few useful plugins that can help (many of the plugins listed below can be downloaded at no cost):
- BuddyPress – Set up an online social community on your WordPress site, with member profiles, messaging, user groups, activity streams, and more.
- bbPress – Set up a forum on WordPress.
- E-Newsletter – Use this WordPress plugin to send professional email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WordPress site.
- Disqus – use this WordPress plugin to power discussions and increases user engagement on your site.
- Floating Social – Easily add social sharing features on your pages and posts.
(You can easily add social sharing buttons to your website using free or inexpensive plugins)
Tips For Generating More Leads & Enquiries
Let’s take a look now at ways to improve sales and generate new leads and enquiries online.
Add An Email Newsletter
Providing a newsletter is an excellent way to retain and grow your readership. Adding email newsletters] provides several benefits including:
- Sends targeted traffic to your website
- Keeps readers from forgetting about you
- Provides useful information and advice
- Provides a targeted marketing channel
- It’s a way to provide special products or services to a select audience
- Provides regular opportunities for increasing engaging with your users
- Provides additional ways for your content to be shared online with others
A proven strategy for attracting newsletter subscribers is to provide users with valuable content and give them a free gift in exchange for their details. This can be an exclusive guide, tips for handling tax, access to financial calculators, discount coupons, access to videos, contests, etc.
Adding Contact Forms
A contact form makes it easy and simple for readers to get in touch with you. Contact forms also let readers report issues, contact specific departments, request a quote, send suggestions and more.
A contact form provides several 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
- Contact forms can be added to any page or post
- Looks professional
- Convenient for users
One of the most popular contact form plugins for WordPress is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7)
This plugin is easy to install and set up and lets you create and manage multiple contact forms to your pages and posts, customize the forms and the email contents, add fields, and more.
International languages, Ajax-powered submissions, CAPTCHA, and Akismet spam filtering is supported.
Something else to consider is to add sections to your contact form so users can select which aspect of your business they are contacting your company about. This ensures that visitors’ requests reach the right person.
Add Maps
Maps help your visitors and clients find you.
Adding maps (e.g. Google Maps) to your WordPress site also provides users with a number of benefits, such as:
- They improve local SEO
- Visitors can find your office easily and plan their visits better
- Displays location of events
(Adding maps to your site helps your visitors and clients find you)
Here are some of the more 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 That Can Help Improve Your Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Drive More Visitors
Accounting – WordPress Plugins
WordPress provides a number of plugins you can add to your accounting or financial services site that will immediately make available a range of practical tools for site visitors. Here are some of these plugins:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators)
This plugin provides a free collection of 400+ calculators that you can provide to users on your website. The plugin supports internationalization
Most of the calculators aren’t focused on accounting, but there are quite a few for:
- 401k
- Payments
- Leases
- Debit
- And many more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes)
This plugin installs a widget that shows a number of different stock quotes per portfolio. You can show as many portfolios as you want.
(Show Stock Quotes Plugin – Stock Portfolio)
For more details, go here}:
Custom Stock Ticker
(Custom Stock Ticker)
With this plugin you can add custom stock tickers to any sidebar, post or page using shortcodes.
The plugin comes with a number of customizable features. You can choose from built-in themes or customize it yourself to match the look and feel of your site. You can also add custom stocks to individual categories.
Appearance customization features include size, symbols, colors, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator Plugin For WordPress)
This free calculator lets your users calculate indicative repayments. This is a useful tool for calculating repayments on vehicle loans, property, or any other large loan.
(Finance Calculator Plugin For WordPress – Loan Calculator)
The Finance Calculator 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 is ideal for WordPress business users with clients to bill.
This plugin integrates billing into WordPress. You can send out itemized invoices, set up recurring billing and expand plugin functionality with 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 payment processors like PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, 2Checkout, PayPal Payments Pro, and several others.
Plugin features include adding custom payments and charges, creating pre-defined line items and discounts, quickly viewing invoice status and progression, filtering and finding invoices, showing invoice receipts and invoice history, creating email notification templates, displaying 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 WP Plugin)
This complete business management system includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, helpdesk with support ticketing system, client relationship management and lots more.
(All In One Business Management Application – WordPress Plugin – Invoicing)
All In One Business Management Application supports international languages, is fully customizable and provides powerful tools like document management, notice board, and more.
For more details, go here}:
iBilling – Accounting And Billing Software
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software Plugin)
iBilling is a scalable business software that lets you manage clients and invoicing, tracks your company’s cash flow and net worth, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software Plugin – Invoicing)
It allows you to get paid faster by integrating with several payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
Accounting And Financial Services – WordPress Themes
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 accountancy themes available. These themes allow you to own a professional-looking accounting website within minutes and save hundreds to thousands of dollars on the cost of web design.
Accounting Pro
(Accounting Pro WP Theme)
Accounting Pro is an inexpensive turn-key theme built for accountants and accountancy firms. It’s responsive, has a drag-and-drop page-builder, has several page templates, a custom menu feature, 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 this theme using premium add-ons.
More info:
Accountancy
(Accountancy – WordPress Theme)
This premium theme for WordPress offers a variety of built-in styles and layouts that helps make your accounting site look and feel professional.
This responsive (mobile-friendly) theme includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial, it’s lightweight, search optimized, and loads fast. Accountancy Theme provides the flexibility you need without bloating your theme with features you don’t need. Free updates and one year of support is included with your purchase.
For more details about using this theme, visit the theme site:
Accounting
(Accounting – WordPress Theme)
This premium theme includes a drag-and-drop builder so you can design your website any way you want. The theme also provides unlimited sidebars with custom widgets, four different types of headers, a custom admin panel, four color schemes, a custom slider, 3 blog types, and is fully responsive. It is a clean-looking, modern and fast-to-load theme.
More info:
Kathryn
(Kathryn Theme)
This premium theme for WordPress was built for accounting businesses. It has multiple layouts, slider, multiple sidebars, widgetized home page, flexible rotator, call to action boxes, author boxes for single or multiple bloggers, various color choices, is easy to use, SEO friendly, and is mobile-friendly. Although it could easily suit any profession you want it to, 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.
For more information, go here:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme – Theme For WordPress)
Accounting WordPress Theme was developed to exude 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 website look professional without looking dull. It’s a turn-key installation but you can still modify it if you want. It’s responsive (mobile-friendly) and includes pages for your accounting services, contact form section with consultation requests (downloadable as a CSV file), testimonials section, and a blog.
Go here for more info:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate WP Theme)
This is a corporate theme built specifically for professionals such as accountants and attorneys. You can use the bundled images or upload your own. WP Advocate includes a custom post type adding staff profiles and can also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. It’s a clean-looking and fast-loading theme.
Visit this site to learn more this theme:
Divi
(Divi Theme For WordPress)
This premium theme is the most flexible theme in Elegant Themes‘ entire theme collection. Divi lets you create a unique, professional website using its page builder or pre-made layouts. You can change your layout to your heart’s content.
The builder transforms web elements into visual building blocks, allowing anyone to understand and change the structure of their web pages without editing code.
(Divi Theme For WordPress – Page Builder)
Divi comes with 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 mobile-friendly and fully customizable. Theme prices start at $69 per year and includes access to over 80 stunning themes.
Go here for more details:
The Corporation
(The Corporation WordPress Theme)
The Corporation WordPress Theme from Elegant Themes was built specifically to create good-looking corporate sites.
This theme has a page-based home page design with a prominent slider. It also has a blog design. It has 6 color schemes. It also has multiple page templates that include contact pages, blog feeds, sitemaps, search page, gallery page, and more. Prices start at $69 per year and includes access to all professional themes.
More info:
Adviser
(Adviser Theme)
This theme was built specifically to help finance professionals build trust through clean design. It’s ideal for businesses that provide services such as investing advice or tax advice. The theme includes a recruitment page with hiring announcements and where to send applications, a built-in lease calculator, multiple shortcodes and widgets, and the drag-and-drop visual composer..
For more information, go here:
Tax Help
(Tax Help Theme For WordPress)
This premium theme was designed for financial companies, tax and financial advisors, and businesses offering tax services. Tax Help is designed to show your services professionally to help establish your business reputation. It comes with a range of blog styles, uses a drag-and-drop visual composer, includes a shortcode builder, the Revolution Slider, and additional custom shortcodes.
To learn more about about using this theme, go here:
Finance Business
(Finance Business)
This one was designed specifically for firms that provide any type of financial service such as consulting, tax help, insurance, corporate, finance, loans, accounting, and more. It includes a custom CMSMasters Visual Content Composer plugin. It also has around one hundred shortcodes that let you add charts and financial content. It also includes the custom drag-and-drop composer, two premium sliders, page settings, color management, animations, and a whole lot more.
To learn more about using this WordPress theme, visit the theme site:
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 guide on WordPress plugins and themes that can improve SEO, increase user engagement and generate more visitors helpful.
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