In Part 1 of this article on ways to grow your accounting business web presence, we covered the following areas:
- Online Challenges For Accountants
- Online Opportunities For Accounting Services
- Your Web Pages
- Improving The Content On Your Website
In this section, we will continue exploring more ways to grow your accounting business online. Areas covered include:
- Tips For Improving Traffic
- Generate More Leads & Enquiries
- WordPress Plugins & Themes For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Increasing User Engagement And Generating More Visitors
To learn more about WordPress plugins and themes, see these articles:
Improving Website Traffic Using WordPress
Your web traffic is vital to your business growth. In this section we explore ways to help you improve your web traffic.
Optimize Your Site For Search Engines (SEO) Using WordPress
There are many ways that WordPress helps optimize your accounting website for search engines:
- SEO-Friendly – Set the permalinks to create search engine-optimized web addresses for your posts.
- Tags – Choose the keywords that you want your article pages to be indexed by in the search engines.
- Categories – Create categories for your posts and products.
- Post Excerpts – WordPress lets you compose an excerpt that search engines will display in their search result pages.
- Images – title images with keywords for better search results.
- Internal Content Linking – WordPress provides a built-in feature that allows you to easily create internal links
- Post Notification – Set up your WordPress site to automatically notify (ping) other sites and directories whenever a new post is published on your site.
WordPress Plugins That Improve Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Generate More Web Traffic
In addition to the built-in features of WordPress, there are quite a number of plugins that will improve your accounting website’s SEO, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business.
Here are some plugins you can use to improve your website’s SEO:
- All in One SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress XML sitemap plugin
- Page-List – WordPress site map plugin
(Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your site’s search engine optimization)
Other things you can do to improve your accounting site’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more web traffic to your site are to add a forum, newsletters, comments, and social sharing features. Here are a few more powerful plugins that can help:
- BuddyPress – Run your own online social networking community on your website, with member profiles, activity streams, user groups, messaging, and more.
- bbPress – This plugin allows you to run a forum on WordPress.
- E-Newsletter – Use E-Newsletter to send professional email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WP dashboard, without a third party subscription.
- Disqus – use this plugin to power discussions and increases user engagement on your website or blog.
- Floating Social – Easily add powerful social sharing features and buttons to your posts and pages.
(You can add social features to your website easily with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
Generating New Leads & Enquiries Using WordPress
Let’s now discuss ways to improve sales and generate leads and enquiries.
Adding A Newsletter
Adding an email newsletter is a great way to build a list of subscribers. Adding newsletters] provides many benefits and advantages, like:
- Sends targeted traffic
- Keeps readers from forgetting about you
- Provides practical tips and advice
- Provides a targeted marketing channel
- Allows you to offer special services or products to a select audience
- Increases engaging with your users
- Provides you with an additional way for your content to be shared with other potential clients
A proven strategy for attracting newsletter subscribers is to provide them with valuable information and give them a free gift in exchange for their details. This could be a guide, tips for handling tax, access to financial calculators, discount coupons, membership access to videos, contests, etc.
Adding A Contact Form
A contact form makes it easy and simple for prospective clients to get in touch. A contact form also lets visitors report issues, ask questions to specific departments, request a quote, and more.
A contact form provides a number of benefits including:
- Reducing spam
- Set up automated responses
- Giving you control over what is sent to you
- Allows you to keep your email address private
- Contact forms can be added to any post or page
- Improves the professional look of your website
- Convenient for visitors
One of the most popular contact form plugins is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 Plugin For WordPress)
Contact Form 7 allows you to insert and manage multiple contact forms, customize your forms and the email contents, add fields, and more.
Supports international languages, Ajax-powered submissions, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.
Something to consider is to add sections to your contact form so prospective customers can choose which topic they want to discuss. This ensures that contact form requests reach the right person.
Adding Maps
Maps help your visitors and customers find you.
A map is a very useful tool for several reasons:
- A map improves local SEO
- Allows customers to better plan their meeting and appointments
- Shows location of events
(Adding maps helps your visitors and clients find you)
Here are just some popular plugins that let you embed, customize and display maps on your website:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
WordPress Plugins For Improving SEO, Better User Engagement And Traffic Generation
WordPress Plugins
WordPress makes available a number of plugins you can add to your accounting site that will immediately add a range of functional tools for users. Here are some of these:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators WP Plugin)
This plugin provides a free collection of over 400 calculators. You can embed these into your posts, pages, or sidebars using shortcodes. Internationalization is supported.
Note: Most of them aren’t focused on accounting, but there are a few you can use for:
- Interest rate
- Loans
- Tax
- Debit
- And lots more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes WordPress Plugin)
This plugin lets you add a widget that displays a number of different stock quotes per portfolio. You can display as many portfolios as you like.
(Show Stock Quotes – WordPress Plugin – Stock Portfolio)
For more details, go here}:
Custom Stock Ticker
(Custom Stock Ticker WP Plugin)
This free plugin lets you place custom stock tickers on any page, post, or sidebar with shortcodes.
Custom Stock ticker comes with loads of customizable ticker. Choose from built-in skins or customize these yourself to match the look and feel of your site. You can also add custom stocks to specific categories.
Customize the appearance by changing colours, size, speed, text, and symbols, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator Plugin)
This free plugin allows your site visitors to calculate indicative repayments. It’s great for calculating automotive loans, property loans, or other large loans.
(Finance Calculator WordPress Plugin – Loan Calculators)
Finance Calculator also contains an application form that sends a notification message to a specified email address.
It will show 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 Plugin)
WP-Invoice lets you send itemized invoices to clients.
This plugin 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, single-page checkout forms, and more.
The plugin ties into the WP user management database to keep track of your clients and their information, and integrates with PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, 2Checkout, USAePay, and 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, easily filter and find invoices, see invoice receipts and invoice history, create e-mail notification templates, access 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 – WordPress Plugin)
This complete business management solution includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, help desk with knowledgebase and support ticketing management system, CRM and lots more.
(All In One Business Management Application Plugin For WordPress – Client Invoice)
The plugin supports different languages, is fully customizable and provides additional 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)
iBilling is a scalable business software that lets you manage customer data and invoices, track your company’s net worth and cash flow, send single-click payment reminders and payment confirmations, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software – Invoice)
iBilling Accounting and Billing Software integrates with several payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
Accounting And Financial Services – WordPress Themes
To get the best features and professional look for your website, we recommend choosing a theme specifically suited for accounting businesses. Here is a look at some of the best accounting 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 – WordPress Theme)
This premium WordPress theme is a turn-key theme for accountants and accountancy firms. It’s a responsive theme with 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, performs auto resizing for images, and a whole lot more.
Accounting Pro can be expanded through premium add-ons.
For more information, go here:
Accountancy
(Accountancy – WordPress Theme)
This theme offers a variety of styles and layouts that helps give your accounting website a professional look and feel.
It includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial, and more. It’s lightweight, search optimized, fast loading, and fully responsive. Accountancy provides the features you need without bloating your theme. Your purchase includes free updates and one year of support.
For more details about using this theme, go here:
Accounting
(Accounting – WordPress Theme)
This 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 header types, a custom admin panel, four color schemes, a custom slider, three different blog types, and is responsive. Accountancy is a clean-looking, modern and fast loading theme.
To learn more about this theme, visit this website:
Kathryn
(Kathryn)
This premium theme was developed for accounting businesses. It allows you to use WordPress as a true CMS and comes with multiple layouts, slider, multiple sidebars, various color choices, is easy to use, inexpensive, search optimized, and is fully responsive. Although it could easily suit any profession, 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 information:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme – WordPress Theme)
This one was designed to enhance professionalism within the accounting industry. It features authoritative colors and elements designed specifically to help give your accounting site a professional look while not 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 form section with consultation requests (downloadable as CSV), testimonials section, and a blog.
More information:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate)
WP Advocate is a corporate theme developed for professional service providers such as accountants and attorneys. You can use the bundled images or upload your own. It also includes a custom post type for staff profiles and can also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. WP Advocate is clean and loads fast.
More information:
Divi
(Divi Theme For WordPress)
This premium theme is one of the most flexible themes in Elegant Themes‘ entire collection of WordPress themes. You can create a unique, professional website using the page builder or beautiful pre-made layouts. You can modify your layout to your heart’s content.
The builder transforms elements into visual building blocks, allowing anyone to understand and easily redesign the structure of their pages without editing any code.
(Divi WP Theme – 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. Divi is mobile-friendly and fully customizable. Theme prices start at $69 per year and includes full access to over 80 themes.
More info:
The Corporation
(The Corporation – WordPress Theme)
This theme was designed specifically to create good-looking corporate sites.
This theme has a page-based home page design with a prominent slider, blog design, six different color schemes, multiple page templates that include contact pages, blog feeds, sitemaps, search page, gallery page, and more. Elegant Theme prices start at $69 per year and includes access to all stunning themes.
Go here to learn more this theme:
Adviser
(Adviser – WordPress Theme)
This premium WordPress theme was developed specifically to help finance industry professionals build trust with a clean business design. It’s perfect for businesses that provide services such as investing or tax help. The Adviser theme includes a recruitment page with hiring announcements and where to send applications. It also includes a lease calculator. It includes multiple shortcodes and widgets, and includes the drag-and-drop visual composer.
More information:
Tax Help
(Tax Help Theme)
Tax Help was built for financial companies, tax and financial advisors, and firms that provide tax assistance. The theme is designed to show your services professionally and help grow your professional reputation. It comes with a range of blog styles, uses the drag-and-drop visual composer, includes a shortcode builder, the Revolution Slider, and many custom shortcodes.
Go here for more details:
Finance Business
(Finance Business Theme For WordPress)
This theme was designed for firms that provide financial services such as tax help, consulting, corporate, finance, insurance, accounting, loans, and more. It includes a custom CMSMasters Visual Content Composer plugin, around 100 shortcodes that includes charts and financial content, a custom drag-and-drop composer, 2 premium sliders, page options, color management, animations, and lots 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
We hope that you have found this comprehensive guide on ways of improving your website using WordPress useful.
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