In Part 1 of this guide on ways to improve your accounting business web presence, we provided practical tips and suggestions on the following topics:
- Online Challenges For The Accounting & Financial Services Profession
- Online Opportunities For Professional Accountants
- Basic Web Pages
- Tips For Improving Your Web Content
In this section, we continue exploring more ways to grow your accounting business online. Topics covered below include:
- Improving Traffic With WordPress
- Ways To Generate Leads & Enquiries
- WordPress Plugins For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Increasing User Engagement And Traffic Generation
To learn more about WordPress plugins and themes, see these articles:
- WordPress Plugins – Improve Your Website’s Features And Functionality
- WP For Newbies – An Overview Of WordPress Themes
Your Accounting Website – Improving Your Business Online Using WordPress
Your web traffic is a vital part of your business growth. In this section we explore ways to help you improve your web traffic.
Optimizing Your Site For Search Engines (SEO)
There are lots of ways that WordPress helps optimize your accounting or financial services 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 search engines to index your articles for.
- Post Categories – Create SEO-friendly categories for keeping your content organized and easy to find.
- Post Excerpts – WordPress lets you compose an excerpt that will display to search engine users.
- Images – add search-optimized titles to your images for improved search results.
- Internal Linking – WordPress provides a built-in feature that allows you to easily link your content to other posts and pages
- Pinging – Set up your WordPress site to automatically notify (ping) other search directories immediately upon publishing a new post on your site.
WordPress Plugins For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Better User Engagement And Driving More Web Traffic
In addition to the built-in features of WordPress, there are various plugins that will improve SEO, increase user engagement and drive more traffic to your site.
For example, you can install the plugins below to improve your website’s search engine optimization:
- Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress XML sitemap plugin (lists all of your pages for search engines)
- WP Tree – WordPress site map plugin (for visitors)
(Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO)
Other things you can do to improve your site’s SEO, increase engagement and drive more traffic to your business are to add a forum, newsletters, comments, and social features. Here are some useful plugins that can help (many of the plugins described below can be downloaded at no cost):
- BuddyPress – Set up your own social community on your website.
- bbPress – Set up a discussion forum on your website.
- E-Newsletter – Send email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WP site.
- Disqus – Disqus lets you power discussions and helps to increase user engagement on your site.
- Monarch – Add social buttons and features that allow visitors to share your content online on your site.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their website with free or inexpensive plugins)
Generate Leads & Enquiries
Let’s now discuss ways to improve sales and generate leads and enquiries online.
Add A Newsletter
Providing a newsletter is an excellent way to build a subscriber list. Adding email newsletters] provides several benefits and advantages including:
- Sends targeted traffic to your website
- Keeps your business at the forefront of your reader’s minds
- Provides practical tips and advice
- Provides you with a targeted marketing channel
- It’s a way to provide special products or services to a select audience
- Provides new opportunities for user engagement
- Provides you with additional ways for subscribers to share your content
A proven strategy for attracting subscribers is to provide users with high value content and give them free gifts in exchange for their details. This could be a handy guide, tips for handling tax, access to tax calculators, discount coupons, membership access to subscriber-only content, contests, etc.
Provide A Contact Form
Contact forms make it easy and simple for prospective clients to get in touch. Contact forms also allow users to provide feedback, ask questions to specific departments, request quotes, and more.
Contact forms provide several benefits and advantages including:
- Reducing spam
- Automated response
- Giving you control over what gets sent to you
- You can keep your email address private
- Contact forms can be added to any post or page
- Improves the professional look of your site
- Convenient for visitors
One of the most popular WordPress contact form plugins is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 – WordPress Plugin)
This plugin lets you create and manage multiple contact forms on your posts and pages, customize your form and the email contents, add fields, and more.
The plugin 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 visitors can choose which topic they are contacting your company about. This will help you to get the comment to the right person.
Provide A Map
Adding a map to your website helps your visitors and clients find you.
Integrating maps (e.g. Google Maps), with your site also provides users with a number of benefits, such as:
- A map increases local SEO
- Visitors can find you more easily
- Show location of events
(Adding maps to your website 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 Search Engine Optimization, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation With Plugins & Themes
Financial Plugins For WordPress
WordPress provides a number of plugins you can add to your accounting or financial services website that will immediately make available a range of functional tools for site visitors. Here are just some of the plugins you can choose from:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators – WordPress Plugin)
This plugin provides a free collection of 400+ calculators that you can provide to users on your website. Internationalization is supported.
Most of them aren’t focused specifically on accounting, but there are quite a few for:
- 401k
- Loans
- Tax
- Debit
- And many more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes)
With this plugin you get a widget that displays up to 20 different stock quotes per portfolio. You can show as many portfolios as you like.
(Show Stock Quotes – Stock Portfolio)
For more details, go here}:
Custom Stock Ticker
(Custom Stock Ticker Plugin)
With this plugin you can place a custom stock ticker on any post, page or sidebar with shortcodes.
Custom Stock ticker offers a number of customizable ticker. You can choose to use built-in skins or customize it yourself. It’s easy to customize it so it matches your website. You can also create custom stocks for specific categories.
Customize the appearance by changing size, symbols, colors, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator)
This free calculator allows your visitors to calculate indicative repayments. This is a great tool for calculating car loans, property, or other large loans.
(Finance Calculator – WordPress Plugin – Loan Calculators)
Finance Calculator also contains an application form that sends 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 Plugin)
WP-Invoice is ideal for WordPress site owners with clients to bill.
WP-Invoice lets you integrate billing into WordPress. You can send out 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 business, accept electronic signatures, create PDF versions of invoices, provide quotes, create checkout forms, and more.
The plugin ties into your WP user management database to keep track of your clients and their information, and integrates with payment processors like PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, and others.
You can add custom payments and charges, add pre-defined line items and discounts, quickly view invoice status and progression, easily filter and find invoices, show invoice receipts and invoice history, create notification e-mail templates, access reports (collected vs uncollected invoices, 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, helpdesk with knowledgebase and support ticket system, client relationship management and lots more.
(All In One Business Management Application Plugin For WordPress – Invoicing)
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 WP Plugin)
iBilling is a scalable business software that lets you manage customer data and invoicing, tracks your company’s net worth and cash flow, send single-click payment reminders and payment confirmations, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software Plugin – Invoicing)
iBilling Accounting and Billing Software integrates with several payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
WordPress Themes
To get the best features and professional look for your website, we recommend choosing a theme specifically for accounting. Here is a list of some of the best accounting themes available. With these themes you can own a professional accounting website within minutes and save hundreds to thousands of dollars on the cost of web design.
Accounting Pro
(Accounting Pro Theme For WordPress)
Accounting Pro is an inexpensive turn-key theme 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 (gives you an improved WordPress editor), a sidebar manager, auto-resizing for images, and a whole lot more.
You can easily customize this theme with premium add-ons.
For more information, go here:
Accountancy
(Accountancy – WordPress Theme)
Accountancy Theme comes with a variety of styles and layouts to help give your accounting site a professional look and feel.
It includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial, and more. It’s lightweight, search engine optimized, fast loading, and is responsive. It provides the features your business needs without bloating your theme. The price includes free updates and 1 year of support.
Go here for more information:
Accounting
(Accounting – WordPress Theme)
This premium theme for WordPress includes a drag-and-drop builder that allows you to design your site any way you want. The theme also provides unlimited sidebars with custom widgets, four different types of headers, a custom administration panel, different color schemes, a custom slider, 3 blog types, and is responsive (mobile-friendly). Accountancy looks clean and modern and is fast to load.
More info:
Kathryn
(Kathryn WP Theme)
This premium WordPress theme was developed specifically for accountants. Kathryn provides a slider, multiple layouts, 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, inexpensive, SEO friendly, and is responsive. Although it could easily suit any profession you like, it builds a great looking accounting theme. It includes a license for the Soliloquy responsive slider plugin and must be purchased separately from the Genesis Framework.
To learn more about about this theme, go here:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme – Theme For WordPress)
This premium WordPress theme was designed to enhance professionalism within the accounting industry. Every color, layout element, icon, menu item, page structure, call-to-action, etc., was specifically designed to help make your accounting site 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 section with consultation requests (downloadable as CSV), testimonials, and a blog.
Go here for more information:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate)
This is a free corporate theme specifically designed for professionals such as accountants and attorneys. You can use the theme’s 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-looking and fast-loading.
To learn more about this theme, go here:
Divi
(Divi Theme)
Divi is one of the most flexible themes in Elegant Themes‘ collection. Divi lets you create a unique, professional website using the page builder or pre-made layouts. You can modify 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 page without editing a single line of code.
(Divi – WordPress Theme – Flexible Page Builder)
Divi has 40 content modules that you can drag and drop anywhere you want. These modules include accordion, blog, code, divider, image, login, person, shop, social media follow, toggle, fullwidth code, fullwidth portfolio, fullwidth post title, and more.. It is fully responsive and completely customizable. Theme prices start at $69 per year and includes access to all sleek business themes.
More information:
The Corporation
(The Corporation – WordPress Theme)
This premium theme for WordPress was built specifically to make corporate websites look great.
The Corporation has a sleek and professional page-based home page design with a prominent, flashy slider, blog design, 6 different unique color schemes, 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 over 80 sleek business themes.
Visit this site to learn more this WordPress theme:
Adviser
(Adviser)
This premium WordPress theme was designed specifically to help finance professionals build trust with a clean business design. It’s ideal for those that provide services such as investing advice or tax help. It includes a recruitment page with hiring announcements and where to send applications, a built-in lease calculator, widgets and multiple shortcodes, and the drag-and-drop visual composer..
More information:
Tax Help
(Tax Help)
This theme was specifically developed for financial organizations, tax and finance advisors, and those offering tax services. Tax Help is designed to showcase your services professionally to help establish your business reputation. It comes with different blog styles, uses a drag-and-drop visual composer, includes a shortcode builder, the Revolution Slider, and many custom shortcodes.
Visit this site to learn more about this theme:
Finance Business
(Finance Business)
Finance Business was built for businesses that provide financial services including tax help, consulting, insurance, corporate, finance, accounting, loans, and more. This theme includes a custom CMSMasters Visual Content Composer plugin, around 100 shortcodes that includes charts and financial content, custom drag-and-drop composer, two premium sliders, page settings, color management features, animated elements, and lots more.
Visit the theme site to learn more this theme:
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 WordPress plugins for improving SEO, better user engagement and generating more visitors.
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