In Part One of this guide on ways to improve your accounting web presence, we provided many practical tips and suggestions on the following areas:
- Online Challenges For The Accounting & Financial Services Profession
- Opportunities For Accounting Businesses
- Improving Your Web Pages
- Improve The Content On Your Website
In this section, we discuss more ways to grow your accounting services business online. Areas covered include:
- Ways Of Improving Web Traffic
- Tips For Generating Leads & Enquiries With WordPress
- WordPress Plugins And Themes That Improve Search Engine Optimization, Create Better User Engagement And Drive More Visitors To Your Website
To learn more about WordPress plugins and themes, go here:
- Add New Features And Functionality To Your Site With Plugins
- WordPress For Business – An Introduction To WordPress Themes
Ways Of Improving Web Traffic With WordPress
Your web traffic is vital to your online business growth. This section explores WordPress plugins that can help to improve search engine optimization, increase user engagement and generate more traffic.
Optimize Your Site For SEO Using WordPress
There are loads 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 choose the keywords that you want search engines to index your article pages (posts) for.
- Categories – Add SEO-friendly categories for archiving and organizing your content.
- Post Excerpts – WordPress lets you compose an excerpt that will show in search results.
- Images – add search-optimized titles to your images for better search results.
- Internal Linking – WordPress has a built-in feature that allows you to easily link your content to other posts
- Post Notification – WordPress can be set up to automatically notify other sites and directories the moment a new post is published on your website.
How To Improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic Generation Using Plugins
As well as the built-in features of WordPress, there are also a number of plugins that improve SEO, increase engagement and drive more web traffic to your site.
For example, here are some plugins you can use to improve your website’s search engine optimization:
- Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress sitemap plugin
- 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 website’s SEO, increase user engagement and drive more web traffic to your business are to add a forum, newsletters, comments, and social features. Here are a few powerful WordPress plugins that can help:
- BuddyPress – This free WordPress plugin helps you set up your own social community on your site, with member profiles, user groups, activity streams, messaging, and more.
- bbPress – This plugin helps you set up a forum on your WordPress site.
- E-Newsletter – Send email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WordPress site.
- Disqus – Power discussions and helps to increase engagement on your website.
- Monarch – Easily add social sharing features and buttons on your pages and posts.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their site using WordPress plugins)
Ways To Generate More Leads & Enquiries Using WordPress-Based Applications
This section will show you ways to improve sales and generate new leads and enquiries.
Providing A Newsletter
Adding an email newsletter is an excellent way to build a list of subscribers. It] provides many benefits and advantages including:
- Sends targeted traffic
- Keeps your business at the forefront of your reader’s minds
- Provides useful information and advice
- Provides you with a highly targeted marketing channel
- It’s a way to provide special services or products to a select audience
- Provides new opportunities for increasing engaging with your users
- Provides other ways for readers to share your content
A proven way to get your visitors to subscribe to your email newsletter is to provide users with high value content and give them free gifts or bonus items in exchange for their details. This could be a handy guide, checklists for handling tax, access to financial calculators, discount coupons, membership access to courses, contests, etc.
Contact Forms
Contact forms provide an easy and simple way for readers to contact you. Visitors can provide feedback, contact specific departments, request a quote, and more.
Contact forms provide several benefits and advantages including:
- Reduces spam
- Automated response
- Giving 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 site
- Convenient for site visitors
A popular contact form plugin for WordPress is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 – WordPress Plugin)
This free contact form plugin allows you to add and manage multiple contact forms, customize the form and the mail contents, add fields, and more.
International languages, Ajax-powered submissions, CAPTCHA, and Akismet spam filtering is supported.
Something else to consider is adding sections to your contact form so prospective customers can select the topic they are contacting your company about. This ensures that visitors get the comment to the right person.
Provide Maps
A map helps your visitors and clients find you.
A map is a great tool for several reasons:
- They increase local SEO
- Helps visitors find you easily
- Displays location of events
(A map helps your visitors and customers find you)
Some of the most popular map plugins include:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
WordPress Plugins For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Increasing User Engagement And Driving More Visitors
Accounting Plugins For WordPress
WordPress makes available a number of plugins you can add to your accounting website that will immediately add a range of practical tools for visitors. Here are just some of the plugins you can choose from:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators – WordPress Plugin)
This is a free collection of 400+ calculators that you can provide to users on your website and embed into your pages, posts, or sidebars using shortcodes. It also supports internationalization
Most of the calculators aren’t focused on accounting, but there are a few you can use for:
- 401k
- Payments
- Leases
- Equity
- And many more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes Plugin For WordPress)
With this plugin you get a widget that shows up to 20 different stock quotes per portfolio. You can display as many portfolios as you like.
(Show Stock Quotes Plugin – Stock Portfolio)
For more details, go here}:
Custom Stock Ticker
(Custom Stock Ticker Plugin)
This free plugin lets you add a custom stock ticker to any page, post, or sidebar using shortcodes.
Custom Stock ticker comes with loads of customizable features. You can choose to use built-in themes or customize these yourself. It’s easy to customize it so it matches your site. You can also create custom stocks for individual categories.
Customize the appearance by changing colours, speed, text, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator – WordPress Plugin)
This free plugin lets your users calculate indicative repayments. It’s great for automotive loans, real estate loans, or other large loans.
(Finance Calculator WP Plugin – Loan Calculator)
The plugin also contains an application form that will send a 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)
WP-Invoice is ideal for WordPress site owners with clients to bill.
WP-Invoice integrates billing into WordPress. You can send out itemized invoices, set up recurring billing and expand functionality with both free and premium add-ons, like business location, electronic signature, PDF creation, quote creation, 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 several others.
The plugin lets you add custom payments and charges, create pre-defined line items and discounts, quickly view invoice status and progression, filter and find invoices, see invoice receipts and invoice history, create e-mail notification templates, view 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)
This is a complete business management system that includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, helpdesk with knowledgebase and ticket management system, CRM and lots more.
(All In One Business Management Application – Client Invoicing)
The plugin supports multiple 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 WP Plugin)
iBilling is a scalable business software that lets you manage client data and invoices, 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 – Client Invoice)
iBilling allows you to get paid faster by integrating with several online payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
Accounting Themes For WordPress
To benefit the most from using WordPress to grow your business online, we recommend choosing a theme specifically for accounting businesses. Below is a list of some of the best accounting themes available. These themes allow you to have 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)
This is a turn-key theme built for accountants and accountancy firms. It’s a responsive theme with a drag-and-drop page-builder, has several page templates, custom menus, a content composer (gives you an improved WordPress editor), a sidebar manager, auto-resizing for images, and a whole lot more.
Accounting Pro can be customized using premium add-ons.
For more information, go here:
Accountancy
(Accountancy Theme For WordPress)
This premium theme for WordPress comes in a variety of styles and layouts to help make your accounting website look and feel professional.
This mobile-friendly theme includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial, it’s lightweight, search optimized, and fast loading. Accountancy Theme provides the flexibility you need without bloating your theme with features you don’t need. Free updates and 1 year of support is included in your purchase.
Go here to learn more about using this WordPress theme:
Accounting
(Accounting Theme)
Accounting includes a drag-and-drop builder that allows you to design your website any way you want. It also has unlimited sidebars and custom widgets, four different header types, a custom administration panel, different color schemes, a custom slider, 3 blog types, and is mobile-friendly. Accountancy is a clean-looking, modern and fast-to-load theme.
Visit the theme website to learn more about using this WordPress theme:
Kathryn
(Kathryn – WordPress Theme)
This premium theme for WordPress was built specifically for accounting services. Kathryn allows you to use WordPress as a true content management system and comes with multiple layouts, slider, multiple sidebars, widgetized home page, flexible rotator, call to action boxes, author boxes for single or multiple bloggers, many color choices, is easy to use, inexpensive, search optimized, and is 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.
Go here for more information:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme)
This premium theme was built to exude professionalism within the accounting industry. It features authoritative colors and layout elements designed specifically to help make your accounting website look professional while not looking dull. It’s a turn-key installation but you can still modify it if you want. It’s fully responsive (mobile-friendly) and includes pages for your services, contact form section with consultation requests (downloadable as CSV), testimonials, and a blog.
More information:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate Theme)
WP Advocate is a corporate theme specifically designed 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. It will also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. It’s a clean-looking and fast-loading theme.
Go here for more details:
Divi
(Divi WP Theme)
This premium theme for WordPress is one of the most flexible themes in Elegant Themes‘ entire collection of WordPress themes. Divi lets you create a professional website using the page builder or beautiful and unique pre-made layouts. You can change your layout to your heart’s content.
The builder transforms elements into visual building blocks, allowing anyone to understand and redesign the structure of their web pages without touching a single line of code.
(Divi – WordPress Theme – Page Builder)
It comes with 40 content modules that you can drag and drop anywhere you want. This includes modules such as audio player, blurb, code, divider, image, login, person, shop, testimonial, video slider, fullwidth header, fullwidth menu, fullwidth post title, and more.. Divi is mobile-friendly and completely customizable. Theme prices start at $69 per year and includes full access to 80+ themes.
More information:
The Corporation
(The Corporation – WordPress Theme)
This theme from Elegant Themes was developed specifically to create good-looking corporate sites.
The Corporation has a sleek and professional page-based home page design with a prominent, flashy slider, blog design, 6 different different 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 full access to 80+ beautifully-designed themes.
For more information about using this WordPress theme, visit the theme site:
Adviser
(Adviser Theme)
This premium theme was specifically designed to help finance industry professionals build trust online through clean design. It’s ideal for businesses that provide services like investments or tax advice. The Adviser theme 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..
For more information, go here:
Tax Help
(Tax Help Theme)
This premium WordPress theme was specifically designed for financial organizations, tax and finance advisors, and businesses providing tax assistance. The theme is designed to show your services in a professional way to help grow your professional reputation. It provides a range of blog styles, uses the drag-and-drop visual composer, includes a shortcode builder, the Revolution Slider, and additional custom shortcodes.
For more information, go here:
Finance Business
(Finance Business Theme For WordPress)
Finance Business Theme was designed specifically for businesses that provide any type of financial service including consulting, tax help, finance, insurance, corporate, accounting, loans, and more. Finance Business includes a custom CMSMasters Visual Content Composer plugin, around 100 shortcodes that let you add charts and financial content, a custom drag-and-drop composer, 2 premium sliders, page options, color management, animated elements, 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
Hopefully, this guide has helped you learn ways to improve search engine optimization, improve user engagement and drive more web traffic using plugins and themes.
Subscribe below to receive 101+ useful WordPress tips that will help you grow your business …
***
"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
***