In Part One of this article on ways to improve your accounting business presence online, we covered the following topics:
- Online Challenges For The Accounting Profession
- Opportunities For Accounting Businesses In The Online Economy
- How To Improve Your Website Pages
- How To Improve Your Content
In this section, we discuss more ways to grow your accounting business online. Areas covered include:
- Tips For Improving Traffic
- Generate New Leads & Enquiries With WordPress
- WordPress Plugins & Themes For Improving Search Engine Optimization, Creating Better User Engagement And Traffic Generation
To learn more about WordPress plugins and themes, see the articles below:
- Adding New Functionality To Your Blog With Plugins
- WP For Business – An Introduction To WordPress Themes
Improving Traffic
Your web traffic is vital to your online business growth. This section discusses ways to improve your accounting website with WordPress plugins and themes.
Optimize Your Site For Search Engines (SEO) Using WordPress
There are many ways WordPress can help to improve your website’s SEO:
- URLs – Set the permalinks to create search engine-optimized URLS for your posts.
- Tags – Specify the keywords that you want search engines to index your articles for.
- Post Categories – Create categories for your posts and products.
- Post Excerpts – WordPress lets you compose an excerpt that visitors will see in the search engine results.
- Images – add search-optimized titles to your images for better search results.
- Internal Content Linking – WordPress has a built-in feature that allows you to easily create internal links for faster indexing of your web content
- Post Notification – Configure your site to automatically notify 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 Traffic
In addition to the built-in features of WordPress, there are dozens of plugins for WordPress that will improve your website’s SEO, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your site.
For example, you can install the plugins below to improve your website’s search engine optimization:
- All in One SEO – WordPress SEO plugin
- Google XML Sitemaps – WordPress sitemap plugin
- Page-List – WordPress site map plugin
(Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO)
Other things you can do to improve your accounting site’s SEO, increase user engagement and drive more visitors to your website are to add a forum, newsletters, comments, and social features. Here are some more WordPress plugins that can help (many of the plugins described below are also free):
- BuddyPress – Use BuddyPress to set up a social community on your website, with member profiles, messaging, user groups, activity streams, and more.
- bbPress – This free WordPress plugin can be used to run your own discussion forum on your WordPress site.
- E-Newsletter – Use E-Newsletter to send email newsletters, track results and manage subscribers from your WP dashboard, without requiring a 3rd party subscription.
- Disqus – This WordPress plugin lets you power discussions and helps to increase engagement on your website or blog.
- Floating Social – Use this WordPress plugin to add social sharing features and buttons to your website or blog.
(You can add social sharing buttons to your website easily with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
Generating New Leads & Enquiries Using WordPress-Based Tools
This section will show you how to improve sales and generate new leads and enquiries online.
Provide An Email Newsletter
Adding an email newsletter is an excellent way to build a subscriber list. Adding a newsletter provides many benefits, like:
- Drives targeted traffic to your website
- Keeps your business at the forefront of your reader’s minds
- Keeps readers updated
- Provides a highly targeted marketing channel
- It’s a way to offer special services or products to a select audience
- Provides regular opportunities for increasing user interaction
- Provides you with another way for your content to be shared online with others
An effective way to entice visitors to become subscribers is to provide high value information and give users free gifts in exchange for their details. This can be a handy guide, tips for handling tax, access to financial calculators, coupons, membership access to videos, contests, etc.
Adding Contact Forms
A contact form makes it easy and simple for prospective clients to contact you. Visitors can report issues, contact specific departments, request a quote, give suggestions and more.
Contact forms provide many benefits and advantages including:
- Reducing spam
- Automated response
- Giving you control over what is sent to you
- You can keep your email address private
- Can be added to any post or page
- Improves the professional look of your site
- Convenient for visitors
A popular WordPress contact form plugin is Contact Form 7.
Contact Form 7
(Contact Form 7 Plugin For WordPress)
This plugin is easy to install and configure and allows you to add and manage multiple contact forms into any page or post, customize your forms and the email contents, add fields, and more.
International languages, Ajax-powered submissions, CAPTCHA, and spam filtering is supported.
Another option you may want to consider is to add sections to your contact form so users can choose which department they want to contact. This ensures that visitors get the comment to the right person.
Maps
Adding a map helps your visitors and customers find you.
Maps are a great tool for several reasons:
- They increase local SEO
- Visitors can easily find you
- Displays location of events
(Adding a map to your website helps your visitors and customers find you)
Some of the most popular Google Maps plugins for WordPress include:
- Google Maps
- Advanced Google Maps Plugin for WordPress
- WP Google Maps
- Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
WordPress Plugins & Themes That Can Help Improve SEO, Improve User Engagement And Increase Web Traffic To Your Business Generation
WordPress Plugins For Accounting And Financial Services
WordPress makes available 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 the plugins you can choose from:
Calculator Pro Calculators
(Calculator Pro Calculators Plugin)
This plugin provides a free collection of 400+ calculators that you can provide to users on your website and embed 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:
- Mortgage
- Loans
- Tax
- Equity
- And many more
For more details, go here}:
Show Stock Quotes
(Show Stock Quotes WP Plugin)
This free plugin gives you a widget that shows a number of different stock quotes per portfolio. You can display as many portfolios as you want.
(Show Stock Quotes Plugin – Stock Portfolio)
For more details, go here}:
Custom Stock Ticker
(Custom Stock Ticker WordPress Plugin)
This plugin lets you add custom stock tickers to any page, post, or sidebar with shortcodes.
Custom Stock ticker comes with a number of customizable features. You can choose from built-in skins or customize these yourself. It’s easy to customize it so it matches your website. You can also add custom stocks to specific categories.
Appearance customization features include height, width, background color, number of stocks displayed simultaneously, text color, font size, font family, etc.
For more details, go here}:
Finance Calculator
(Finance Calculator – WordPress Plugin)
This free calculator lets users calculate indicative repayments. This is a useful tool for auto loans, property loans, or other large loans.
(Finance Calculator – Loan Calculator)
The Finance Calculator plugin also contains an application form that will send a 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 For WordPress)
WP-Invoice lets you send itemized invoices to clients.
WP-Invoice integrates billing into WordPress. You can send out itemized invoices. It also allows you to set up recurring billing. WP-Invoice can be expanded through both free and premium add-ons that let you manage business, accept electronic signatures from clients, create PDF versions of your invoices, create quotes, create checkout forms, and more.
The plugin ties into the WordPress user management database to keep track of your clients and their information, and integrates with PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, and others.
Plugin features include adding custom payments and charges, inserting pre-defined line items and discounts, viewing invoice status and progression, easily filtering and finding invoices, seeing invoice receipts and invoice history, creating email notification templates, viewing 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 – WordPress Plugin)
This is a complete business management system that includes accounting management, invoicing, order management, helpdesk with knowledgebase and support ticket management system, client relationship management and lots more.
(All In One Business Management Application – Client Invoice)
The plugin supports multiple languages, is fully customizable and provides additional tools such as document management, notice board, and more.
For more details, go here}:
iBilling – Accounting And Billing Software
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software – WordPress Plugin)
This is a scalable business software that lets you manage and communicate with clients, track your company’s net worth and cash flow, and lots more.
(iBilling – Accounting and Billing Software Plugin For WordPress – Invoice)
iBilling Accounting and Billing Software integrates with several online payment gateways.
For more details, go here}:
Accounting – WordPress Themes
To benefit the most from using WordPress, it’s best to choose a theme specifically suited for accounting businesses. Below is a list of some of the best WordPress themes available for accounting businesses. With the themes below you can own a professional-looking accounting website within minutes.
Accounting Pro
(Accounting Pro Theme For WordPress)
Accounting Pro is a turn-key theme for accountants and accountancy firms. It’s responsive, has 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, auto-resizing for images, and lots more.
Accounting Pro can be customized through premium add-ons.
For more information, go here:
Accountancy
(Accountancy Theme For WordPress)
This premium WordPress theme comes in a variety of styles and layouts that helps make your accounting website look and feel professional.
This responsive (mobile-friendly) theme includes a custom slider, a featured testimonial, it’s lightweight, search engine friendly, and loads fast. Accountancy provides what you need without bloating your theme with features you don’t need. Free updates and 1 year of support is included in the cost of purchase.
Go here to learn more this WordPress theme:
Accounting
(Accounting WP Theme)
This theme includes a drag-and-drop builder that allows you to design your site any way you want. The theme also provides unlimited sidebars and custom widgets, four different types of headers, a custom administration panel, four color schemes, custom slider, three different blog types, and is mobile-friendly. Accountancy looks clean and modern and is fast to load.
More info:
Kathryn
(Kathryn)
Kathryn is a premium WordPress child theme for the Genesis Framework that’s developed specifically for accountants. Kathryn allows you to use WordPress as a true CMS and comes with 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, search engine optimized, and is responsive (mobile-friendly). Although this theme could easily suit 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.
Visit this website to learn more this theme:
Accounting WordPress Theme
(Accounting WordPress Theme – Theme For WordPress)
This premium theme for WordPress was developed with the idea of professionalism within the accounting industry. It features an authoritative color scheme and layout elements specifically designed to help give your accounting site a professional look. It’s a turn-key installation but you can still modify it if you want. It’s mobile-friendly and includes pages for your services, contact form section with consultation requests (downloadable as a CSV file), testimonials, and a blog.
Visit the theme website for more information about this theme:
WP Advocate
(WP Advocate WordPress Theme)
This is a corporate theme developed specifically 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 adding staff profiles. It will also integrate with BeSpoke profile templates. It’s a clean-looking and fast-loading theme.
More information:
Divi
(Divi WordPress Theme)
This premium WordPress theme is the most flexible theme in Elegant Themes‘ entire collection of WordPress themes. Divi lets you create any kind of professional website you want using the page builder or beautiful and unique pre-made layouts. You can change your layout as much as you need.
Divi’s page builder transforms elements into visual building blocks, allowing anyone to understand and edit the structure of their web pages without editing code.
(Divi – WordPress Theme – Flexible Page Builder)
Divi has 40 content modules that you can drag and drop anywhere you want. These modules include multiple layouts, a slider, you can place pricing tables, testimonials, call-to-action, and lots more. It is mobile-friendly and fully customizable. Prices start at $69 per year and includes full access to over 80 professional themes.
Go here for more details:
The Corporation
(The Corporation Theme)
This premium WordPress theme was developed specifically to make corporate websites look good.
The Corporation has a sleek and professional page-based home page design with a prominent, flashy slider. It also has a blog design. It has 6 different color schemes. It also comes with 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 all stunning themes.
More information:
Adviser
(Adviser Theme)
This premium WordPress theme was specifically developed to help finance professionals build trust through clean web design. It’s ideal for businesses that provide services such as investing advice or tax help. Adviser includes a recruitment page with hiring announcements and where to send applications. It also includes a lease calculator. It includes widgets and multiple shortcodes, and includes the drag-and-drop visual composer.
More information:
Tax Help
(Tax Help Theme For WordPress)
Tax Help was built specifically for financial organizations, tax and financial advisors, and businesses that offer tax assistance. Tax Help is designed to showcase your services professionally and help grow your business reputation. It has a range of blog styles, uses a drag-and-drop visual composer, includes a shortcode builder, the Revolution Slider, and many custom shortcodes.
More info:
Finance Business
(Finance Business Theme For WordPress)
This theme was built for firms that provide any type of financial service such as consulting, tax help, insurance, corporate, finance, accounting, loans, and more. It includes a custom CMSMasters Visual Content Composer plugin, around 100 shortcodes that let you add charts and financial content, custom drag-and-drop composer, two premium sliders, page settings, color management features, animations, 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, this guide has helped you learn ways to improve your accounting website using WordPress plugins and themes.
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