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The fact is that accountancy is a super competitive niche. According to one source, there will be about 88,652 accounting services registered in the US in 2023. (1)
You don’t need me to tell you how much competition that is.
Accounting firms need to stand out in the crowd.
You need to figure out how to rise above the rest of your industry and attract more clients. But where do you begin?
Well, that’s where SEO comes in.
Why SEO for accountants?
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is optimizing your website and content to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). The higher you rank, the more visitors click through to your site. And hopefully, this translates into paying clients.
SEO aims to increase the quantity and quality of organic traffic to your accounting firm’s website from search engines. Organic traffic refers to visitors who find your website through unpaid search results instead of paid advertising.
A well-executed SEO campaign can make all the difference to your accounting firm!
Great, so keep search engines happy, and that’s it?
Well, no.
As the main search engine people use, Google has the right to set certain standards for webmasters or website owners.
On their Search Central page (developer’s guideline), they tell site owners to focus on people-first content, avoiding creating Search Engine-first content. (2)
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So Google wants you to keep people happy. But where does that leave SEO? The trick is to create content that meets people’s needs. Thereafter, you can apply some SEO best practices to tell search engines that your website is worth ranking higher.
That said, here are just a few accounting SEO tips you might want to implement on your website.
1. Identify the right keywords
Before you think of creating any content for your website, you need to identify the right keywords that you’ll be targeting.
Keywords are search phrases that internet users punch into the search bar when browsing the internet.
Google then takes these search phrases and matches them up with the website that would best satisfy the search intent of the search person.
So, think about keywords people would generally search for within the accounting niche that would lead them to your website, and create content around these words.
Examples of keywords for attracting local traffic
If you’re a small accounting firm and would like to get more clients within your own city, you might want to create articles centered around relevant keywords that target a local audience, such as:
- Tax accountant Kansas City
- Accounting Services Kentucky
- Accounting Business NY
- Small business tax accountant in Texas
If your content mentioned the above keywords in either the heading or throughout the articles, people who search for these phrases would most likely see your website in their search results.
Examples of keywords for attracting international traffic
In the first example, you used keywords that indicated you were appealing to a specific audience – people from a specific geographical area.
But what about larger accounting firms that want to attract traffic on the international stage?
You wouldn’t want to limit your keywords to just one geographical area. Here are a few examples:
- Cpa accountant
- Business accountant
- Forensic accountant
These keywords would satisfy the search intent of users on an international scale, and Google will send those search persons your way.
Informational keywords
Then there are informational keywords. They answer general questions that people might have about the industry. For example:
- What does an accounting firm do?
- Do I really need a tax accountant?
- How do I become a CPA tax accountant?
You’ll be working relevant keywords into your website by answering these types of questions. People at the very top of the sales funnel, searching for answers to questions in your niche, will be more likely to make an informed decision with your help.
And if done right, the reader might just follow your Call to Action and sign up for a sales call.
Some keywords are harder to rank for than others.
Here’s the thing with keywords – the more competition on the net for them, the harder it becomes to rank well in search results.
Ahrefs has a keyword research tool that you can use to find relevant keywords within your niche. It will also tell you how difficult it would be to rank for a phrase.
You can then decide whether or not it’s worth going after a keyword or not.
The example above shows how difficult the keyword “accounting firm” is. On a scale of 0-100, with 100 being the most difficult, it scores 91.
And there’s a reason why – there is an average of 10,000 searches in the US for this phrase each month.
I contrast, the search phrase “are accountants happy” only has a difficulty rating of 6, with a monthly search volume of 300.
So do proper keyword research to ensure you optimize for the right content and achieve the highest return on investment that you can.
Actionable Tip: Sign up for a free trial with Ahrefs here (or a similar tool like Moz or SEMRush) and find a list of 10 keywords with a difficulty of less than 10.
Here are a few examples:
- how many accountants does a company need?
- how to fix bad bookkeeping
- benefits of outsourced accounting
2. Write quality blog posts
Blog posts are a great way to connect with potential clients, show off what you know, and build confidence in your business expertise.
And now that you understand the importance of targeting the right keywords, the next step is to start producing blog posts.
Adhere to good SEO practices
There are a few good practices when it comes to publishing content that goes without saying:
- Create fresh content – no copy and paste!
- Use good grammar
- Don’t make spelling mistakes
- Use short paragraphs, 1-3 sentences only – they’re just easier to read
- Write your content for real people – don’t use words just to sound clever; use everyday language that people enjoy reading.
Besides these general guidelines, Google also gives a warning regarding what’s known as keyword stuffing. (3)
“Keyword stuffing refers to the practice of filling a web page with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate rankings in Google Search results. Often these keywords appear in a list or group, unnaturally, or out of context.”
The article goes on to give us one example of this:
“Unlimited app store credit. There are so many sites that claim to offer app store credit for $0 but they’re all fake and always mess up with users looking for unlimited app store credits. You can get limitless credits for app store right here on this website. Visit our unlimited app store credit page and get it today!”
Don’t get caught trying to sneak too many keywords into an article – you could incur a manual review or manual penalty by Google that will shoot your website down the SERPs.
Use a content optimization tool
A few content optimization platforms on the market give insight into what Google is currently ranking for certain keywords.
One such tool is SurferSeo.
Although they have no direct correlation to Google itself, their algorithm helps people write articles with a higher likelihood of appearing in search results.
Actionable Tip: Try SurferSEO for free here.
Take your list of 10 keywords and create an article outline for one of them. Write the article using the keywords and phrases suggested by SurferSEO until you reach a content score of at least 70.
Lastly, add some images from a free stock image site like Pexels.
3. Use internal linking
Once you have a few blog posts, you should make it easy for search engines and people alike to navigate your pages.
Do this by creating internal links from one post to another. These will be visible through blue highlighted text, and once clicked on, they will take you to a different article.
Internal links are low-hanging fruit, meaning they’re easy to do but have long-lasting benefits.
Actionable Tip: Take your newly written article, and insert links to existing articles in your blog section. Once published, you can also do the reverse. Include links from existing articles back to the new article.
4. Audit and optimize existing content
If your business website’s been around for a while, chances are your blog section has too.
You’ve likely already covered a broad range of topics and targeted articles that you know will bring real value to your readers.
But as the years roll by, content becomes outdated and what was once an accurate article might now be redundant. And Google knows this.
So use a content auditing tool like Yoast, Ahrefs, or even Google Analytics for auditing your existing content.
The report will give you valuable insight into how your content pages are performing in relation to search engine rankings and also help you understand how people interact with your site.
With an audit, you’ll be able to answer some of these questions:
- How many visitors am I getting from any country?
- How often do people land on a page just to click away without taking any meaningful steps (this is often known as the ‘bounce rate’)
- Which pages are performing the best in search results – which pages attract the most website visitors?
Now that you have the answers to these questions, begin to alter your content, optimizing pages that are performing the worst to maximize your ROI.
Actionable Tip: Speak to a digital marketing professional that can do a content audit on your existing content and help you make adjustments as needed.
5. Optimize your content for mobile
One of the biggest mistakes any website owner could make is underestimating the value of optimizing their content/pages for mobile use.
According to recent statistics, 60.67% of all website traffic comes from people using mobile devices. (4)
That’s right, more than half of internet searches today are made not from behind a computer or laptop but from a mobile device.
So ask yourself –
How well does my website display on a small, vertical screen?
Do my website pictures display as clearly on a mobile phone as on a tablet or desktop?
Without optimizing your website for mobile use, you’re sure to lose potential customers that are likely to click away rather than painstakingly scroll through a frustrating website on their phone.
Actionable Tip: Pick up your mobile phone, and comb through your blog section. Does the text look good? Are the images loading quickly? Is the page responsive?
If not, it’s time to fix it!
6. Set up a Google My Business profile
A Google My Business profile is an excellent way to connect your business with local customers.
It makes your business more accessible to the public, and best of all, it’s completely free of charge. Within a few minutes, you can create an account that will boost your local SEO.
Actionable Tip: Using the tips below, it’s time to set up or improve your profile.
✔️ Complete All of the Information Fields:
When you fill in all the fields on a GB profile, you are much more likely to be represented across all Google platforms.
Here are a few other befits of completing your Google business profile completely:
“Customers are 2.7 times more likely to consider a business reputable if they find a complete Business Profile on Google Search and Maps.
Customers are 70% more likely to visit and 50% more likely to consider purchasing from businesses with a complete Business Profile.”
So don’t skimp on providing information – sharing your information will benefit your accounting business.
✔️ Verify Your Location
If you own a brick-and-mortar business location, you’ll want to verify your address to help customers find you. Here’s a short video that explains how to do this process:
✔️Add Photos
Well, to be honest – it just looks legit.
By adding photos of your storefront, employees, or even your product, you get to pick and choose what potential clients see and associate with your accounting business.
These pictures will appear in search results when someone is directed to your company profile. So make sure they show a degree of professionalism, appealing to your target audience.
✔️Encourage Reviews
Reviews have a twofold benefit.
Firstly, it’s good for your SEO efforts.
Google rewards businesses that have regular, honest reviews on their Google business profile. This means that your accounting website is more likely to be discovered in local searches when you encourage people to review your services publicly.
Secondly, it’s good for building trust.
When people see honest reviews about your services, they are more likely to approach you with work queries. They’ll know what to expect and feel confident about going into a business transaction open-mindedly.
So why not send happy clients an email and ask for a review?
7. Optimize your website for speed
One of the biggest considerations with this aspect of accountant SEO is the speed in which your website loads.
Djelics / Canva
A slow site is often the cause of people clicking away and continuing on to the next search result. In fact, here are just a few mind-blowing statistics. (5)
“When pages load in 1 second, the average conversion rate is almost 40%. At a 2-second load time, the conversion rate already drops to 34%. At 3 seconds, the conversion rate begins to level off at 29% and reaches its lowest at a 6-second load time.”
Yeah, internet users are pretty fickle. Aim for a 1 – 2 second load time for your web pages. This will give you a huge advantage over your competitors.
Actionable Tip: Test your site speed using a platform like pingdom.
8. Build backlinks
The most basic explanation of a backlink is that it’s an incoming hyperlink from another website. These backlinks send referral traffic to your website. And Google views this as an extremely important ranking factor.
Think about your potential clients. What are they interested in?
- Quickbooks
- Real estate
- Saas Startups
- Cryptocurrency
Identifying topics that potential clients are interested in will help you to build links from those types of websites.
This, in turn, allows you to reach a far wider audience as you’re gaining referral traffic from websites that are closely related to your services.
Doing link-building yourself can be quite complicated, so here are a few things to keep in mind though with this SEO strategy:
- Choose the right pages
Identifying the right pages to build links to is one of the first steps in link-building. Having all your incoming links directed at your home page only isn’t always a good thing.
That’s because websites have layers.
A website visitor that searched for information on becoming a CPA accountant or a personal tax accountant would be annoyed if they directed to your home page they won’t find any value in seeing your small business information.
However, that person would be far more interested if they were directed to a blog article that has been written with this specific subject in mind.
- Build them systematically
One of the biggest mistakes you can make in any SEO strategy – accounting SEO included – is building links in an unnatural way.
There are some dodgy practices out there, and links are often sold off to the highest bidder without any regard to how The Big G will react.
Rather than going from 0 – 100 backlinks in one month, try to reach out systematically, spacing your link-building efforts to come across as naturally as possible.
This tells search engines that people are genuinely interested and that you’re reaching an audience that’s genuinely interested in your service, and they’ll reward you for it.
Actionable Tip: Building backlinks can be more frustrating than a client handing in records 10 minutes before a tax deadline.
You’re good at numbers, and balancing income statements.
But if the whole digital marketing and link building idea seems like too much effort, leave it to link building professionals that can get the job done for you.
Andrey Popov/Canva
In conclusion
SEO for accountants is something that can be take your accounting firm to the next level, but it can be time consuming.
Improving search engine visibility is crucial for accounting websites to succeed in the competitive digital marketing landscape.
By implementing the SEO tips discussed in this article, accountants can increase their online presence, attract more potential clients, and ultimately grow their business.
Remember to regularly monitor and update your website to ensure it stays up-to-date with the latest SEO best practices and algorithm updates.
Article sources:
1 – ibisworld.com
5 – portent.com