SEO for Accountants
SEO and digital marketing services
Living in an era with unprecedented reliance on technology and digital communications means that all businesses need to develop a presence in the online world. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the skeleton key for organic growth, especially for accountants in an industry as competitive as finance.
Being an accountant, you need to create a bridge for your customers to cross over and do business with you. All it takes is a mere whim and a few taps on a smartphone to have access to an endless library of information. People want answers fast. They want to know quickly who can solve their problems and where to find that person or business.
As an accountant not taking SEO seriously means that you’re not taking your business seriously.
The benefits of organic SEO are invaluable due to its ability to increase sales, revenue, reputation and growth. SEO is what puts you on the local map and separates you from the competition. Choosing not to invest in SEO will leave your customers searching for you in the dark.
Imagine being placed at the top of Google’s search results for a search queries relating to accounting on a national level. How many leads do you think you would get? Probably too many to handle but that’s a favourable position to be in. You also need to ensure your firm ranks highly for local searches, for example ‘accountants in London’. This can be achieved with the local SEO services that we offer.
Table of Contents
What is Search Engine Optimisation for accountants?
SEO is the science behind getting your website to the top of Google’s rankings. The search engine uses a myriad of algorithms to sort websites hierarchically, rewarding those offering the most value with a higher ranking and those with less a lower one.
Understandably, you will want your accountancy firm to be at the top of the rankings since the higher your ranking is, the more visitors you’ll receive. What does this achieve? More clients.
Just like any search engine, Google sends out a team of bots to look for code and content for each URL they find. This process of gathering information is called crawling. The search engine effectively strips down each website, analyses and inspects its quality and then stores the data gathered in the next phase, otherwise known as indexing.
Websites are given a ranking based on an algorithmic process that assesses their overall quality. The rankings are a reflection of which websites Google think offer the most value.
What does Google look for in a high-quality website?
Time and patience are important when building a strong accounting website since there are a lot of variables involved. The key thing to remember is that getting your website to perform well on Google’s search results is not an overnight process. Rather, it requires a specialist SEO agency with demonstrated expertise in the industry and persistence. That being said, let’s have a look at the key components.
Create valuable content
Your accounting website isn’t just a platform for you to showcase your services; it should be a place where people have access to vital pieces of information created to help solve problems in your specific niche.
Why? Well, to begin with, it’s an excellent opportunity to advertise your expertise and demonstrate your knowledge. This instils trust and increases the likelihood of customers returning to your website for future problems.
Secondly, Google rewards websites that offer great value in their content. If you’ve ever researched SEO then you’ll probably have come across one of the industry’s favourite phrases, ‘content is king.’
Websites for accountants need to have pillars of valuable information on a range of topics relating to finance. Content can be delivered in a number of ways, each providing value to readers and making it accessible to search engines. This can be in the form of infographics, case studies, articles, videos and blogs.
Creating quality content is the crux of strong SEO, providing you with an array of benefits that will contribute to the overall growth of your accounting firm.
Here’s what successful SEO can do for you:
- Increases audience retention
- Creates trust with your target market
- Improves lead generation
- Improves credibility
Attracting inbound links (backlinks)
So once you’ve created valuable content to showcase to your customers, your next objective is to get links from other websites pointing to yours. This is an art in itself, the whole process being referred to as ‘outreach.’
Inbound links are absolutely fundamental to your website’s ability to rank. Links are the currency used by Google to gauge the credibility of a website. The more links you have pointing to yours from trustworthy websites, the better your rankings will be.
This makes a lot of sense when you put it into context. Imagine creating an outstanding piece of content that unpacks everything an SME needs to know about the new digitised tax system being introduced in 2020.
This comprehensive guide is packed full of impressive visuals to complement the great copywriting, allowing readers to digest information more efficiently. If you promote the article effectively, you’ll get a lot of traction on the internet, with other websites in similar niches referencing your article via a link.
Having lots of these links is generally a good thing, assuming that they’re all from credible websites. It’s important to remember that not every link is treated equally. For example, a single link from the Financial Times is worth a lot more than several from standard blogs based on finance.
Search engines are clever. They’re able to understand that websites differ in quality, authority and relevance. Accountancy websites will want to generate links from niches such as:
- Money
- Stocks
- Tax
- Shares
- Business
Website design for accountants
Your website is often the first point of contact between you and your customers. Therefore, it’s vitally important that it gives a good first impression since this impacts the way your audience perceives your brand.
The best websites for accountants should be created to accentuate a real feeling of corporate professionalism without looking cold. Incorporating photos of interactions between you and your client will add a human element that’ll instantly make your business more attractive.
Below are some tips on how you can increase your site’s conversion rate.
- Responsive: An agile site that responds quickly is crucial to lead generation. A website that is slow to respond will only encourage users to leave and search elsewhere for an answer to their query.
- Fast load speed: Similar to the above, slow page speed will increase your bounce rate and damage your SEO since Google favours fast loading sites. As a rule of thumb, two to three seconds is what you should be aiming for. You can use GTmetrix to test load speed.
- Strong information architecture (IA): This is a term that refers to the structural design of your website. Your IA should be arranged logically so that users can explore with minimal difficulty. An example would be to have a clean navigation bar that provides a clear pathway to every corner of your accounting website.
- Call to Actions (CTAs): Users should always be encouraged to take action when on your website. Tactically placing CTAs across pages is a standard way of increasing the chances of converting a lead.
- Contact form(s): Offering stellar content and showcasing a beautifully designed website will count for nothing if your customers can’t get in touch with you. A simple way around this is placing the classic contact us icon on your navigation bar at the top.
Google My Business (GMB) optimisation
Google My Business plays a significant role in capturing the attention of your local audience. Whenever you type in a product or service-related query into Google, the search engine will compile a list of the most reliable businesses near your live location (see below).
The shortlisted trio in the picture above are in what’s called the ‘Google 3-pack’ and it’s the golden ticket to lead generation. It will display vital information about your accounting firm, such as:
- Business name
- Phone number
- Location
- Images
- Reviews
Being in this special 3-pack radically increases your business’ visibility by shifting the limelight onto you and not your competitors’. Not only does it put your business on the map but its importance continues to rise each year since search is now becoming more mobile-focused.
Leveraging GMBs’ ability to connect with your customers should be one of your priorities.
Here are a few crucial ways to get into the Google 3-pack.
Generating a list of citations
A citation is essentially an online reference that helps to increase the validity of your business. It provides Google with important information about your business, such as name, address and phone number. Gathering a list of citations from business directories relevant to your niche is a prerequisite to any SME looking to get into the Google 3-pack.
Get business reviews from clients
Google reviews add more validity to your listing. A long list of positive reviews will influence both your click-through rates (CTR) and 3-pack ranking since this is one of the metrics used to measure your credibility.
Fully optimising your Google My Business
Providing relevant information positively affects both the search engine and your readers. When optimising your Google My Business, ensure you check the following:
- Phone number, address, business name
- Up to date opening hours
- High quality images of your business
- Choosing the appropriate categories for your business
- Relevant keywords are used in your business description
Our SEO for accountants
Building and creating SEO-friendly websites is a specialist task that requires years of experience in this fast-paced industry. Your accounting website must be professional, easy to navigate and visually stimulating in order to engage and convert customers.
Equipping this with an effective SEO strategy that’s tailored to your needs is the formula for getting ahead of the competition. Through years of experience working with accountants, we know exactly how to create and rank accounting websites, all at an affordable monthly price.
1. Technical SEO audit
When you first approach us we need to establish how well your website is currently performing in the Google search results. We do this by auditing your site and analyse things like broken links, page titles and meta data, XML sitemaps, onsite content issues, page speed, mobile responsiveness, design and user experience and so on. Optimising all of these can really make a difference on the results you are currently experiencing.
2. Keyword research and search analysis
It’s important that your website targets the most profitable keywords and searches being made in Google. Keywords are the terms your potential customers will be using to find your services. For example ‘accountants in Crawley’.
Using advanced SEO software, knowledge and experience, we can perform keyword research for your business. This provides us with an actionable list of keywords that we should be building in to the content of your website in a natural way, this could be in the form of on page (headings and body) and meta (page descriptions and titles).
Gone are the days of stuffing the keywords that you wanted to rank for in the footer of your website, these ‘blackhat’ methods no longer work.
Example SEO keywords for accountants
If you are an accountant serving a specific town or city then it’s vital you rank highly for local keywords, these are searches where the location is added to the query. Alternatively for larger firms (with increased marketing budgets) you may wish to target broader searches such as ‘accountants for small businesses’ or ‘online accountant’. These searches are typically more competitive but not impossible to rank for.
High competition broad keywords (hard to rank for)
*Volume: Estimated monthly search volume.
| Keyword | Keyword Difficulty | Volume |
|---|---|---|
| accountants near me | 42 | 9.4K |
| accountants | 62 | 6.2K |
| contractor accountants | 48 | 800 |
| online accountants | 17 | 450 |
Local keywords (targeting specific location)
| Keyword | Keyword Difficulty | Volume |
|---|---|---|
| accountants milton keynes | 8 | 500 |
| accountants derby | 15 | 450 |
| accountants manchester | 18 | 450 |
| accountants slough | 13 | 400 |
| accountants essex | 8 | 300 |
| accountants hull | 14 | 300 |
| accountants bromley | 1 | 300 |
| accountants london | 46 | 3.6K |
Longtail keywords (great for blog content)
| Keyword | Keyword Difficulty | Volume |
|---|---|---|
| how much do accountants charge | 0 | 250 |
| how much do accountants charge for self assessment | 0 | 80 |
| how to find accountant for small business | 0 | 10 |
| how much does xero cost | 0 | 40 |
| how much does an accountant cost for a small limited company | 0 | 100 |
| what is capital in accounting | 4 | 300 |
| how to get accounting experience | 0 | 60 |
| what is the difference between bookkeeping and accounting | 3 | 50 |
3. Local SEO for accountants
We are experts in local search engine optimisation for accountants. We’ll make sure your business ranks highly for the local search terms your customers are using to find you locally. This could be in the form of highly optimised local landing pages which rank in multiple areas, even outside of where you are based.
4. Live keyword rank tracking
5. Conversion rate optimisation
Getting targeted traffic to your website is one thing, converting the traffic to a lead and new enquiry is another. This is why we work on making sure you have strong CTA’s (calls to action) on your website. This could be in the form of a clear contact us button, clickable phone numbers and easy contact forms. It’s important for us to gauge the success of the SEO campaign based on number of enquiries.
6. Search optimised web design
If you have an old website or it’s developed in an outdated content management system (CMS) then we also offer web design as part of our SEO for accountants service. We develop all our websites in the WordPress CMS using a bespoke website design which matches your brand.
It can sometimes be easier to redevelop your website and apply onsite SEO at the same time. We are different from many web design agencies as all of our sites are developed with technical SEO at the forefront, giving you the competitive edge in search engines from the start.
7. Link building
Building quality links to your website is an essential part of search engine optimisation. We start with creating citations where your NAP data is consistent. A citation can include your business name, address, phone number (NAP), business description, logo, email address and links to social media. This is usually the first stage to link building.
Depending on your budget we also encourage guest posting on established authority websites related to finance and accounting. These authority links will pass authority to your site making it more competitive in search engines.
8. Blog posting
Regular blogging is a fantastic way to establish trust, expertise and trust with your potential clients and search engines alike. We can publish regular quality articles on your blog to help grow an audience and drive organic traffic. If you would like to have a go at blogging yourself we can provide training on creating the perfect blog post which answers questions being asked around accountancy and other relevant topics.
9. Social media integration and management
Using social media to share new blog content is also a great way to attract a new audience and clients. We develop all our sites with social media integrated as standard. This could be in form of a Facebook or Instagram feed which highlights your new content to website visitors.
10. Website maintenance and hosting
If you do need a new website we can host it for you as part of our monthly retainer, or you can transfer it over to us to save on additional hosting fees. We’ll manage your website for you, taking care of any updates and effectively becoming your website manager.
11. Google Analytics and Search Console set up
We’re sure you already familiar with Google Analytics and using it to see how many visitors your website has had over a given time period, if not we will make sure Google Analytics is correctly deployed on your site and fully functioning.
We also use Google Search Console to measure performance and look for other opportunities to improve your website. We’ll submit your website XML site map and ensure it’s successfully crawled by the Google bot so your site starts to index in the SERPs.
SEO packages for accountants
If you are interested in moving forwards with us then we have a range of SEO packages for you to choose from. We base these on the number of keywords / queries you would like us to work on and target. The cost of our SEO can also depend on factors such as the state of your existing website and competitiveness.
Case studies and results
Want to see the proof? Make sure to have a look at some of our case studies where our specialist knowledge on SEO for accountants and bookkeepers have transformed our clients’ websites and made their businesses vastly more competitive.
Currently accepting new SEO clients - limited spots remaining
If you’re an accountant looking to revamp your website and harness the full potential of SEO, then contact us today. We don’t often take on new clients due to our services being in high-demand. Please contact us for a bespoke quote and no obligation advice.
