Local SEO Guide for Accountants and CPA Firms

In this Local SEO Guide for Accountants, we are listing a few search engine optimization tricks to improve the overall ranking and traffic for your accounting firm’s website.

When a UK client needs an accountant most of the time will take 2 actions:

  • Ask a friend, business partner if they know someone reliable and affordable.
  • Go on Google and search: “accounting firm” or other accountancy related keywords such as “accountant near me” or “chartered accountants London”.

When the client takes this second option Google will show over 30 million search results only on that single keyword.. What are the chances for your website to be found?

This local seo guide for accountants will make you clear how you can get emerge in this vast searching ocean.

local seo guide for accountantsThe Importance of SEO for Accountants and CPA Firms

Are you not on page one with your accountant firm website? Then you are losing a lot of business.

The volume of information Google offers to your potential clients is unbelievable: good reviews, your type of services, which area your business is, which accountancy are you specialized in. Could be tech, hospitality or more specific services… researching multiple accounting firms online before choosing the right one is normality for a client that needs accountancy…especially nowadays that many software are used to keep accountancy clear such as Xero.

The goal of this local SEO Guide for Accountants is to make your firm appear on the first page of Google (below the Google ads) so you will gain more chances to get those clients looking for this kind of services.

Before starting our local SEO Guide for Accountants, please read our blog-post on website speed and the importance of having the right web-design in London. These blog-posts integrate this local SEO Guide for Accountants and will help you sorting out your website before you start the SEO campaign to rank it on Google.

What is the point being on the first page if the website doesn’t convert and starts being profitable?

There are over 300 factors when you are trying to rank a website n the first page….Rome hasn’t been built in a week……the first Google spot neither.

Set up a detailed Google My Business profile

If you do not want pay for Google ads (SEM) the priority is to tell Google where your business is and trying to appear in the map immediately below the Google ads results:

To do this you need to tell Google:

  • The exact name of your business ( in this case about accountancy )
  • The full address of your accountancy business, including your postcode
  • The main telephone number
  • sign up for Google My Business
    • No Accountant businesses should be without one.
    • be sure to provide the specific business name, address and telephone number as we wrote before.
    • Categorise your business is a proper way: Some accountants are solely focused on tax preparation, in this case, you can choose a tax-related category. some instead keep the documentation and become the client’s storage for the documents of the company: in this case, “accounting firm” is a much more appropriate choice.
    • Place the URL (address) of your website. If your website is not performing well or there are many coding mistakes please read this article here (speed, design, SEO) or you can contact us for more technical reason.
    • Google will try to offer you a free website. But remember what it comes for free usually do not give control and the performances an online business should have. If you already have a website asks Google what it thinks about it here. Google now tells you exactly what you are doing wrong.
    • As a final step verify your listing for authenticity and authority following Google steps and your business listing is all sorted.

accountants_softwareYour chartered accountant website must have proper relevant content

  • Google likes safe and clear website, Add about us page and all your company details on your website in a clear way. If you are in London specific that in this section of the website.
  • Check all the business information through all the website such as phone number, address and business name as Google became really strict on the information on the website.
  • A well-done footer with all these business information will help the search engine make it clear to Google that your accountancy business is appealing to search engines.
  • Google likes a webpage for each of your service you are offering (I know it is a big job but in the long term it will pay off).
    So for example, if you offer tax return advice, a webpage must be created to offer this kind of service with the related keyword as meta tag/heading keywords. If your services are related to small business the main heading keyword must be placed such as small business accountant London.
  • Same thing if you offer another kind of service that could: tax preparation for a sole trader for example…
  • A well-done SEO website must have a single page for each service.
  • This is a Local SEO guide for Accountants, so local keywords must be added:
    Let’s say a client is looking for an accountant in London, your website should have a related page saying that your services is offered specifically within the London area. Your website must contain these relevant local keywords such as “best chartered accountant in London”. They are very profitable when they are made for businesses selling services.
  • Be clear on your website if you do offer specific services such as “accountancy for corporations” if you want to rank this keyword, for example, you should put a heading keyword like this: “best accountancy for corporations in London”. Html title tag is really powerful to search engines and must be used carefully to reach the more niche audience for your business.

Our Local SEO guide for Accountants: Next Steps

Our general advice after having placed the correct Onpage SEO on your website and optimized it as much as you could is:

  • Pay Google ads a bit as the traffic generated from it will help your SEO efforts
  • be careful about your budget as PPC ( PAY PER CLICK ) is really powerful but also could be very expensive.
  • Use a keywords planner
  • Analyse which are the best keywords for your business and choose carefully the keywords within your budget and the right volume.
  • Plan how to generate the right campaign reading few online guides which are very useful, such as this one.
  • Check the keywords you competitors are targeting: you can use Semscoop, a software we are testing right now and soon we will review here.

Remember that Google charges you for each clicks ….so anytime someone comes to your website must find what it is looking for and must read a well-done copy of what are you selling. If not is a lost click and, of course, money!

web directoryUk listing directories to help your local SEO

Search engines like safe and well-known websites as they will trust them more. List your website on local uk directories: Submit your website to them to gain more authority and to gain some clicks from their users.
You can check the list here.

Blogging about taxes and accountancy services on your related social media

This local SEO guide for Accountants would not be complete without warning about Social media signals. They are part of the new search engines way to see a website… having your website on social media will help your clients understand more about your business. It creates a trust relationship between you and your potential clients.

We suggest you to use Linkedin, as a great source of businesses that potentially need accountancy services.

Seek great links and reviews

Google wants to offer its users the best services around. How can they do it? Checking which businesses have got more citations, links and authority!

When you have an article of “the telegraph” pointing at your website Google immediately will see it as a trusted resource and this will increase your SEO ranking.

Having great links is a major factors to rank a website smoothly and high on the SERP. Try to gain few links to clients businesses, references, newspapers etc..

accountant_reviewsAccountancy Reviews and referrals:

Reviews are very important are they give a trust appeal to your general business and clients will look for reviews about you and your services.

  • Be sure you send them correct links to leave feedbacks by emails so they are more involved in this kind of reviews activity. Send them directly ” write a review” which is found on Google my business In this way the reviews will be viewed also to people looking for your business online.
  • Ask collegues and clients to share links on social media to get more clicks and get more business awareness. You ca also make them write a review on social media to show your business is active ad well followed up.
  • Use social media to talk about your services and fix problem clients might have during the time they are using your services. Accountancy is a really important service and you should always be prepared to answer their questions.
  • Ore reviews you get more your business will grow.

Monitor accurately Your local SEO campaign

The last chapter of our Local SEO guide for accountants is about monitoring. By using some pieces of software and Google tools (Search Console  / Analytics) you can monitor your seo efforts.

if you do not know the differences between the 2 read this blogpost we wrote on this matter.

SEO takes time but it is still of of the most profitable long term investment an online business can invest on.