Link Building for Accountants

Link building is the process of growing a network of inbound links from external websites, to your own website.  These are known as backlinks and they are incredibly important for SEO. Here’s how you can get backlinks for your accountancy website, the right way.

Backlinks are a sign that your website is worthy of being ranked. This is important signal to search engines like Google, who seek to return the most valuable content to users searching for a specific topic. Backlinks from relevant, important websites digitally endorse your site and advocate your brand.

From a front end (online user experience) perspective, backlinks are also important because they provide a way of navigating from offsite content, to relevant content on your site. This increases your referral traffic. An increase in referral traffic is also a good sign to Google that your site is worthy.

Good and bad links

Not all backlinks are good. Links from poor quality sites, like spammy sites and link farms are likely to do more harm than good to your rankings. You should try and avoid getting links from these. Sometimes you will inadvertently have picked up a link back from one of these low-quality sites. You can check your referring sites in Google Analytics and disavow them using Google Search Console.

Links from quality sites, such as reputable companies in your industry are invaluable. The more credible the site is that links back to you, the more ‘power’ is being passed back, which gives a nice little boost to your rankings.

Think quality over quantity. And don’t be afraid to be ambitious. A national publication like the Financial Times or The Economist might seem like impossible options, but they all need content and somewhere in their articles, they will have something relevant to what you offer. But as a starting point, aim for local publications in your area.

Finding High Quality Websites

Finding suitable websites (domains) to approach is a bit like creating a sales hit list. There is an element of pitching involved in getting backlinks, as you need to convince these sites to link to you. That’s a tough task if they don’t know you.

This is made harder by the notion that everyone is after a backlink, so people see it as an agenda, rather than something organic. But everybody is in the same boat, and often people do have the mindset of wanting to help one another, especially if it helps them out content-wise.

Luckily there are some ways you can overcome some of these hurdles, without looking like you’re desperate for an inbound link:

  1. Build online relationships

If your target domains are business that are not likely to know of you, invest in ensuring they do. First and foremost, ensure you have a personal identity that exudes some kind of authority in your field. The best way to do this is to blog as an ‘influencer’ or ‘guru’ and put out content like whitepapers and YouTube videos.

The next thing you need to do, is to connect with other influencers and gurus. People connect better with people, rather than faceless brands. You can connect on social media by following and encouraging or hoping for a follow back. On LinkedIn, you can request to connect, but ensure your profile showcases your speciality.

Get involved in discussions with your fellow influencers. Participate in discussions about topics they post about and form opinions.

Further this by writing your own blogs about topics they have covered, and link to them. Rouse their awareness of your content by tagging them and organically grow your links that way.

  1. Build offline relationships

Online is by far the most important environment for forming relationships that will benefit you digitally, but that’s not to say the old school ways are dead. The finance industry maintains an element of tradition, and face to face relationship building is still critical.

You can still research your brands and influencers online but aim to chat with them at industry events like Accounting Live and Accountex. Attendees at these kinds of events are much more open to a chat than when sat in an office.

Get networking over a few drinks and discuss content and ideas that resonate with them. Aim to link up socially and then you can introduce the idea of linking up your sites.

  1. Links from industry guides

Backlinks from industry guides are well worth trying to obtain. Industry guides are generally impartial in terms of the businesses they list, but the creators want to furnish users with an exhaustive list of information. In short, it’s in their interest to include companies that ae relevant. Do you research and see which guides you can be included in. Sites like unbiased.co.uk and ACCA are a good start.

  1. Citations

Citations are basically local listings websites where you can list your business by the service you offer. Citations are really important for showing local relevance, which is important for SEO. They also offer a different way for your business to be endorsed. Many sites like Google My Business and Yelp offer encourage reviews of businesses, from users, essentially recommending you to others. They also include a link to your website, but some may charge for this.

  1. Social media

Technically links from social media activity to your site are not considered to be true backlinks, but they are important in terms of generating links directly to you site, from websites that have huge audiences. Good traffic from social media, also helps to boost your SEO. Constructing engaging campaigns raises awareness of your content, which owners of other websites might want to link to.

Backlink Advice

Need any advice on your backlink strategy? Here at Whitefish Marketing we specialise in digital marketing for accountancy firms, offering a range of services like SEO, website development, PPC, content marketing and social media management. Contact our Kent team today on 01303 720 288.