Local SEO strategies for accountants
Your accountancy firm is doing well, but you want to attract more local clients. How do you make sure your business stands out from the competition? What are the local SEO strategies you can use to optimise your online visibility? Here’s how you can boost your accounting firm’s online presence.
What is local SEO for accountants?
When it comes to marketing for accountants, the local approach is just as important as the general – if not more so. Going after broad keywords and generic phrases (‘tax accountants’ or ‘bookkeeping services’ for example) is not only costly, it also pits you against large organisations that have bigger budgets and global reach. Which in turn means it’s almost impossible to achieve the kind of visibility that will drive customers to your website.
Focusing on local SEO means you’re targeting users in and around your area who are looking to work with a local business. It also shows the search engines that your firm is relevant and authoritative in the local community. As such you can achieve much higher rankings – and ideally a place in the Google Local Pack – the list of businesses that appears under a map of the area when you search, for example, ‘best accountants near me’ or ‘tax accountants in [location]’.
Why consumers want local businesses
While cloud accounting software and tools such as Zoom have changed the landscape in recent years, many searches for financial services still specify a location.
Customers often like to know that they can drop into an office nearby for a face-to-face meeting, or they want to work with a business that knows the local area and can recommend other local services if necessary. Perhaps a client is engaging you for Probate services and then wants a recommendation for a solicitor who can provide Will writing.
Local SEO strategies for accountants
If you’re ready to invest in local SEO, you’ll want to know which components you need to implement to optimise your chances of success. Here are the key elements that need to be covered.
Website content optimisation
There are several ways you can optimise your website for local SEO. The first thing to do is carry out a keyword audit of your pages and ensure location terms are included in the title tags and body copy wherever necessary.
That doesn’t mean adding ‘in [location]’ every second sentence, but a mention where it naturally fits will help to indicate to the search engines where you’re based. Putting your geographical location into the meta title and description is an easy win too.
Ensure your website also has a contact page, where you include your address details and offer several ways for customers to get in touch. It’s a good idea to include a map that shows where your office is too. If you have more than one office, create a separate contact page for each to avoid confusion.
Finally, adding local business schema to the site code will help search engines to identify the area you’re local to, as well as what services you offer.
Website functionality
In addition to optimising the website content, you’ll want to optimise functionality. This is where it gets a little more technical, and engaging a specialist marketing agency for accountants can be handy. An SEO agency can carry out the necessary work to ensure your site loads at the optimal speed, is structured in a user-friendly manner, and is optimised for mobile use.
With over 62.3 million people in the UK now using mobile internet services, ensuring your website is presented in a mobile-friendly way is crucial. Your site should have clear text that doesn’t run off the edge of a small screen, as well as imagery that loads quickly, and clear, well-placed calls to action.
Content creation
We know we bang on about great content, but effective content marketing for accountants really is at the heart of any online strategy – local or otherwise. In addition to adding location terms into the text on your service, about us and contact pages, think about creating blog content that’s specifically targeted towards local users.
Let’s say for example, that house prices are rising in Kent, but the Inheritance Tax (IHT) threshold is due to stay the same for another three years. Instead of writing a generic article about the IHT threshold, you could tailor it to people in the county. Tie in the average house price in Kent with the update about IHT, showing locals how they may be directly affected.
This makes the content more relevant to your local community and may even result in some business, if for example a reader realises that their beneficiaries would now be liable for IHT and wished to limit that liability with estate planning.
To find out which terms might be relevant for your area, conduct some keyword research using Google Search Console or Semrush. You can then create content around topics that are pertinent either to local businesses or residents of your community.
It’s worth bearing in mind that Google’s recent helpful content rollout puts more focus than ever on people-centred content, so don’t load up your articles with keywords unnecessarily, or simply rehash articles written by your competitors without adding anything of value.
Google Business Profile
A Google Business Profile (GBP) is a staple for any business with a physical office, and will help your accounting firm to rank higher on Google Maps and/or appear in the Local Pack.
Getting started with a GBP is free, and there’s plenty of opportunity to provide lots of information about your business, from its address and opening hours to the services it offers, imagery and more.
Firstly, ensure that all the information you’re putting on your GBP matches what’s on your website. Then add in extras such as your key services, any health and safety measures you have in place, and anything that may help your business stand out. Do you have a female CEO for example, or specialise in helping vulnerable individuals with managing their finances?
Once all the basics are added, you can update your Google Business Profile with content or links to your content, as well as images, and ask clients to leave reviews that will help to cement your practice’s reputation.
Directory submissions
Once your website is up to scratch and your Google Business Profile is set up, you can look into adding your accounting firm to local directories. There are three main types you’ll want to create submissions for.
Firstly, nationwide directories such as Yell, 192.com and Yelp are well worth appearing in. They’re widely recognised and reputable, making them the go-to for many people searching for trustworthy businesses.
Secondly, hand-pick some accounting-specific directories. If you’re an ACCA member, for example, ensure your practice appears in their directory, and think about listing on sites such as local-accountants-uk.co.uk.
Finally, choose some local directories to create listings for. These might be local Chambers of Commerce or directories affiliated with the local press. Search for ‘business directories in [location]’ to see what comes up, and choose a handful that best fit your practice.
Many directories offer both free and paid listings. To ensure the paid option is worthwhile, contact a rep from the directory and ask for an estimate on the increase in traffic you’ll get from investing. If they can’t provide one, it’s probably not worth paying the fee.
Reviews
Your business’ reputation is part of what the search engines assess when ranking your website in the search results. It’s one of hundreds of factors, but it goes without saying that a good reputation is going to give you an advantage over competitors.
Customers searching for a local accounting practice are looking for a company with a good reputation. If you don’t have any reviews, or they’re mediocre, you’re less likely to win the business. Similarly, your rankings are going to be better if you have lots of positive reviews.
With that in mind, it’s always worth asking customers to share their feedback. Whether they do so on Google or via an independent site such as TrustPilot, positive reviews indicate that you are an authority in your sector, and that you deliver high-quality services.
It’s worth noting that responding to reviews is looked upon favourably by consumers too. If feedback is negative, addressing it directly and promptly shows that you’re a business that genuinely cares about its clients, while responding to positive reviews shows you’re listening to and monitoring comments.
Link building
The final element of a successful local SEO strategy is link building. This means organically attracting, or actively seeking, links back to your website from other authoritative sites.
A link back to your site is effectively a vote of confidence; a declaration that your site offers authoritative and useful information. Links from high-quality sources are a sure signal to the search engines that your website is relevant to users, and therefore helps to improve your local rankings.
One way to attract links from other sites is to create engaging, informative content and share it to various platforms, such as your social media channels and Google Business Profile. This can result in other websites picking it up and sharing it or linking to it from their own blogs, but it’s not really enough to rely on that happening unless you have a significant online presence and large social media community to begin with.
The best approach to link building for local accounting firms is to seek out other websites that may have an interest in linking to you. Look for other local or related businesses for whom you can create guest posts. Your offering must be relevant to their audience and include just one or two links back with an appropriate anchor term (‘accountant in Kent’ for example) to a related page on your own website.
Bear in mind that most web editors are understandably particular about what goes on their websites, so the content you offer must be well written and able to engage their regular audience.
Another way to obtain quality links is through the local press. Local newspapers and magazines like stories that have a human interest element, so if your practice has engaged in charitable activity or is offering a new service to directly benefit a section of the community, contact the press to ask for coverage or send them a press release with all the details.
A note on quality
Your content, links and general local SEO efforts should always be about quality rather than quantity. Search engines stopped rewarding the purchase of cheap links on low quality sites decades ago, and focusing on quantity is now likely to get your site penalised as opposed to promoted. Aim for the best you can get, even if it takes a little more time and effort; it will be worth it in the long term.
Get support with local SEO
For many accounting practices, there simply isn’t time in the day to attend to clients, perform all the necessary admin tasks, and create and manage a marketing strategy. Here at Whitefish Marketing, we offer tailored SEO services for accountants, as well as content marketing, PPC and more to ensure your firm attains the best possible exposure, both locally and beyond.
To find out more about how we can help you optimise your online presence and grow your client base, get in touch with a member of our team today.
