SEO for Accountants
The accounting world is highly competitive, and standing out online is crucial to business success. If you’re looking to expand your client base, you’ll need to be visible in the search engines – and on the first page of results. Users rarely venture beyond the first page, with one study showing that the average click-through rate on the first organic result in Google is 28.5%. In comparison, the tenth position on the first page gets an average click-through rate of 2.5% – so it’s pretty obvious why it pays to be as high up the results as possible.
Many businesses are a little wary of SEO, because it’s not always obvious how your investment is benefitting you, particularly in the first few months of practice. However, you don’t need a big budget to succeed, since a favourable ranking can’t be bought – instead it has to be earned with good quality content and through various signals that the site is authoritative and offers value to searchers.
SEO for accountants is certainly a cost-effective marketing method, but it does require time and effort to ensure you get the results you want. You’ll need to commit to producing regular content, analysing results and tweaking your website design – and to being patient as you wait to see the gains. It’s for that reason many firms choose to engage a specialist in SEO for accounting firms, as this means they can focus on their business while someone else takes on the task of boosting their visibility in the rankings.
How to Get the Most from SEO for Accountants
The goal of SEO is to put your website as high as possible in the results pages for relevant search terms, but there are lots of elements that need to be optimised in order to achieve a good rank. Google looks for specific signals that your site is authoritative, trustworthy, and of value to consumers. With that in mind, here’s what you’ll need to do to give the search engines all the right signs to meet their requirements:
Quality Content
Quality content is one of the corner stones of digital marketing for accounting firms. Producing useful, relevant and informative content will greatly enhance your other SEO efforts, helping Google to understand your site in the context of the industry. ‘Content’ is a catch-all term for page text, blog posts and articles, imagery and videos. Here’s how to ensure your content works hard for you:
Publish frequently – Updating your content on a regular basis shows Google your site is still active, and encourages the search engine’s spiders to keep crawling and indexing pages.
Keep it relevant – By all means tie your blog posts into current affairs where relevant, but don’t stray from your specialist subject. You don’t want to confuse your audience or the search engines. Also, ensure you undertake proper keyword mapping to ensure the relevant pages appear for related search terms.
Ensure it’s unique – Make sure your content is unique to your site and don’t copy and paste it from somewhere else. Not only can it be a breach of copyright, it’s also a sure way to trigger a Google penalty, which can cause a drop in your rankings.
Inbound Links
Inbound links are another area to focus on to improve your visibility in the search results. Again, producing quality content is a great way to attain these. Look for authoritative websites such as news outlets, other accounting or finance websites, or industry publication websites and seek to obtain a link from there. This can be reasonably labour-intensive, as you’ll have to build a relationship with the sites before asking for a link. And the best way to approach others is to offer to provide guest content for their site in exchange for a link back to yours within or below the content you’ve provided.
Social media can also be a good place to get your content picked up and shared by other businesses or outlets. The content you post there should be shareable and link-worthy, with the intention of generating interaction without having to ask for it.
Website Usability
You’ve got strategies in place to drive traffic through to your website, but that’s not going to benefit you unless your site is up to the job of converting visits into leads. If your website isn’t optimised for mobile use, is slow, or proves hard to navigate, users will bounce away before you have chance to show them what you can offer. You’ll need to make sure the following are up to scratch:
Site speed – Slow load times are a sure-fire way to lose customers – and to lose out on rankings. Search engine crawlers can measure how long it takes for pages and page elements to load, so make sure your code is clean and your images aren’t too large.
Easy navigation – You need to make it as easy as possible for both customers and crawlers to find what they need. Make sure that there are plenty of opportunities for users to move between related pages.
Mobile usage – With 64% of searches carried out on mobile phones, it’s now more likely that people will find you via their mobile device than on a desktop. With that in mind, ensure your site is optimised for viewing on a small screen. Search engines also take into account the ease with which your site can be browsed on mobile, and this can impact your rankings.
Local SEO
Last but certainly not least, having a presence in local search results is key. If customers can find you on Google Maps and view information about your business through your Google Business Profile, which is displayed in the search results when people look for your brand name, it’s going to help drive traffic to your site.
Ensure you have an up-to-date Google Business Profile with the correct address, contact details, opening hours and information about your business, as well as relevant imagery of your premises. Work on attaining reviews as well. Positive reviews show potential customers that you’re a good business to choose for their needs, and also show search engines that you have authority and can be trusted.
If you’re looking for help with your SEO, or want advice on how to create the perfect local SEO strategy for accountants contact Whitefish Marketing today. As SEO experts in Kent, with a specialism in helping accounting firms, we’re well-placed to meet all your digital marketing needs.
