A Guide to SEO for Accountants
SEO (search engine optimisation) is the process of optimising your accounting website to show up favourably in search engine results pages. When a user types in a particular search term or keyword, using SEO allows you to rank higher in the search results and help the consumer find you.
If you run an accounting firm, your primary goal will be to rank higher than rivals. For your dream to be a reality, there are some SEO tactics you can try out today to score more clients.
What is On-page SEO?
On-page SEO involves optimising your website’s content and structure to give better visibility in search engine rankings. This includes making sure that all of your web pages are indexed correctly and have the right keywords in them. You should also focus on adding quality content, internal linking, and setting up a proper sitemap.
Create Quality Blog Content
As well as having a professional accounting firm’s website in place, it’s wise to set up a blog too. Your blog will be an excellent tool for driving traffic to your page, especially if you can optimise your posts for search engines.
If your blog posts are highly relevant, of excellent quality, and satisfy search intent, you’ll quickly have clients flocking to your page. Make sure your content is informative, engaging, and keeps the reader hooked. Candidsky offers SEO services in Manchester who can assist you with your SEO efforts. They can help get your accounting blog noticed by your target audience.
Research Relevant Keywords
You could have the best blog in the world. However, you may find no one is interested in that topic, meaning your blog post is deemed useless and you won’t get any traffic. To fix this, it’s a good idea to start using a keyword research tool.
These will show you how many people have searched for a particular keyword in Google each month. Understandably, your goal will be to get your blog post ranking on the first page of results. To achieve this, you’ll need to research relevant keywords and ensure they’re spread naturally throughout your content.
Get Backlinks
A backlink is a hyperlink from another person’s website to your accounting page. Backlinks give signals to Google that others are talking about your brand and that your page is valuable, credible, and useful.
As you would expect, the more relevant backlinks you’ve got, the easier it will be for your search engine optimisation to help push you higher in search engine ranking results. Just remember that not every backlink is created equally.
It’s always best to conduct some research into the topic first and perhaps use SEO services to gain high-quality backlinks.
Write Guest Blog Posts
The purpose of writing guest blog posts is simple – to get backlinks. Now is the time to create a pitch so you can write prominent blogs in your niche. When they’re published on other websites and blogs, just make sure your article has a link back to one of your web pages. Doing so will be an enormous help in boosting your SEO profile.
Technical SEO – Speed Up Your Website
Google wants its users to have a seamless experience. This won’t be possible if they send their audience to pages that are slow! Now is the time to check how fast (or slow) your mobile and desktop website is. You can use Google’s PageSpeed Insights to do this. When you improve your site speed, users will stay satisfied and not edging for the X button!
Below are the insights for this site; we have spent time on our technical SEO over the years to provide a better user experience.
Local SEO
Local SEO for accountants is incredibly important. It will help you rank higher on the search engines pages (SERP) when people are searching for “accountants near me”. You can do this by ensuring your website is up to date with all your contact information, including the location of your office and updating your Google My Business page with a verified business address.
National SEO
National SEO is similar to local SEO but can be more challenging. You’ll need a comprehensive SEO strategy that covers all aspects of the search engine optimisation process, and you’ll also need to use specific keywords that target your potential customers from around the country.
If you are a small local accounting firm, you will want to concentrate on local results rather than national ones.
Monitor Your Progress
It’s important to monitor how well your website is doing for both organic traffic and lead generation. To do this, you can track specific metrics such as page views, unique visitors, bounce rate, time spent on your site, etc. This will help you identify which areas need improvement and where you should focus your attention next. Google Analytics and search console are excellent places to find website performance.
Below is an example of a Google Search Console report.
SEO Strategy
By investing in a proper SEO strategy, you can hopefully get your accounting firm will reach its target audience without the expense of advertising. SEO isn’t always the easiest marketing tactic to manage, especially with the constant changes in organic search results.
You will need to look at all the different aspects of SEO and might find it easier to use SEO services from a professional to get on the top of Google search results and other search engines. Some online businesses offer free SEO audits; this will show where improvements can be made.
Web Design
Having a well-designed and professional-looking website is crucial to ensure you have a successful SEO strategy. Ensure your web design is up to date and follows the latest trends, such as responsiveness, mobile-friendly designs, etc.
Your website should also be easy to navigate so that users can easily find what they’re looking for. The faster they can find information, the more likely they are to stay on your website and potentially become a customer.
Why is SEO Important for Accounting Firms?
SEO for accountants is incredibly important and can help in the following ways:
- SEO increases the visibility of the accounting firm’s website in search engine results, driving more organic traffic.
- It helps to create a positive brand perception and authority for the accounting firm online.
- SEO allows for targeted marketing of services which can result in increased customer leads and sales conversions.
- SEO provides an opportunity to reach potential customers actively searching for services related to what your accounting firm offers online.
- Optimising content with keywords relevant to the accounting industry allows search engines like Google to understand better and rank your website higher in its SERPs, increasing organic traffic from qualified searchers looking for that particular service or solution.
- Using internal links on webpages helps search engine crawlers discover new website pages faster and easier, indexing them more quickly so they appear in SERPs faster.
- When done properly, local SEO efforts allow businesses such as accountancy firms to target customers in their vicinity.
- Improving page load speeds through technical optimisation boosts user experience, which is factored into ranking algorithms by major search engines.
- Search Engine Optimization includes optimising meta tags, including titles and descriptions, which provide additional information about the webpage when displayed in SERPs.
- Finally, SEO can help with click-through rates (CTR) from organic search results, as users are likelier to click on a well-written description and heading.
SEO for Accountants Conclusion
SEO for accountants is essential for any firm looking to boost organic visibility online. It isn’t always the easiest marketing tactic to manage, especially with the constant changes in organic search results. This means you will need to look at all the different aspects of SEO and might find it easier to use SEO services from a professional.
With this comprehensive guide, you should now have all the necessary information on why SEO is important for an accountancy business, how to optimise your website and content for more organic traffic, and even some ideas on how to get high-quality backlinks. Implementing these strategies should help set your accounting firm up for great success in the search results!