If you built it, they most certainly won’t come.
Your website is just like any other product or service and should be marketed as such. Just because you have a website, doesn’t mean people will find it.
You’ve likely heard about SEO, but how familiar are you with the technique?
SEO is important for accounting firms for a simple reason. To be found online by prospects searching for services just like yours.
If marketing is currently on your agenda, you’ll want to invest time and resources into a mature SEO strategy.
While SEO can be a complex machine with an abundance of technical terms and confusing algorithms, there are some simple ways you can optimise your digital presence to lift your digital brand in search results.
#1 Set up or update your Google Business Profile
Are you familiar with the pretty photos, links, descriptions, opening hours and contact details on the side of a search result when you Google a specific brand? That’s a Google Business Profile:
Google Business Profile is a free business listing from Google. It allows you to provide details and photos of your firm, including your location, contact details, and services.
Creating a free profile is a great way to increase visibility across Google and its different services. Information from your profile may appear on Google Search and Google Maps.
It is an important local ranking factor. This means that your firm is more likely to appear when people search for a nearby business on Google Maps.
If you haven’t yet set up your Google Business Profile for your firm, follow these steps and start today.
If you already have a Google Business Profile, perhaps revisit it and ensure all the details are up to date, the contact information is correct, photos are updated, links are correct and so on.
Setting up and optimising your Google Business Profile is an important first step in improving your Google presence and overall digital performance.
#2 Optimise the firm’s social media profiles
While sharing social media posts may or may not affect a web page’s position in search listings, your social media profiles definitely influence the content of your search results.
Social media profiles are often amongst the top results in search listings for accounting brand names.
When we search BDO Australia, the first link is of course the company website. The results that directly follow are their social media profiles – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
Your social media profiles can feel a lot more personal than company web pages. They are a great way to demonstrate your firm’s personality right away.
A few active and optimised social media firm pages and partner profiles can make a huge difference in search rankings, traffic, and engagement.
It certainly pays to have up-to-date information and engaging content on the firm’s social media profiles and partner profiles.
#3 Speed up your website
Google announced years ago that they’re obsessed with speed. And in 2018, they made it a ranking factor for websites. This means that websites with slow loading speeds would result in poor search ranking performance on Google.
Even only one slow page can bring down your overall site performance.
Head over to the Page Speed Insights tool, paste in your website URL, and analyse your loading speed.
You want to aim for at least over 50% score on mobile and desktop. If your website is loading in the red, you may need to consider some fixes to open up more speed.
There are many technical fixes you can do to speed up your website, some requiring more expertise than others.
To get you started speeding up your website, consider compressing image file sizes, or even upgrading your hosting server to one that is faster and more secure.
If your website is built on WordPress, there are many good plugins you can use to speed up your website. Reach out to us if you would like to find out which one would best suit your needs.
#4 Research + implement relevant keywords
What are the keywords or terms accounting buyers are typing into search engines? SEO for accountants is about knowing what your ideal prospects are searching for online, and ensuring your website is rich in relevant keywords so they have the best chance to rank in search engines.
Jump onto Google’s own keyword planner tool, or try Ubersuggest.com and start typing in some keywords you think your valuable prospects are typing into search engines. Look for high search volume phrases or words and start making a list of all of these phrases and keywords.
Implement these relevant keywords into your page titles, image alt text, page meta descriptions, and throughout your page copy.
#5 Add meta descriptions to pages
A meta description is the snippet of information below the blue link of a search result. The purpose of a meta description is to describe the contents of the page to the searcher.
Any words that the searcher uses in their Google search will be shown in bold text in your meta description.
Basically, a meta description tells people and Google what a specific page is all about. If Google can read and understand your meta description, and it uses those relevant keywords we previously touched on, your pages will have an easier chance of ranking in search engines for specific search queries.
#6 Write content, lots and lots of content
Google loves fresh, quality content from websites. It’s a great way to drive more traffic to your website as Google ranks quality content higher in search results.
Every accounting firm needs a blog. This is no longer a question or a debate we should be having. Blogs are great for answering some of your prospective clients’ questions.
The moment a question pops into someone’s head, they have the ability, and the need, for instant answers. They often reach for the phone and type a question into Google in search of easily accessible answers.
“Different types of business structures”
“When is my BAS due?”
“How to calculate price markup”
These are just 3 questions. Your potential clients have hundreds more. And they are asking Google every day for answers.
Answer these questions on your blog, explained in very easy-to-understand articles that bring clarity to a potential client, credibility and trust to you as a firm, and more weight to your Google rankings and presence.
Be sure to remember… it’s quality Google is looking for. And Google’s algorithms are absolutely sophisticated enough to know what is and isn’t a quality piece of content. So choose quality over quantity every time.
Start being found online
Accounting firms often have mixed feelings about SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Some firms embrace mature SEO strategies, some dabble in SEO, and others avoid it at all costs.
If marketing is currently on your agenda, SEO should be toward the top of your tactical list.
Implementing simple fixes on your accounting website and Google presence will have an immediate impact on the searchability of your website. You’ll start to see more traffic coming through to your website, and overall, you will elevate your digital brand.
Is SEO on the radar for your accounting firm? Want some tips and ideas for improving your SEO performance specifically for your firm? Click here to get a free SEO audit from the Practice + Pixels SEO specialists.
