SEO for Accountants: 6 Tips to Improve Your Website SEO

Accountants and CPAs wanting to rank higher in search results must understand search engine optimization or SEO. This article will review the top techniques accountants and CPAs can use to rank higher in Google search results.

By using these techniques to optimize your site for success with web searches, you’ll be able to increase the number of potential clients that come to your site via organic search traffic.

Here are the top ways accountants and CPAs can utilize SEO to rank higher in search results with client leads:

1. Develop an SEO-Friendly Contact Page

One of the most important things you’ll need to do for your website is create a contact page where potential clients can get all of their contact information, such as your email address, phone number, and physical address. You can create a simple “Contact Us” page on your site specifically designed for web searchers to find.

Having an SEO contact page benefits you in search results, but it is also a critical function in site control. It’s a way for you to contact your clients and service providers before they contact you to improve client retention rates significantly.

2. Have a fast website

Creating a site that loads quickly and displays well on search engines is the second most important thing you can do for your company website. Most accountants and CPAs who create websites for their firms, do so using a design template that does not display well in search engine results.

If your site is designed with a template that doesn’t display well in search engines, you’re less likely to rank well on search results. Web-friendly templates allow the web host to find and optimize your site quickly to increase the number of clients that come to your website.

If your website also isn’t loading quickly or loading the right content at the right time, users may drop off. High bounce rates are attributed to slow-loading sites. Google has begun to penalize websites that do not load quickly, causing slow sites to struggle to gain traction in search results.

Test your page speed here.

3. Create an Accounting Blog to Stay Relevant

Creating a blog for your website is another excellent way to improve your SEO. Search Engines like blogs because they are continually updated, meaning there is always fresh content on the site to return search results.

By having an active blog on your site, you can help maintain a significant presence on the Internet and connect with other businesses in your niche. The key to blogging is regularly keeping it up to date. If you don’t have the resources to do that then it’s not worth starting.

Partnering with a team that can help you develop content is another approach that can help you achieve your SEO goals. Check out our list of SEO Do’s and Don’ts when it comes to blogging.

4. Internal Link Strategy

Another great way to set your site up for SEO success is by creating internal links within your site. Having an internal backlinking strategy that identifies your website hub pages, creates topic clusters, and utilizes the proper anchor text will ensure that your website presents itself well to Google’s algorithm.

Your Hub Pages operate as your most important pages. They are the ones that generate the most traffic and likely have broad keywords. Long-tail keywords are not typically hub pages.

Topic clusters effectively are Hub and Spoke technique. The Hub being your Hub Page and the spoke being the content that relates to the Hub content. For example, if you rank high for Space Heater, you can create Spoke content such as, Small Space Heater, Rotating Space Heater, and Basement Space Heater.

Last, anchor text. You can continue to link throughout the Hub and Spokes with the actual keywords ie “Small Space Heater” you also want to mix these up as using the same anchor text isn’t very beneficial. You can use anchor text like “space heater for small spaces” or “check it out” or “see it here.” Generic anchor text like “check it out” help to show Google that you’re not a keyword anchor text zombie.

5. Optimize Your Site for Mobile Searches

Another meaningful way you can use SEO search engine optimization is by optimizing your site for mobile searches. In this day and age a majority of people are searching on the go from their phones. Your website must display well and look professional on smart devices. If your website isn’t designed for mobile you need to address that before you start any SEO campaigns.

Working with a professional team who knows how to design your website in a mobile-first manner is a great idea. If you’re a true DIYer test out your site on mobile and run it through Google’s speed tool to be sure that it loads fast and runs smooth.

6. Onsite vs Offsite SEO for Accountants

With onsite SEO you’re doing things on your website to optimize it for search engines.

Offsite SEO you’re creating content and utilizing offsite sources to help grow your website.

A few onsite tips:

d) Develop and optimize your website content to achieve the highest possible ranking on Google. If your business is well established, this may be the best way to go so that you keep ranking consistently in search results.

Offsite optimization techniques:

a) Create high-quality, original content about your business

b) Reach out to bloggers or podcasters in a similar niche to share your content

c) Research backlinks on content in your niche that have 404 errors. Create a high quality piece of content to replace that content. Connect with the website owner, let them know about your piece, tell them they have a broken link on their post.

Other At-A-Glance SEO Tips for Accountants and CPAs

Here are some other tips that you should consider when you’re trying to optimize your site for search:

• Optimize Headings, Titles, and Descriptions For High Page Ranking. You want to make sure that the headings, titles, and descriptions on your site are written to be easily read by search engines. Check out this article on best practices for optimizing headings.

• Optimize website code. Another essential trick to improve SEO for Accountants is to make sure that the code you use on your site is optimized for search engines.

• Don’t Use Flash For Your Website Because It Doesn’t Rank Well. The last tip is to avoid using flash because it’s not compatible with many search engines. Flash is used by many companies to create interactive webpages, but it won’t help with SEO. Instead of using flash, choose Javascript..

Remember that search engines use keywords to determine what is and isn’t relevant to a searching person. By making sure your site’s content is as relevant as possible, you can rank higher in search results.

SEO for Accountants: Simple Checklist

SEO: Pre-Launch

Perform Keyword Research – Understanding what keywords you can rank for and want to rank for is key in your overall search engine optimization strategy. Choose the wrong keywords and you’ll get traffic that’s not interested in what you do, choose the right ones and leads will start flowing to help you grow your business.

Research Your Competition / Look at Their Site for Ideas – Before optimizing your site for search, you must research your competitors to see what they are doing with their site and what search keywords they are using. This is a cheat code to help you get a basis of keywords as you look to expand on those in time.

Have realistic expectations – Assuming you do everything right, create excellent content, backlink properly, and flood your content into the internet, you’ll need to have realistic expectations as to when you’ll start seeing results. Let’s just say there’s a reason most SEO companies ask you for a 1-year commitment. Wait 6 months before you start to see an impact.

SEO: Ongoing

Create a Site Map for Your Website – You should create a site map for your website that includes all the pages on your site and makes sure each page is optimized correctly.

Use Keywords in Your URL, Descriptions, Titles, and Tags – Another essential step to take when optimizing your site for search is to make sure that the content on your site is optimized correctly.

Use Long Tail Keywords – If you’re new in business, you may want to use long-tail keywords and phrases that are low traffic and low competition. You’ll be able to rank high quickly for these keywords. Only getting 100 searches/mo? That’s a great place to start. Target 10 of those keywords, get into the top spot, watch the traffic flow!

Perform Ongoing Maintenance on Your Website. Once you have optimized your site for search, you must keep the content up-to-date so that your business stays relevant. You must continue to update your site. Especially on WordPress, there are plugins and themes to keep up to date. You should also be regularly backing up your website and scanning it for security breaches.

If you’re an accountant doing SEO the above list will help you quickly get up to speed. By using these SEO techniques in your business, you’ll be able to help clients find your website more efficiently.

As an accountant, you want clients to reach you easily online so that they can contact you. Also, if someone is searching for a CPA who uses cloud technology and tax planning, your site may display in their search results. By using proper SEO techniques, you’ll rank higher in search results and help clients find what they need more quickly.

Use SEO strategies to build your brand and make more connections with clients. It’s an excellent way to keep your business relevant, and it gives you the ability to attract leads cost-effectively.

Optimizing for search is something you can start doing immediately with little knowledge of the technical aspect. All you need is a good website to help you create clean, optimized content.

Well-written targeted-content can help your website to deliver the right information at the right time.

Conclusion

You’ve learned how important it is to optimize your website. Now you can attract more business and build a solid accounting and/or CPA practice.

Now go implement these SEO strategies into your website and use them to drive more targeted traffic.

Remember, better search results can allow you to see more qualified leads and make more money.