In the highly competitive field of accounting, finding ways to stand out is essential. One effective method is ranking high on search engine results pages (SERPs). Optimizing your website and its content for specific local-based keywords ensures that your business appears at the top of search engine results, leading to more traffic, leads, and revenue.
This guide will dive deep into the key components of a successful local SEO strategy for accountants. This includes setting up and verifying your Google My Business listing, building local citations, creating and optimizing local landing pages, and more. By utilizing this information, you can reach more potential clients in your local area through Local SEO services for accountants and grow your accounting business.
A Comprehensive Guide to Local SEO Services for Accountants
1. Claim, Verify And Optimize Your Google My Business Listing
The first step in a local SEO strategy for accountants is to claim and verify your Google My Business listing. This free listing service allows businesses to manage their online presence across Google, including Google search and maps.
To claim and verify your listing, you will need to create an account on Google My Business and verify your business by receiving a postcard in the mail or a phone call. Once you have verified your listing, you can begin to optimize it.
When optimizing your Google My Business listing, it’s vital to have accurate and complete information. This will help potential clients find your business more easily and build trust. It includes correct information about your:
- Business name
- Address / Location
- Business phone number
- Category
- Hours of operation
- Website
- Photos
Here are some tips to optimize and improve your GMB profile:
- Use relevant keywords and categories that describe your business
- Include a short business description, ideally of 100-200 characters.
- Add customer reviews, photos, videos, Q&As, etc
- Regularly update your listing with new images and any other relevant information
- Encourage customers to leave you positive reviews
- You can use Google posts to keep your listing active and engaged
- Keep your business information consistent across different platforms
- Use call-to-action buttons like “Book an appointment.”
- Use the Google Q&A feature to answer customer questions
2. Create And Optimize Local Landing Pages
Optimizing on-page SEO for important pages is crucial for providing useful information to users and search engines. You can use relevant keywords, like “Trusted and Professional Accountants in Downtown Portland”. This approach helps users by providing relevant information. It improves the website’s visibility in local search results by helping search engines understand the context of the website.
For single-location accountants, the website’s homepage is paramount from a local SEO perspective. But, for multi-location accountants, the website’s location pages (or landing pages) become more important.
Quick Tips for Creating an SEO-optimized Local Landing Pages
- Create a unique and separate landing page for each location or service area
- Use the city and state name in the title tag, H1, image tags, and throughout the content
- Take care of title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and internal linking
- Include location-specific information such as an address, phone number, and hours of operation
- Use schema markup to display location and contact information
- Include customer reviews and testimonials
- Include a clear call-to-action, such as “Contact Us” or “Book a Consultation.”
- Optimize the page for relevant local keywords
- Use Google Analytics and Search Console to track and analyze data for the landing pages.
- Incorporate local images and videos
- Use structured data to display services and pricing
- Create unique and engaging content that is specific to the location
- Use header tags and subheadings to make the page easy to scan
- Optimize the page for mobile devices and voice searches.
- Use internal linking to other relevant pages on your website.
3. Have High-Quality, Local-Based Problem-Solving Content On Your Website
Simply setting up your website with a few landing pages isn’t enough. You need to focus on content marketing if you’re serious about scaling your business. Having a blog or a news section on your website with regularly updated content can help your local SEO. You can use these sections to publish articles about local events, tax laws, and other accounting tips specific to your area. It will help your website become a valuable resource for potential clients searching for accounting services in your area.
Your content should be:
High-quality
The quality of content on your website can also help establish your business as a reputable and credible source in your local area, improving your visibility in search engine results. You should also focus on including videos, downloadable guides, newsletters, etc., to engage readers better.
Local-based
By including location-specific keywords, such as the name of your city or state, in your content, you can achieve two main benefits. First, it becomes easy for potential clients to find your business. Second, it can help search engines locate your business and serve it to the local market.
For instance, if the main keyword is “Accountants,” local searches would be “accountants in Boston”. You can further niche down the city level by using keywords like“accountants in Cambridge” or “accountants in Charlestown”, etc.
Problem-solving
Choose topics related to your services that help people find solutions to their problems. Such content makes people keep coming back for reference again and again.
4. Incorporate Schema Markup For Location And Contact Information.
Incorporating schema markup for location and contact information can be technical. However, it’s worth the effort, as it can significantly benefit your local SEO efforts. Such as:
- Improved ranking as it helps search engines understand the context and meaning of the information on your website.
- Improved visibility in search engine results, including the ability to display rich snippets such as your business name, address, and phone number in search results.
- Improved click-through rate, as users are more likely to click on a search result that includes rich snippets.
- Improved crawlability and indexing of your website by search engines.
To incorporate schema markup for location and contact information, you can use a structured data markup tool to generate the code and add it to your website’s HTML code. Some top schema tools are:
- Merkle
- Schema App
- RankRanger
- Hall Analysis
You can also use a plugin if your website is built on a content management system like WordPress. Some top schema plugins for WordPress are:
- Schema Pro
- AIOSEO
- All in One Schema Rich Snippets
- WP Review
It’s crucial to use consistent, accurate information across all schema markups, the same way you should do it with citations and directories. You should also update your information and test it with Google’s structured data testing tool to ensure it works correctly.
5.Optimize Your Content For Voice Search
With the rise of voice assistants like Siri and Alexa, Voice search optimization is becoming increasingly important for local SEO services for accountants. People are using voice search to find local businesses, including accountants, more and more often.
How to Optimize Your Content for Voice Search?
- Use natural language in your content and page titles, as people tend to use more natural and conversational language when using voice search.
- Use long-tail keywords, as voice search queries tend to be longer and more specific.
- Optimize your website for featured snippets, as voice assistants often pull information from these snippets for their responses
- Make sure your website is mobile-friendly and fast-loading, as many voice search queries are made on mobile devices.
Optimize Your Website for Mobile Users
An increasing number of internet users are accessing the web on their mobile devices. Therefore, search engines like Google are placing more emphasis on mobile-friendly websites in their search results.
A mobile-friendly website is about more than just how it looks on a mobile device. It’s also about how well it performs. A slow-loading or poorly-designed mobile website can harm your visibility in search results and drive potential customers away.
Note: You can use Google PageSpeed Insights to check how fast (or slow) your website is.
How to Optimize Your Website for Mobile Users?
- Use a responsive web design, which will automatically adjust the website’s layout to fit the screen of any device.
- Use a mobile-friendly Content Management System (CMS) like WordPress
- Use a mobile-friendly and fast-loading theme such as GeneratePress or Astra for WordPress.
- Run your website through GTMatrix to find all optimization issues.
- Keep your website’s pages loading fast. You can do this by compressing images and reducing the number of HTTP requests, among others optimization options.
- Use larger font sizes and buttons to make it easy to click on links and buttons with a finger.
- Use a mobile-friendly navigation menu.
Build Backlinks From Reputable Local Websites
Backlinks are important for local SEO because they help establish a website’s authority and credibility in search engines’ eyes. The more high-quality backlinks a site has, the more probability it has to rank well in search results.
But for local SEO, you need local backlinks. Below are four ways to build local backlinks.
- Form Partnerships & Sponsorships
One way to build local backlinks for your accounting website is to form partnerships and sponsorships with other businesses and organizations within the accounting industry. This can include partnering with local accounting associations, guest-posting, sponsoring local events and networking opportunities, and reaching out to other local accounting firms to form referral partnerships.
- Create Valuable Content
Another way to build local backlinks is to create valuable and informative content that other websites within the accounting industry would want to link to. This could include creating a blog on your website and publishing informative articles, whitepapers, and infographics on accounting-related topics.
- Try Local Media
You can also reach out to local media outlets like newspapers, e-magazines, podcasts, radio etc., and ask them to feature your business in articles or news segments. This can result in a valuable backlink to your website.
- Use Online Forums & communities.
You can also participate in online communities and forums related to accounting by answering questions and providing valuable information. You can earn a backlink by including a link to your website in your signature or profile.
Build Local Citations and Directories
Local citations and directories refer to mentions of your business’s name, physical address, and phone number (NAP) on other websites. These citations can be found in business directories, social media platforms, and other online directories.
Citations are vital for local SEO because they help search engines understand more about your business, including its name, address, phone number, and location. They also help establish your business as a reputable and credible source in your local area, improving your visibility in search engine results. Additionally, citations can help build backlinks to your website, improving your website’s search engine ranking and driving more traffic to your site.
Check for all the accountants, accountancy firms, financial advisors, financial advisory firms, and tax directories available in your area. Then try to get your name in. You can also contact your local listing management services to register your service.
It’s important to have consistent NAP information across all citations, as conflicting information can confuse search engines and harm your rankings. Additionally, having a high number of citations from reputable sources can positively impact your visibility in search engine results.
Therefore, it is important to claim your business on local citation and directory websites such as Yelp, BOTW, Business.com, and Bing Places, among others. This allows you to control the information displayed about your business and ensure that it is accurate and consistent. Submitting your business information to these directories also increases the chances of your business being found by potential customers searching for accounting services in your area.
4 Tips To Help You Build Local Citations
- Utilize professional networking sites such as LinkedIn to network and share recommendations with other industry professionals.
- Join professional associations, such as the American Institute of CPAs, and take advantage of any directories or review opportunities the association offers.
- Take advantage of local business groups like the Chamber of Commerce and list your business on their directories.
- Utilize the power of referrals. Ask your satisfied clients to refer your services to their network, and also ask them to write a review on popular directories.
Utilize Google Analytics And Search Console To Track And Analyze Local Search Data
By tracking and measuring your local SEO efforts, you can make data-driven decisions that will help you optimize your strategy and reach your goals. Regularly monitoring and analyzing your website’s performance can help you identify areas that require improvements.
Tools for Tracking and Analyzing Your Traffic
Google Analytics and Google My Business Insights are two powerful yet free tools that can help you track and measure the success of your local SEO efforts.
- Google Analytics can provide a wealth of information about your website’s traffic, including how many people are visiting your site, where they’re coming from, and what pages they’re viewing. You can also use Google Analytics to track your website’s conversions, such as phone calls or form submissions.
- Google My Business Insights is a great tool that enables you to track and measure the performance of your Google My Business listing. This includes information like how many people are viewing your listing, how many people are requesting directions to your business, etc.
- For backlinking and interlinking opportunities, you can use premium SEO tools like Moz, AHREFs, or Majestic.
Metrics to Measure the Success
Other metrics you can use to track and measure the success of your local SEO efforts include:
- Local search ranking: It tracks your position in local search results for specific keywords
- Organic traffic: It’s the number of visitors to your website from organic search results
- Click-through rate (CTR): It measures the percentage of people who click on your website’s listing in search results
- Bounce rate: It tracks the percentage of people who leave your website after viewing only a single page
- Conversions: It measures the number of actions (like form submissions or phone calls) you want visitors to take on your website
Final Thoughts
That’s it – We hope this comprehensive guide on local SEO services for accountants helps your business top SERPs. Local SEO is a crucial aspect of digital marketing for accountants. It allows them to reach potential clients in their local area rather than just competing with other accountants on a national level. With the help of Local SEO, Accountants can target specific regions, cities, and neighborhoods where they have more chances of getting clients.
For further learning about local SEO for accountants, consider reading up on Moz’s Local SEO Guide, BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey, and Search Engine Land’s Local SEO Guide. Good luck!
