SEO for accountants: Top tips that add up to better rankings

Accounting firms have their work cut out for them if they want to stand out from competing businesses in their area. Paid ads can work to attract new customers. But accounting firms skilled in local SEO generate high-quality leads by appearing at the top of location-based search results for a lot less. And with Semrush's Location and Review Management services, you can achieve great results for your accounting firm without hiring an SEO professional or agency.

How accounting SEO works to boost revenues

Accountants can often work remotely for clients without needing to meet them in person. But for clients who expect to meet regularly with the professionals they trust to manage their money, location matters. Clients like these are likely to search for accountants in their area, and if you want to be on their radar, you’ll need to get to grips with local SEO for accountants. With a 92.63% search engine market share across all devices , Google is most people’s go-to solution for finding local services. Paid Google Ads are the first things users typically see when they perform a local search for accountants. These results may not be ideal for the user's search. This is because advertisers can use broad-match keywords that show ads regardless of location. Savvy users know this, so tend to skip down to find more relevant results. The next thing to display on the Google results page is the directory results. People regularly rely on trusted sites like Yelp, Yellowpages, and Facebook to find the best accountants in a specific area. Listing your firm on these sites should be at the top of your local SEO to-do list. 

Turbo visibility: Creating profiles for each directory one by one and making edits individually can be seriously time consuming. Save yourself the headache and use Semrush Local's Listing Management tool to distribute your business listings to 70+ top sites. Enter your business name and the tool will automatically retrieve your information and the directories you haven't been listed in. 

In local searches, people usually focus on Google's Local Pack to find the top-rated accountants near them quickly. The Local Pack is especially valuable considering the fact that 60% of mobile users call directly from the search result pages (SERPs), according to Think With Google. In the Local Pack results above, the top result has 40 reviews, with an average rating of 4.8. The second-place accounting firm has a 5.0 rating and only 18 reviews. This shows that the number of reviews can be more important than having a perfect score. Finally, the third-ranked accounting firm also has a perfect 5.0 rating, but only three reviews. The third-ranked accounting firm can improve by starting a campaign to get more reviews. Their aim should be to get 40+ reviews and surpass their main competitor. 

Simplifying reviews: With an influx of reviews from your outreach campaign, you’ll want an easy way to stay on top of them all. Semrush Local's Review Management tool streamlines the process, grouping reviews from various platforms into a single, user-friendly interface complete with an AI tool to help you write your replies faster. This ensures that clients never feel neglected and reduces your reliance on notifications.

Start with a free accounting SEO audit

Good SEO for accounting firms starts with a clear picture of your total reviews, average ratings and business listings distribution. Semrush’s Listing Management allows small businesses to generate a free report of their online presence, breaking down: - Missed opportunities for new listings - Mistakes in current directory listings - Total reviews - Average star rating To get a summary of your online presence, simply enter your company name and select your business. The tool will then scan the internet for you. A good local SEO report helps you lay out a roadmap for your strategy, showing you where you should prioritize your efforts for the quickest wins. 

Fast fixes: After running a free audit, accountants can whip their local SEO into shape by subscribing to Semrush Local's Listing Management tool . The tool fixes all errors, and suppresses duplicates, before distributing your listing everywhere it’s missing.

Google Business Profile: An SEO for accountants priority

Most people looking for an accountant use Google, so you need to make sure your business looks good on the search engine. Google Business Profile (GBP) lets business owners add and change their information. This helps Google show the details to users in the Local Pack and Maps. First, you’ll need to either claim your GBP if one already exists, or create one if the platform isn’t yet aware of your accountancy firm. Google gives accountants a lot of opportunities to show off their features and benefits. It’s completely free, so you might as well take advantage of all the ways to optimize your profile. Here’s everything you can complete to give your Google Business Profile the best possible chance of outranking competing accountancy firms:  

Business Name - Ensure your accountancy firm's name is the same across all platforms, online and offline. It can be tempting to stuff your name with local keywords, but if that’s not how you typically represent yourself, Google will likely change it. 

Address - Add your accountancy firm's complete address, including the suite number, and make sure it aligns with your address in other listings. Service area - If you don’t have an office that clients can visit, you can simply choose the location you work in. 

Phone number - One of the most important pieces of information is your phone number. Add one primary contact just as it appears on other online listings. Include secondary phone numbers if relevant. 

Description - Let people know they’re in the right place with a detailed explanation of what you do. If you have keyword research already completed, use it to optimize your description (up to 750 characters).

Opening hours - Let people know when you’ll be answering phones and taking client meetings, and don’t forget to include special hours for holidays.

Business categories - Research competitors and make the best decision on your primary business category. Is it more accurate to describe yourself as an accountant, accounting firm, certified public accountant or chartered accountant? Choose the most suitable and, if relevant, use the others as secondary categories (you can select up to 10). 

Opening date - The year and month of your business opening. This can be up to one year in the future if you’re yet to launch. 

Website - Your website URL not only gives you a handy backlink, which can improve your rankings, it also allows users to learn more about your accountancy firm. Consider adding a link for potential clients to make an appointment too. 

Social media profiles - Social media content can help build trust and convert interested parties into paying clients. 

Photos - Show your offices and the staff that people can expect to meet when they visit you in person. The entrance to the building is a useful shot for people unfamiliar with the area. 

Services - Select the accountancy services you offer from the predefined list. Google may suggest other services to add. 

Facilities - Give people coming to visit your workplace important information about disabled access, toilets, and languages spoken.

Q&A - Do people often ask the same questions when they get in touch over the phone? Add them to your Q&A section and save everybody some time. Keep track of your GBP’s performance to see the impact your optimizations make on profile views and user actions. 

Quicker insights: Switching over to different platforms to collect data for your reports can be a time-consuming process. Use Semrush Local's Listing Management tool to pull insights from GBP and streamline your reporting. 

With a properly optimized Google Business Profile, you’ll be in great shape to start building your online visibility even further. Draw up a list of other directories, like Apple Maps, Yelp, and Bing Places and go through each submission process, being sure to keep them consistent with GBP. You can also use a listing management tool like Semrush’s to automate the work and start seeing results faster.

Better reviews equals better SEO for accountants

Reviews make a huge difference when it comes to choosing an accountant. Nobody is going to trust a one-star accountant with their finances, especially if there are local competitors with 4.5+ ratings and plenty of reviews. But when it comes to SEO for accountants, reviews actually do far more than create consumer confidence, they also boost local rankings. Accountancy clients are typically happy to leave reviews, but they tend to need a little prompting. Review generation is essentially the task of reaching out to clients and asking them to share their feedback online. Asking clients for a review through SMS text message is the most effective method. 

This is because text messages have the highest open rate of any marketing channel. According to some estimates, the open rate is nearly 100%. Include a link to your Google reviews (or other platform if you’re building reviews elsewhere) so it’s as easy as possible for them to help you out. Once people start responding to your review requests, you’ll need to stay on top of replying to everyone to let them know you appreciate their opinions. 

This applies to negative reviews too, because it shows potential clients that you take complaints seriously and that you’ll do what’s necessary to rectify mistakes. Replying to reviews can lead to a 12% uptick in the number of reviews you receive, according to a Harvard Business Review study .

Content SEO for accounting firms: What to write about

Content marketing is a cornerstone of SEO for accountants, allowing you to compete for keywords beyond the competitive “accountant in [location]”. Users searching for local tax advice have problems that your firm can solve. By creating articles that address their pain points, you’re positioning yourself as an expert authority and it’s more likely you’ll close the client down the line. 

Accountancy lends itself well to content marketing. Go through old emails and look for specific questions people have asked you. Use this to start building an editorial calendar of valuable information you could be providing for potential clients. (image) Great SEO content for accountants not only reaches clients that are at an earlier stage in their buyer journey, it can also improve organic and local rankings. 

Using the right local keywords in your content shows Google that you’re a trustworthy source for local accounting information. It’s not just search engines that take notice of quality content. 

Trusted resources and publications in accounting could also discover your content and link to it from their own websites, improving your Authority Score and, in turn, your rankings. 

Content companion: Semrush subscribers on the Guru plan also get access to the platform’s content tools. From topic ideas to SEO content templates, Semrush simplifies processes for businesses of all sizes so they can compete in search with compelling content marketing that gets results.