SEO is an investment that can compound over time when done right. Check out our guide about the future of SEO for accountants and how you can grow your performance in the long run.
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is an investment. And like any good investment, it compounds over time.
However, much like the finance industry, there are also some bad actors out there who bring a bad name to SEO. There are also many rumours circulating about how “SEO is dead” due to Google’s latest rounds of algorithm updates which focus on:
- Helpful content
- Trustworthiness
- Anti-spam
In our opinion, as long as Google or other search engines exist, there will be a place for SEO in any accounting firm’s digital strategy. These updates are essential, especially for accountants and others in the finance industry. Without them, there’d be no way to separate the wheat from the chaff online.
If you’d like to tap into the potential for compounded SEO for your accounting firm, here are our top tips.
- Go exponential — Treat SEO as the investment it is
SEO is not like most other marketing channels. It takes a while to build up. But, it is also the best marketing channel to keep delivering returns untied to the budget you’re investing month to month.
For instance, paid ads require a continual investment in order to work. You can turn these on and off at will and your results scale in direct proportion to your budget. Stop investing in ads and there’s no way you’ll continue to get any leads from them.
SEO, on the other hand, is an investment that compounds over time, quite literally.
Here’s the SEO performance of a client we’ve been working with since early 2021. We started by building a website (which we SEO-optimised from the start as a one-off project). In May 2022, the client then decided to invest in a dedicated, monthly SEO campaign to help accelerate the early growth their website was getting.
Source: https://engrm.io/Ti0Fq
Before May 2022, the client was not actively investing in any SEO. This is important to note because you can see the early growth trajectory taking place all on its own.
So when thinking about the future of accounting SEO, it’s crucial to understand that the longer you invest, the greater your returns.
And like any financial investment, the more you add to your principal, the greater your growth and that’s exactly what happened after May 2022 for this client.
Action items
- Consider the long-term impact SEO can have on your accounting firm
- Start SEO early so you can compete against established accounting firms in your area
- Give SEO the time it needs to compound and for results to go exponential
Pro tip
If you have been doing SEO for a while, you can also revisit your earlier content and freshen it up. Here’s a case study of how we did exactly that for one of our financial clients and saw an 184% traffic increase along with a 1220% increase in conversions.
- Constantly seek to improve your credibility online
Proving your credibility is more important now than ever before, especially in the financial industry. And it will continue to be important in the face of online scams.
Amidst the many rumours about Google’s algorithm updates and whether traditional accounting SEO techniques still work, it helps to take a step back to understand the bigger picture. From there you can better understand how to future-proof your accounting firm’s SEO strategy.
Search engines exist for the sole purpose of helping people find exactly what they’re looking for as soon as possible. The internet is a big place with trillions of web pages available and no other system for categorising or finding relevant information than a search engine.
In 2020, Google found over 40 billion new spam pages per day! It updates its algorithm to remove such pages from search results.
So such algorithm updates aren’t anything to be afraid of if you are providing a legitimate service.
All of the latest algorithm updates focus on surfacing the most credible and trustworthy results while also filtering out spam.
In industries that impact people’s lives in a major way, Google has stricter guidelines in place. These industries are nicknamed “your money or your life” (YMYL) and typically include financial businesses, medical businesses, and even high-ticket service businesses.
Google’s acronym EEAT describes the qualifiers it looks for on YMYL (and now most other) sites and these are the qualifiers you need to focus on to boost your firm’s credibility online:
- Experience
- Expertise
- Authoritativeness
- Trustworthiness
These in combination play a significant role in legitimising your business online and showcasing your accounting firm as a top choice.
Follow our suggested action items to start improving your credibility online straight away.
Action items:
- Make it easy for people to find your firm’s address and contact details
- On your About page, feature profiles for each of the people on your team and their expertise
- After sending out an invoice, have an automated thank you page that asks for reviews from clients
- Showcase your reviews and testimonials prominently on your website
- Take authentic images of your premises, perception, and offices
- If you’ve worked with big clients, ask their permission to feature their logos on your website
- If you’ve won awards, showcase all of these prominently
- Consider sharing case studies of your results and success stories
Successful Melbourne SEO campaigns are competitive for accountants, but being able to show your credibility (not just tell) makes a big impact in turning website clicks into clients.
- Double down on a future-proofed location strategy
Location strategies are often where SEO for accounting firms veers towards “spam territory”. Since accounting can be a virtual service, a physical office isn’t necessarily needed.
Back in the day, many SEO professionals and business owners created a slew of location landing pages that were replicas of each other with only the name of the location swapped out.
Don’t do this. No matter how tempting.
And if anyone is suggesting this as a viable SEO strategy, it’s likely they will be unable to help your SEO results compound well into the future. This strategy has already been devalued by Google and can lead to potential penalties on your website.
Instead, it’s better to base your location pages around the physical offices you have. Here are some ideas for how you can make each page unique to each office.
Action items
- Create unique content suited to each individual location
- Add images showcasing your logo from inside and outside the office
- Showcase the local staff who can meet clients in person or virtually
- Embed a Google Map showing where your office is located
- Provide helpful directions for finding the office and nearby parking
- Offer opening hours or other information clients in the area may like to know
- Showcase any community contributions or other local engagement
- Feature success stories from businesses in the area that your clients can resonate with
For a live example of the above in action, check out Liston Newton’s location pages dedicated to each of their offices.
Final thoughts on the future of accounting SEO
Any SEO strategy that centres on providing a great user experience on all pages and positions your brand as trustworthy will go far.
For accounting firms, and other businesses in the financial industry, focusing on authenticity and credibility is vital. Google will continue to add more classifiers to separate the legitimate, credible, and trustworthy service providers from the ones with ill intentions.
Of course, it’s also important to implement foundational SEO best practices for technical, links, and content elements. But as a business owner, it can be hard to know what the best direction may be.
Feel free to book a free strategy consultation with one of our Senior Digital Advisors to help you figure out the next step toward future-proofing your accounting firm’s marketing efforts.
