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10 useful tips on websites for accountants

12/22/202402/18/2020 by scmarketing

This post provides 10 crucial tips to look at for websites for accountants.

Your website is in effect your brochure for your prospects and existing clients. It should be appealing to not only attract but engage visitors to keep them viewing pages on your website for as long as possible.

For an accounting firm, clear and bold call to actions with simple messaging and an easy to navigate menu is a solid foundation to build your website on.

Top tips for your website

If you’re looking for a new website to be designed and developed to help grow your business as part of a holistic inbound marketing campaign, here’s our top website tips for an accountancy firm to consider.

Build your website with a good CMS: You need a good framework to build your website on. These days that means using Content Management Systems (CMS). Once the website is designed and developed, it enables easy upload of information so that content updates can be managed inhouse.
Simple and engaging content: Review all your collateral and decide what you’ll use on the website and what needs to be cut out. For an accountancy firm, think about the services you offer and provide clear, precise information about each. If you think of who your target client is and what they are looking for in an accountancy practice, then write content that speaks to them. Make sure that your URL for these pages says exactly what’s being talked about on the page as this help with SEO to help your site become fully optimised for the search engines. So, if you’re talking about Corporation Tax or Self-employment tax, name the website page just that.
Easy website navigation: During the design build stage pay a lot of attention to the menu and site map, think about the layout and whether it’s relevant and easy to navigate. You want visitors to find things quickly to help reduce the bounce rate and to keep them looking through your website for longer.
Call to action: It’s not just about a clear menu, but it’s also about adding clear call to action buttons. These are often used for inbound marketing campaigns to drive visitors to: ‘download useful HMRC forms’; ‘sign up to a newsletter’; ‘book a consultation’.
Imagery: This forms part of your content too. It makes the web sites more engaging and easier on the eye. But don’t forget to upload the right size as too large and this could impact on the speed of your website loading. You will also need to make sure that the imagery is mobile responsive so provide a great user experience whatever the platform.
Is a blog relevant for an accountancy firm? Absolutely! Don’t be fooled by the influencer lifestyle type blogs and social media feeds you so often see. A blog is vital for a business website to be seen in organic google search and ultimatley being a lead generator for your firm. Why? Because it provides a dedicated space for uploading fresh content regularly. This keeps the website up to date and engaging for prospects, current clients and also the search engines. The one job of a search engine is to get the best result for the person searching for a particular term. Therefore, providing content with helpful tips, advice and links, will help you rise in the search rankings and help make it a lead generating website.
Be targeted: For an accountancy firm, while you want a professional feel, as that’s what people will expect, you also need to make sure that the website design and content reflects your accountancy firms brand and appeals to your target audience. We call this the persona – a made up stereotypical client. So, this is where a blog page can allow you to create specific content which answers the challenges of your audience.
Optimise your website: Any agency you work with will tell you about Meta Descriptions, Alt Tags and H1/H2 headings. A web designer can provide you with simple training on this once your website has been developed. Or you can engage a digital marketing agency to manage this for you moving forward. This means they can keep an eye on your keywords for you. But this is for another blog…you can read more about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) here.
Be a disruptor: When it comes to AI this is the buzz word of the day in the accounting world. Recent reports from EY has revealed that 77% of respondents say that AI is expected to turn into an essential business driver across the financial services industry (Transforming Paradigms: A Global AI in Financial Services Survey). Therefore, if your firm is creating a new website, then should you be incorporating AI functionality? A simple chatbot is a great way to start, before embarking on an integrated CRM system for your practice.
Back up your website: Most CMS websites provide modules to allow you to back up and to make safe against hackers. Unfortunately, it’s an everyday occurrence around the world where thousands of web robots (automated programs) check thousands of websites a second for weaknesses to exploit the owner. Do what you can to make it safe. A digital marketing agency that designs websites will usually incorporate regular backs ups into their ongoing management fee, so make sure you ask about this when you look to engage a web developer.

Stand out with your website

If you can get all this working yourself, then you will be off to a great start. Smart Cow is a digital agency for accountants so, if you’re in need of a web designer for accountants and web development book a consultation with us.

Digital marketing resources:

What SEO agencies should offer London firms

04/01/202002/17/2020 by scmarketing

For many professional services firms in London, having a marketing strategy in place will be key to growth. But, what’s one of the core digital marketing tactics that’s vital to stand out in this crowded marketplace?

Three simple letters – SEO! That’s Search Engine Optimisation. SEO is about implementing certain processes that make it better for a website to be found through search engines so that you rank higher in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

So, if you’re looking to grow your business then partnering with an SEO agency could be the answer. But what are some of the main points to consider when choosing your agency? Here’s some of key things that an SEO agency should be offering.

Optimise your content with keywords

Know who your website is targeted at: Before you start optimising, you need to understand your target audience. Your content should be tailored so that you are answering questions for that stereotypical client. The SEO agency should help you develop an online persona which incorporates goals and challenges of your target audience.

Create pillar pages: An important starting point for optimising your website is understanding what your pillar pages are. Know what your keywords are (usually phrases or longtail keywords, not just one word!), then ensure that you have relevant pages on your website. What we’ve found working with clients existing websites is that with small tweaks to the heading you already have the start of a pillar page. However, what’s key is that the URL is also the same as the heading so this may mean you have to change that which may lead to broken links. So, watch out for that.

Create a blog page: If you haven’t got a blog already then create one. Most people expect to see a blog on a website these days for interesting industry insight. For each blog post it is important to perform keyword research to ensure your accountant business is recognised in SEO. This is especially important for professional services such as an accounting firm as there’s always plenty of new updates to be shared with changes from HMRC for example. The reason it’s so good for optimisation is that by posting regularly each month you’re providing fresh content, which includes keywords, and this helps the search engine find you.

Don’t stuff it: But don’t cram your blog full of keywords. Search engines are very sophisticated and can decipher synonyms and longtail phrases. Ultimately the content needs to be quality, insightful and relevant to the reader.

Internal links: Adding relevant links within pages or blogs to other relevant pages on your website really helps navigation and engagement with visitors. Basically, you’re giving visitors tips on useful resources and similar topics.

Technical know how

A key part of optimising your accountant website is ensuring that you’ve completed as much as you can on the backend. This also has an impact on how search engines find you. Here’s some of our top pointers to implement that can really help kick start your technical SEO campaign:

Meta descriptions: This is the short paragraph that sits beneath the company name when you conduct a search online. By completing the meta description when you upload a post or page, you can create a short descriptive paragraph which includes keywords to help search engines and potential visitors. Meta descriptions are a website’s way of telling Google and other search engines exactly what each of your pages are about, what to display and how to display it in the results.

Alt tags: Complete the description of your image in the ‘Alt Tag’ box when you upload it to your website. You can be descriptive about what’s in the image but also relate back to a relevant keyword if you can.

Headings: Keywords should be incorporated into your pillar pages which talk about your services. But, can you add keywords to your blog title? If you can, then absolutely add keywords to your headings and subheadings. The h1 tag should contain information about the content of the page. Search engines check the keyword consistency between the header tag and the content on the rest of the page.

Is your website mobile friendly? Your website should already be built on CMS (Content Managed System), but that doesn’t mean it’s automatically mobile friendly. You may need to make some tweaks which an SEO agency should be able to action for you by installing plugins.

Site speed: This is another key area because people are likely to leave a website within 3-5 seconds if they can’t find what they’re looking for. Or, if the page doesn’t load fast enough. Again, an SEO agency can help you with this.

Link building

What you’re doing with your website design is building your domain authority by gaining trust and being a thought leader. As part of the ranking process, search engines consider the quality of links, awarding scores based on relevance. Less links will have an impact upon where you return in a search result for a given term.

Links can be from social media posts, or articles linking back to your website. Having information on a third-party directory with a link back to your website can also really boost your SEO campaign – think Yell, Bing, 192.com or Yelp.

But perhaps the finest example of a directory is Google My Business. So, if an agency has just created your website or you’re looking to improve your SEO on your current website, ask your SEO agency about creating this for you.

Populate Google My Business: This is a free tool to use and well worth the time and effort to complete. Google is one of the most popular search engines, so fill out as much about your company as you can. The very basics to complete are your website URL, opening times, address, contact number and email as well as a short paragraph about your company.

Google analytics: Setting up Google analytics will allow you to understand the demographics of visitors to your site and how long they stay. You can set this up yourself or work with an SEO digital marketing agency to help you.

Looking to grow your business?

Optimising your website will help create stand out and help you be found for your services. We are looking to improve SEO for accountants in London and provide SEO services for companies in Croydon. If you feel you need some support in getting your website Search Engine Optimised, then get in touch with us today and book a free consultation.

Digital marketing resources:

Why website optimisation is key to business growth

Using social media for inbound marketing

8 social media tips to drive inbound sales

04/01/202002/13/2020 by scmarketing

With an estimated 2.65 billion people using social media around the world (source: Statista), it makes sense to be part of the conversation when marketing your business.

Now, one size does not fit all. So, we’ve gathered a few top tips on what to consider when embarking on improving your social media presence for your inbound marketing strategy.

What social media platforms should you use? There’s no clear answer to this but what’s certain is that one size does not fit all. Review what social networks are right for your business, brand and the client base you want to reach out to. Don’t waste your time speaking to everyone. So, if you’re an accounting firm for small businesses or business owners of local businesses then using social media channels such as LinkedIn and Twitter are ideal for lead generation. But don’t dismiss Facebook. While you may think that it’s all about what you’re eating or doing at the weekend, having presence on this social media channel provides a link to help domain authority but also people use Facebook as a search engine so it means your business will be found.
Who do you want to speak to? It’s important to be targeted. You need to know and understand your audience. Define your audience and create a persona for them, read more about setting this up. This will help you build trust with your audience as they come to understand that you understand their challenges and you are helping them to overcome them.
Content is king: Once you’ve uploaded a blog to your website, share it on social media with a link back to your website. But, don’t just post without thought of what you’re writing. Tailor posts to the social platform, its users and your target audience. Regularly follow industry specific contacts and thought leaders, engage and share posts relevant to your audience. When you share another article, add comments to the post to move the story on or show your appreciation of what an article was about.
Imagery: Content is also about imagery. With people watching nearly 2 billion videos on Twitter per day, it makes sense to include pictures or video to help standout.
Be a thought leader: Provide your product services in the form of tips, advice and comments that your target audience will be interested to hear about and would want to share themselves. But all the time, be genuine and engaging while remaining respectful.
Be chatty yet professional: Get the right tone for the social platform you are using and make sure it’s right for building your brand awareness, your target audience and potential clients.
Remember it’s social: With social media marketing don’t lose sight that this is meant to be a social environment and people are generally not there to be sold to.
Part of the inbound sales marketing strategy: When it comes to Return on Investment, it may be one of the lowest returns in an inbound digital marketing strategy, but that by no means implies ignore it. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, therefore incorporating social media into your digital marketing plan means you have added another touch point to reach your audience, engage with them and learn about your offering. This is a vital part of your overall inbound marketing strategy to help build awareness and trust.

Free marketing consultation

If you need help, from a social media agency, with setting up your social media channels or your entire inbound marketing strategy, contact us today for a free consultation. We also work with on social media for accountancy marketing.

Digital marketing resources:

8 tips for PPC campaigns

06/21/202102/11/2020 by scmarketing

With 63% of people saying that they would click on a Google Ad, Bing Ads etc. (Search Engine Land, 2019 via Hubspot), incorporating Pay Per Click advertising as part of your inbound marketing strategy could be the key to growth for your business.

Give your website a boost in search: Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns create adverts online so when your business is not being viewed in the natural results you can give it a little nudge with a paid campaign. PPC is a great way to be seen on the first page of search to help give your website a boost. People don’t really go beyond the first search engine results page so Google Adwords will give you the chance to be seen amongst your competition on the first page of Google.
Reach your target audience: You can set up a number of Ad Groups within a campaign so you can focus on really targeting your messaging. You can then ‘throttle up’ or ‘down’ individual ads depending on how they are preforming.
What are your goals? Before you embark on your Pay per Click campaign, to get the best return on investment you need to know what your goals are. Whether that’s increasing brand awareness or gaining more downloads of a new industry report, design your campaign with the end goal in mind. This will affect how and where you place your ads.
Control your budget to the minute: With PPC, its costs per click so you can keep tabs on spend up to the minute.
Target geographic areas: Be specific with your keywords and the geographic area you’re targeting. With targeted messaging you can reach the audience you’re looking for.
Be specific: Most PPC campaigns have quite a limited amount of text in ads you can use, so be clear and get to the point and use keywords for a quality score. Campaigns that are very specific to the product and price are much more successful than general ads around the products. A PPC ad for ‘TEFAL Ultraglide FV4043 Steam Iron at £39.99’ will convert much better than ‘low price irons for sale’ – you get the picture.
AvB testing: To find out which advert works perform AvB testing. Sometimes the same advert has different results in different geographic areas, so keep testing and refining the ads until you get the best results. Keep on monitoring those results so you can work out which ones work and which don’t.
Landing pages: Strategic landing pages are used by 68% of B2B businesses to acquire leads (Marketo, 2018 via Hubspot). Placing thought into the page where you are inviting people to look is essential to avoid people leaving the page quickly. Make sure the wording is specific to the ad and your target audience. It’s worth creating a specific landing page for campaigns.

PPC Consultant Croydon

For more tips on PPC marketing in London get in touch with Smart Cow and book a Free Consultation to improve your search marketing.