Marketing for Accountants

Discover expert marketing strategies custom-tailored for accountants in Croydon with our local web design and digital marketing insights. Perfect for SME business owners looking to thrive in South London and Surrey

Website updates accountants

8 website updates for accounting firms

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With all the change and uncertainty right now, as an accountancy practice your main concern is servicing your existing clients offering the most-timely advice as and when updates are announced by government that could assist your client base.

Importantly it’s also the key time to maintain your presence online to continue building that groundwork that is the necessity of any lead generation strategy. In time, when circumstances change, and businesses start to grow, it’s the firms and suppliers that have provided helpful advice that will be remembered and be seen as the go to company for new business.  

So, what can you as an accounting firm do to optimise your website to help maintain your position in search rankings? Here’s our top website tips to help you kick start a great Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) campaign for your business to get your website seen. 

1. Is your website easy to navigate?  

Check that your accounting services are clearly visible in the menu so that there is an easy path for visitors who reach your homepage. Show your key services on your homepage and a call to action to read more, download information or get in touch.  

2. Do you have enough internal links on your website?  

This is another navigation tactic. Make sure that you are making it even easier for visitors to find information on your website. Embed links into keyword phrases.

3. Complete your H1, H2 headers 

This helps search engines work out the theme of the page to return the right answers to the searcher. 

4. Complete your meta descriptions 

This neat little paragraph is what you read when you search online. Keep to under 160 characters and make sure it’s relevant to the content on that web page.

5. Be image-led on your website 

Help create stand-out with good photography and video content. But, make sure images are the right size and you have completed the alt tag on the backend as this will help site speed and prevent visitors leaving your site.  

6. Create a content plan  

A solid basis for any website optimisation strategy is to develop a content marketing plan. This should include a regular schedule of information such as blogs that can be drafted and uploaded onto your website. Search engines love fresh content. It helps position you as an authority in your sector.   

However, ensure that you are using good keywords within your content. By this, we mean phrases that you want to be found for when people search for you. If you include these important phrases in content, in particular headings, then it helps you to be found when people search. Such as ‘Annual Accounts for construction firms’ or ‘Tax returns for a sole trader’. Think of who your target audience is and write content for them.  

This has only touched the surface, so if you want to delve a little deeper into SEO as part of your digital marketing strategy then do get in touch for a free consultation via Zoom.

7. Calls to action

Calls to action (CTA) should form a key part of your content marketing strategy. These are best placed above the fold, the space before the visitor has to scroll down. Make sure you have a bold CTA so that it stands out and use design to make it clear that it’s a clickable link.   

8. Get a free website review 

With so many factors affecting whether and where your website will be found on google search, complete our form to get a free website audit. This free review provided by Smart Cow Marketing will provide you with some interesting results to help with your inbound marketing. 

Navigating your digital marketing journey 

If you want the task of fixing these issues taken off your hands, then we’d be happy to assist you further with your digital marketing. Just get in touch about what your digital marketing requirements for your accountancy practice. 

Smart Cow marketing specialises in digital marketing for accountants helping firms improve online visibility to attract potential clients through online marketing.

Digital marketing resources 

8 Tips to improve marketing for accountants in London

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As an accounting firm, it’s easy to rely on repeat and referral business. However, if you want to grow, you need to turn to marketing your firm.

Marketing for accountants requires a bit more expertise to break through the noise and get your business noticed. There are more than 76,000 accountants in the UK. You have to work hard to get your business noticed online.  

Keep reading to learn the latest marketing tips for accountants that will help your business grow.  

1. Get on Google My Business

How will you be found on search engines if you don’t tell search engines that your business exists? You have to fill out a listing on Google My Business to show search engines that you have a legitimate business. It will also help your firm be found when people are searching.

2. Get Your Marketing Messages Right

How well can you communicate what sets your accounting firm apart from all of the other accounting firms in London?

You need to be able to explain to someone the services you provide, to whom, and why they need to go to your firm. That needs to happen in about 5-7 seconds.

If you do that well, you’ll be able to weed out the people who aren’t a good fit for your business and pique the curiosity of your ideal client.

3. Optimise for SEO

Millions of people turn to search engines every single day to find products and services. That includes searching for tax information and finding accountants.

Search engine optimisation is a great way to get your accounting firm in front of potential clients when they’re trying to learn about taxes or trying to find an accountant in London.

4. Content Builds Trust

Let’s say that someone is trying to find tax information. They don’t want to hire an accountant yet, but they want information on what capital allowances are and what qualifies.

You can write a blog post that addresses that very question. The goal is to optimise that post to appear in related searches for capital allowances.

The person wanting to understand what they are comes across your post, they read it, and they become more interested in your services.

Your content has to go above and beyond adding value and help people solve a very specific problem.

Marketing your accounting practice needs to establish trust with your target audience. The way you do that is by providing value and repetition.

The more people see your company, the more they’ll remember it. You want to be seen as a tax resource in London, not just another accountant.

Don’t be afraid to give away information for free.

5. Capture Email Addresses

In the example above, your website did its job to get someone interested in your accounting firm. Now it’s time to convert that person to a lead.

The best way to do that is to have them sign up to your email list. That allows you the opportunity to remain in communication with them until they decide to unsubscribe.

In order to capture an email address, you want to offer something of value. People aren’t really going to give up their email address because you want them to sign up for your newsletter.

However, a guide that outlines 5 tax saving strategies for small business owners would be a great way to get people to sign up to your list.

Whatever you have as your trap, so to speak, it has to be relevant and useful to your target audience.

6. Follow up With Retargeting

Not everyone will want to sign up for your email after they visit your website. You don’t want to lose that lead for good, so you need to find a way to keep your brand in front of them once they leave your site.

A retargeting campaign can do just that. A retargeting campaign uses tracking cookies to present your display ads on websites and social media networks once someone leaves your site.

Retargeting does “impact consumer behaviour” and it can help you get more clients to your accounting firm.

7. Take Networking Online

How often do you spend time at networking meetings? They can be incredibly valuable and provide a great source of referrals. You can take the same approach to a networking meeting and apply it to social media. LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook are great places to connect with other professionals and individuals who could benefit from a good accountant. It’s another way to engage with potential customers and establish credibility and trust.

8. Measure Results and Adjust Your Campaign

Once you start a marketing campaign, you can’t let it run on autopilot. It needs attention and tweaking, which can be difficult when you’re trying to manage client work in the middle of tax season.

You need to measure the results of your campaign to see what tactics are working well and which ones aren’t. That will give you enough information to make an informed decision about your marketing.

For example, you look at your analytics and see what you’re getting traffic to your site, and they’re reading your content. However, they’re not converting to email leads or scheduling appointments.

It could be for a variety of reasons. The visitors may be early in the buying cycle and need more touches before

It could also be that your lead magnet isn’t compelling enough to drive signups. Good marketing takes patience and testing to get it to be perfect.

Marketing for Accountants

As an accounting firm, if you want to grow, you need to do more than rely on repeat and referral business. You need to learn the latest ways to improve marketing for accountants and apply them to your business.

There are plenty of ways to market your firm from content marketing to SEO. To be successful, you need to be consistent and be willing to measure and test your campaigns.

Do you need help with marketing your accounting firm? Contact us, digital marketing and SEO experts for accountants, today for a free consultation.

Wooden dice with email symbol for digital marketing communications

6 Email marketing tips to grow your business

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How email marketing can
grow your business

You may think that incorporating email distribution into your digital marketing plan as a bit old hat, but let us paint a picture on this cost effective marketing service for you. Think how you feel when you receive a letter at your home. You check your post every day and open letters addressed personally to you. You follow a similar process with your emails. Your phone is always at arm’s reach and when you get that notification you look to see what you’ve received – if anything to get rid of those red bubbles! But in doing so, you’ve clocked the brand – that’s helping with awareness. It’s then your choice as to whether you open and read, file or delete. But ultimately some impression on you will be made. But what makes an email campaign effective that can help to grow your business?

Newsletter sign up

First and foremost, you need a list of email addresses to distribute your content to. If you’ve already got your database sorted and it’s GDPR compliant then you’re all set.

But, if you do not have a list, one of the best ways is to make sure you have a newsletter pop up box on your website for visitors to sign-up to receive emails. But be very clear about what you’re capturing someone’s details for, as you need to be GDPR compliant (read about the ICO regulations).

You can also work with digital marketing agencies to help you with creating the pop-up box on your website or helping you to purchase a list.  Create a CRM system too this will help you engage effectively with customers knowing their needs and and how bet to contact them.

Get to the point

So, with your GDPR compliant list you’re set to send an email. But wait, what are you going to tell your potential customers? Your content needs to be fresh, engaging and most of all worthy of someone opening the email and reading it. Really think about the news you are sending and question – “is it relevant to my target audience?”

The subject line is crucial. It needs to entice, engage, have meaning and stand out. Phrases such as “3 days left to save on your personal tax accounting fees” – it provides a hook to open the email.

Also, steer clear of keywords that will be caught by spam filters
such as ‘free’ or ‘buy’.

Set the tone

By now you should have set up your target persona (check out creating an online persona to help with this). Therefore you’ll know the keywords and phrases you should be using, the tone should be a reflection on your accountancy firm.

Call to action

So, you’ve sent an email, so what. Make sure that the recipient knows what to do next. Make it clear and obvious what the ‘Call to Action’ is so they benefit from your email. Include trackable links to give you a picture of what’s popular and where leads have come from, e.g. links to blog posts, web pages, social media platforms.

Unsubscribe

You must always have an unsubscribe option in your email as well as a link to your privacy policy. While it’s sad that people may unsubscribe, see this as a positive. If people are not interested, then by making it easy to unsubscribe, you’ve cleared someone from your list that wasn’t going to engage anymore than that.  Don’t alienate people by making it difficult, if they are not interested in what you have to say then that is their loss. Just focus on those who are interested. Remember, you need to be GDPR compliant, so transparency is important.

Images

Make sure your email template is easy to navigate but most of all
you have enough pictures to make it interesting to look at.

Book a Practice Growth Session

To make a leading marketing campaign it makes sense to contact the experts; we are a email marketing agency in London. Get in touch to receive support in getting an email marketing campaign set up to help with your inbound marketing, then get in touch with us today.

We have expertise offering digital and email marketing for accountants and offer Practice Growth Sessions which are tailored for firms keen to grow and ready to invest in a digital marketing campaign to achieve their goals. You can book a session with us for £95.

Word in dictionary illustrating keywords

How to make your marketing work – be specific

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Whether you are a local business, national or gain most of your leads through referrals, you will still need an online presence as it is the automatic first stop in searching for a businesses credibility. With 97% of searches online to find a local business*, it is a matter of necessity that your business is visible and you’re marketing to the online audience.

Although it’s no good marketing to everyone – you need to have worked out who your target audience is to help you decide what key terms you would like to be found for?

If you’ve not already worked out your target audience, take a look at our blog on this topic which will give you tips on how to create this.

Keywords

Your website in the online world is the equivalent to a business premises in the real world. What it looks like where it is found, how up to date it is and how easy it is to navigate are all key factors for success. A tailored SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) campaign will help your business be seen helping it move up the search engine results page. This is why keywords are so important and one of the first things to look at when you’re working out how you’re going to target that audience.

Think about what key term you would like to be found for? The more content you produce using keywords the more your website is recognised by a search engine meaning your website will make its way up the results pages.

If you’re looking for keywords for an accountancy practice, for example, then the following will be a good place to start:

  • Accounting
  • Audit and Accounting
  • Bookkeeping

Find keywords that work with your business goals and target the areas you’re looking to promote. But finding out which keywords have the most traffic or competition isn’t widely available, this is where working with a digital marketing agency can help.

Long tail Keywords

Think about being very specific on keywords, which are sometimes given the term ‘long tail keywords’. For example, continuing with the accountancy theme people may search for “Accountants in Croydon”, “Accountant for business start-up”, “Chartered accountant in Surrey,” or “Accountant for SME Tax Return”. It’s likely to be a lot easier to rank for this as there will be less competition, but, while you may see less traffic to your website as not many people will search such a specific phrase, it will help it to be targeted.

Headings

Before writing content for your pages, you should always have your keywords planned for what you’re writing about and make sure you add them to your blogs. You should also add them, where you can, in separate heading tags. This gives your keywords greater authority and tells the search engines that the topics you’re talking about are important and relevant to your business.

The h1 tag is also key and should not be missed on any page. Search engine spiders pay great attention to the words used in a h1 tag as it should contain information about the content of the page, just as the title will. Search engines check the keyword consistency between the header tag and the content on the rest of the page.

Don’t stuff keywords!

But a word of warning – when you add keywords to your website’s pages, they have to be relevant. Don’t add keywords for the sake of it as this will act against you when the search engines crawl your site which they recognise as ‘keyword stuffing’. We find that focusing your content around one or two keywords will help you build on results overtime.

Book a Practice Growth Session

If you you’re looking to grow your business, investing in a well targeted digital marketing campaign is fundamental to growth and we, an inbound marketing agency in London, can help you with that. Our Practice Growth Sessions are tailored for businesses keen to grow and ready to invest in a digital marketing campaign to achieve their goals.

You can book a session with us for £95 and we can help you work out the keywords and phrases for your business to be found.

Sources: *SEOExpertBrad

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