Internet Marketing For Cpas: Website Optimization Is Not Optional

By Author: Paveya Web
Total Articles: 3

Gone are the days when passing out brochures or promotional items, sending holiday greeting cards through the post office, or throwing a customer appreciation party will bring new customers into your office. Even a website is not enough. Today, potential clients are searching the internet for quality content and connecting with social media friends to find the best CPA in their town. So, to attract qualified customers, CPAs must embrace inbound marketing, a content-driven internet marketing strategy, or risk being trumped by the competition.
Effective inbound marketing starts with a website that is optimized for search engines (SEO).This article provides basic SEO tips that will benefit any CPA firm.
CPA Marketers
As a CPA, part of your job is marketing, and your ultimate marketing goals are
• to delight your current customers with ongoing, quality accounting advice, which will cause them to endorse your services to friends;
• to become an invaluable resource for taxpayers in your town;
• to establish your reputation as an expert; and
• to attract new customers.
To help accomplish this, CPAs must begin by examining the performance of their website. If your website is not listed in the top pages of search queries related to your niche industry, many potential clients will not recognize you as a voice of authority or they might not even know that you exist.
Keywords
Keywords are words and phrases that people will type into a search engine to find tax services in your area. The most effective keywords are long-tailed ones that are two to four words long. Create a hierarchical list of long-tailed keywords that best represent your services. Be sure to include your town name, state, or county in some of them. Here is a sample list to help you get started:
1. Nags Head CPA
2. Nags Head accounting services
3. Nags Head tax preparation
4. North Carolina tax tips
5. Dare County accountants
6. Income tax preparation
7. Small business accounting
8. Nags Head tax consulting
9. NC income tax tips
10. federal income tax preparation
Over time, you will likely adjust your list after you study which keywords produce the most web traffic. Install a tracking analytics service such as the one provided by Google. Google has a basic analytics service that is free, plus an option for more in-depth features for a fee.
Use your long-tailed keywords in the following ways:
• Page URLs: For example, instead of publishing a services page URL such as “cpacompany.com/services,”use specific titles like “cpacompany.com/nc-tax-consulting,” “cpacompany.com/dare-county-tax-preparation,” or “cpacompany.com/nags-head-accounting-services.”
• Page Titles: When it makes sense, title your pages with brief, specific words. For example, use “Small Business Accounting” instead of “Accounting.”However, never use obscure, vague, or “clever” titles for the sake of creativity—be direct.
• Page Text: Place your keywords in the first or second sentence of each page. Then use the same phrase a couple more timeswithin the page. Be sure that you do not stuff a page with key terms as your content might be deemed “spammy” by search engines.
• Image Titles: Title image file names with keywords. For example, instead of using the default image title automatically produced by your camera, such as “IMG12345.jpg”, name it “nags-head-tax-services.jpg,” if this title is relevant to the subject of the image. Also, never leave spaces in your image titles, always separate words with hyphens.
• Image Tags: If you have a content management website such as WordPress™, make sure that you populate the “alt” tag option with keywords.Alternate tags not only help improve your SEO, these tags describe images to blind users.
• Meta Data: WordPress makes it easy to insert keywords into your pages’ “meta titles” and “meta descriptions”. The meta description is the descriptive paragraph that appears under individual page meta titles in a search query results listing.
Web Content Tips:
• Publish separate pages for each of your CPA services and populate each lightly with long-tailed keyword phrases.
• Keep in mind that most people will not use CPA-specific jargon to search for your services, so unless you are targeting industry professionals, remove it on all your pages.
Still feeling lost in technology land? Not sure how to get started with internet marketing for CPAs? Let the experts at Paveya optimize your website to help attract more visitors and convert them into leads.
We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their business.