Category Archives: Local SEO

Yesterday we held our very first Question & Answer session on our Facebook page, the subject was Search Engine Optimisation. We fielded some very good questions and thought it would be a good idea to have a round up here on the blog so we could spread the information but also so that we could go into our answers with a little more depth and provide some interesting links for people.

Making the most of local SEO can be a great way to increase targeted traffic to your website from local people and businesses seeking your services. In order to take advantage of local search you need to optimise your website for geo-targeted keywords. In terms of standard practices Local SEO is very much the same as standard SEO with the added geographical data. You will primarily want to include your city, town or regional keywords in:

Accountancy is a competitive industry, as you will well know, so gaining any sort of competitive advantage is essential for the survival and growth of your business. When it comes to potential customers sourcing accountancy services online one of the main ways to ensure they call, or email, you rather than a competitor is to have plenty of reviews on 3rd party sites like Google+ Local, Qype and IzzBox.

As local search becomes more and more prevalent, accountants aiming to target local traffic must ask themselves what can they do to incorporate this marketing strategy into their overall online marketing arsenal.

For accountancy companies that have a local presence, top visibility on local search is essential or that traffic and potetntial sales leads will simply go to competitors. Google Maps is one of the most frequently used local search destinations on the internet and even comes standard on many mobile devices including the iPhone. Google+ Local provides a great opportunity to begin marketing on a local level to your potential customers.

With local search becoming more and more important it is vital that your accountancy firm’s website is set up to capture as much of this traffic as it can. Here are 10 quick local SEO tips for accountants to optimise your website and content to attract local customers.

Local Search Engine Optimisation (hereby referred to as SEO) is an extremely important step for any accountant who hopes to generate new sales leads via the internet. It is probably even more important than you already think, and here is why.

If your accountancy firm is located in the Durham area than there is a good chance you will want to be found for terms like “durham accountant” or “accountancy practice in durham” however due to the nature of the business it is now more important than ever to be well optimised for local search.

Accountancy firms with a physical location, or those who service a particular area of the country, need to be aware of the need for local SEO. In this blog post we will aim to explain what local SEO is, why local SEO for accountants is important and what you can do to optimise your web presence to make the most of local searches.

If your accountancy firm gets some or all of it’s clients from the local vicinity then you should definitely consider investing in local SEO. Whilst it is not uncommon for a business or individual to have an accountant who is located in another part of the country it is far more likely that they would prefer to have one who is local. This means that when they come to search for one on Google they are going to be using localised search terms (such as “accountant in Bury”) and if you are located in that area then are going to want to be found.

A lot of accountancy firms when taking on the SEO work for their own websites make common SEO mistakes which can impact their search engine rankings.

Here is a brief look at some of the more common errors people make when optimising their site for the search engines.

Poor Title Selection

Making the title of your home page “home” is a classic error, even worse is when you see a homepage with the title of “untitled”! A search engine spider when crawling your site will assume that “home” is an important keyword to describe your website, it will interpret the word “home” to assume that your website has something to do with real estate, construction, or other home-related themes. You can’t expect to see your site performing well in the search engines unless you title your home page with relevant keywords. Be sure to use your targetted keywords in every title on every page and make sure every page has a unique title.

John Wanamaker, considered to be a pioneer of marketing and advertising, once said “Half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don’t know which half”. Mr Wanamaker died in 1922 but his saying is still relevant in today’s marketing environment.

Using Web Analytics To Track Your Marketing Efforts

These days every business has the tools available to track which of their online marketing efforts are working and which aren’t. The problem is only a small percentage of businesses have installed a web analytics package to track their traffic and an even smaller percentage of those businesses regularly analyse the data those packages generate.

As an accountancy firm trying to optimise your website for the best search traffic possible you will have no doubt searched out SEO advice from various sources across the internet. Unfortunately there are a lot of myths and misconceptions flying around and this can make it extremely difficult to focus your efforts on what is going to have a positive effect. Here are a few SEO myths to be aware of:

SEO Is a One-Time Activity

I have literally lost count of the number of times I have heard someone say “we actually just finished up SEO’ing our website, it’s all done”! SEO is ongoing, just like a website should never be considered “finished” neither should your SEO efforts, you are operating in a dynamic environment where things change every single day. I can understand why people hope that they can consider their SEO “done”, the prospect of spending time and/or money on SEO on an ongoing basis might not appeal to a lot of businesses. However, a website needs regular attention to be an optimal marketing tool.