Introduction
We live in an era where the Yellow Pages are a long-forgotten relic no longer used to find a bookkeeper. Thanks to the power of search engines, all it takes to find a bookkeeper is a quick search online.
In fact, we have become so reliant on Google and other search engines that it is highly likely a visitor to a website would have gone through one of these search engines first.it’s rare for someone to visit a website without searching for it first. This presents a major opportunity for your bookkeeping business to rank for relevant keywords and increase the visibility of your website to potential clients.
In this article, we will guide you to improve your bookkeeping website’s SEO to gain a competitive advantage and drive lead-generating traffic to your website. Whether you are just starting your bookkeeping business or are an established bookkeeping company looking to freshen up, this guide is for you!
Why Use SEO for Bookkeeping?
The business of bookkeeping is highly competitive. There are thousands of bookkeepers, most of them from small, local businesses working out of a home office. And there are more of them joining the industry every year. Like most businesses, they struggle to stand out from the crowd without having to pay a premium for marketing.
As a result, they tend to lean heavily on traditional marketing practices such as word of mouth, local ads, and referral programs. Unfortunately, these methods are not very scalable, typically expensive, and none of them can replace organic search engine traffic.
Organic search traffic is the most valuable traffic that a business can get. It’s free, making it’s cost per click hard to beat, and it’s highly targeted, which makes it easy to turn visitors into paying customers. With search engine optimization (aka SEO), you can rank high on search engine results pages (aka SERPs) and get traffic from people who are actively looking for your services.
The volume of exposure SEO can get you is also unparalleled. Ranking high for a search term such as “bookkeepers near me” can yield over 9,000 clicks per month for your business.
Getting Started with SEO for Bookkeeping
Before we talk about how SEO can help your bookkeeping business grow, we need an introduction to SEO —what it is, why it works, and how to use it.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s a set of techniques that help make your website more accessible to search engines like Google. An optimized website is one that appears high up in search results—ideally the first 1 or 2 pages of the search results page for a given search.
How Does SEO Work?
Let’s say you’ve been working long hours and you realize you’re hungry. You need a place to grab a bite, fast. So you open up Google and type in “pizza.” Before you know it, you see appetizing images of a pizza, with suggestions on where you can order from.
You browse through the options but invariably choose one of the first few options at the top of the page. And why wouldn’t you? We all trust Google to show us the best of the best, right? But how does Google decide which options to show first?
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of improving your website so that it will appear higher on the results page when someone searches for something related to your business.
Different search engines use different algorithms to find your business, but the basic idea is the same across the board. The search engine will take a look at your website and take note of how often your site is updated, how popular your site is, how fast your site is, and how relevant your content is to given search terms, among many other criteria.
The better your website performs on those criteria, the higher your company will rank for relevant search terms.
Now that you know how SEO works, let’s take a look at how you can make it work for you.
The Essentials – Building a Website
If you already have a site, then you’re in good shape. However, it’s important to keep your site up to date with SEO best practices.
If you don’t have a site, then you need to get one ASAP. Not having a website in this day and age is unthinkable and counterproductive to running a successful business. This is especially true when all of your competitors are gathering leads left and right using their strong online presence. When building a website you should start to consider:
1. A domain name. This is the URL or web address that users type into their browser window to get to your site. For example, our URL is opasite.com. Start searching for a name that best represents your brand with our guide to choosing the best domain name.
2. A website hosting plan from a web host provider. This is where your domain name connects to the Internet. We recommend Hostinger, Bluehost, or Digital Ocean for your hosting plan.
3. A website builder. There are many reliable website builders out there and the most popular ones are Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress.
4. A content management system (CMS). This is the behind-the-scenes system that runs your website. It stores all of your information, displays your pages and content, and also enables you to make updates with ease. We recommend WordPress for your CMS.
5. Hiring the services of a Web Design firm such as Opasite to handle everything for you. Building a website is time-intensive, stressful, and expensive. This is why we help businesses with all of the above and more. We’re experts in web design and optimization, and we’d love to work with you. We offer:
- Professional SEO-optimised content
- Mobile-optimized design
- Analytics about your website’s visitors
- On-demand edits & technical support
- And much more
Start now with our plans that start at $99 a month and start your journey towards an impactful online presence.sort all your problems at once.
The Essentials – SEO Optimized Content
Your bookkeeping website will effectively play the role of a salesperson. It’s going to be working hard for you 24/7 and it’s going to be a reflection of you and your business.
Some of the most important things to remember when it comes to SEO-optimized content are:
1. Write for your audience, not for the search engines. Search engines are getting better and better at understanding user intent, so it’s important to write for your audience first and foremost. When you write for your audience, your content will naturally be picked up by the search engines.
2. Properly format the images and videos on your landing page. Search Engines cannot parse images and videos unless they are properly titled, labeled with alt text, and have transcripts available.
3. Make sure your site is mobile-optimized. You want to provide your potential customers with the convenience of viewing your website on their phones or tablets.
4. Use keyword-rich titles and descriptions. Keywords are terms that people search for to find your website. It’s important that you include these keywords in your title and meta descriptions so that when people search for them, your site is included in the search results.
5. Add a blog to your site. Having a blog is a convenient and effective way to keep your website updated. Blog articles increase the value-address of your site to potential clients, allowing you to express your industry expertise and ultimately generate leads. Updating yourr website regularly can also boost your SEO.
The Essentials – ON-Page SEO
Once you have your site built and your content is in order, you’ll want to do some essential on-page optimization tasks.
1. Optimize Page titles. Your page title is the text that displays in the browser window when you’re on your site. It’s also the text that comes up when someone searches for your company online. Make your page title as relevant as possible to what your company does. Example: “Johnson & Johnson – The Medical Device Company”
2. Optimize meta descriptions. The meta description is the short description displayed in the search results. This is a very important piece of information as it’s often the deciding consideration for a searcher to click on your result. Make your meta description as relevant as possible to what your company does. It’s a good idea to include your company name, address, and phone number.
3. Keyword density. Keyword density is the percentage of times you use a given keyword on your website, divided by the total number of words. This is one of the most popular search engine ranking factors because search engines use this metric to determine how relevant your website is to a given search query.
4. File names. The file names you use for your images and documents also impact search engine ranking. Make sure your file names are relevant, clear, and easy to understand.
5. The first paragraph of your content. The first paragraph is also an important search engine ranking factor. It’s the first thing that people will read when they click on your website link, so make sure it’s catchy.
The most engaging articles retain readers for longer, which in turn signals to Google that your website is relevant. To keep the user’s attention you can start the article with a “hook”: a statistic, provocative quote, or call-to-action statement that piques the reader’s interest. it’s a quality snippet that promotes your company. gives people a good idea of what to expect.
6. Section Heading. The section heading is the text that appears at the top of each section on your website. It’s a good idea to include relevant keywords in your section headings to help improve your search engine ranking. This is especially important if potential clients use search terms that are more specific.
7. Links. Links are the text you use to access other pages, websites, and documents. Having internal links pointing to other pages and content within your website is important as search engines use internal links to find, index, and understand the pages on your website.
The Essentials – OFF-Page SEO
Off-page SEO is the same basic idea as on-page SEO, but it’s focused on building your website’s authority and promoting it via third-party websites.
1. Social media. Use your social media platforms to engage with your audience, post updates, and share content from other sources. Your social media activity is a great way to build your authority and generate traffic to your website your social media activity is a “vote” for your website in the eyes of Google, so use this to your advantage.
2. Community blogs. Writing long-form, informative content in exchange for a link back to your website is a great way to increase traffic to your site and build authority. A few good respected platforms that let you write content in exchange for a link back are Medium and LinkedIn Pulse on Linkedin.
3. Press releases. A well-written press release can work wonders for getting your brand in front of millions of eyes. Besides increasing your website’s traffic, it can also build backlinks from reputable news websites to your website, which is great for SEO.
4. Local presence. This is all about getting your business listed in local directories such as Google My Business, Yelp, Bing, and others. Keep in mind that it can be time-consuming to get listed, a few services you can use to get listed quickly are Yext and Localeze.
5. Guest posts. Getting your name out there to other websites and businesses is a good way to get your site more exposure. Guest posts are articles that you write and are published on another website. If you are able to generate high-quality, relevant content, then you can use this to your advantage.
6. Forums. Forum posts are great for two things: building backlinks and reaching out to potential customers. Make sure to write detailed and informative posts and don’t forget to include a link back to your website. A few high-volume platforms that you can post on are Linkedin, Reddit, and Quora.
The Essentials – Local SEO Tactics for Bookkeepers
Long-Tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords are an important part of your local SEO strategy. These are keywords that are longer and more specific than the keywords that you would normally use. Long tail keywords are also essential for generating new local leads. For example, if you are a bookkeeper in the Dallas area, you might want to try ranking for the keyword “Dallas bookkeeper” as opposed to a more general and non-location-specific term like “bookkeeper”.
There are many tools that you can use to find long tail keywords, including:
Listings
There are many advantages to having your business listed, such as having the ability to defend your online reputation by responding to reviews, highlighting your business with google and other search engines, and helping to connect you with potential customers. An online local listing, such as Google My Business, will showcase your company whenever somebody searches for your business niche in your local area. If your business has a physical address, then it may also appear on Google Maps.
Even if a listing platform is not associated with the largest search engine on the planet, these platforms are SEO-optimized and respected by search engines. It’s worthwhile to get your business listed on as many local listing sites as possible to accumulate domain authority and capture small groups of searchers.
Besides creating accounts in listing platforms, you should be sure that the content in all of the directories, review sites and other directories where you are listed are optimized for local SEO. Here are a few listing websites to get started:
Reviews
Google uses reviews to help determine your business’s ranking. The more keyword-rich reviews mentioning your business, the higher you will rank. Get started with the following review platforms:
Backlinks
Having references on other websites might be the single most effective way of building authority in a search engine’s eyes. Besides building authority, being mentioned in local papers, magazines and websites can bring more attention to your business and send web traffic to your site.
You can build backlinks by:
- Getting guest blog posts published on other sites.
- Creating a media kit and finding sites that would be willing to publish your press releases.
- Getting quoted or interviewed by a journalist or well-read blog writer.
Conclusion
In this guide, we’ve only touched the tip of the SEO iceberg. There is much more to learn about optimizing your website. Nevertheless, we hope that this guide has introduced you to the basics of SEO so you can start making your bookkeeping website SEO-friendly.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that SEO is a long-term strategy. It’s not a one-time effort. You can’t just “optimize” your website and then be done with it. The landscape of SEO is constantly changing. Google makes hundreds of algorithm changes per year. In order to stay on top of the SEO game, you need to continuously work on it.
Or, better, let us handle everything for you. We are Opasite, a web design service that specializes in building and maintaining bookkeeping websites. With our small business package, you will get a full website, optimized from the ground up, and fresh SEO-optimized content, written by our experts.
With this package, you will also get a free SSL certificate, free hosting, an awesome mobile-friendly design with on-demand edits, ongoing on-site search engine optimization, and technical support among many other perks you can check out here.
Let Opasite handle your bookkeeping website and take it to the top of Google!
