SEO Tips For Your Accounting Firm

If there is one online marketing technique that will get you the best results, it's being at the top of search engine results. However, although this is one of the most effective marketing channels, it is also one of the most competitive.

You don’t need to understand search engine optimization too much to be able to generate results. A small amount of knowledge can make a significant difference. These activities can also be undertaken quickly and easily by you. The important thing is to be sure that you use White Hat techniques, not Black Hat.

White Hat Versus Black Hat

The terms white hat and black hat relate to the technically acceptable ways that your website can be altered to appear higher in Google ranking. White hat refers to techniques that are accepted by Google and other search engines as being legitimate, and black hat techniques are those that are unacceptable.

Black hat tends to be focused on deceiving search engines to rank them higher. Black hat techniques include:

•       Keyword stuffing

•       Irrelevant keyword usage

•       Link spamming

These techniques are undesirable because they can damage your potential consumer’s experience. Also, if Google finds that you have used black hat techniques in your website development, it can ban you from their search results. Overcoming a Google Penalty is a lengthy process and can be the end of a business for some.

More reasons why only white hat techniques are recommended.

Here are our guidelines on how you can create a website that will reach more audiences through SEO.

1. Website Speed

The first thing to do is to consider your website’s speed. Although it has little impact on your Page Rank, it does have some effect and can improve the consumer experience. This leads to a greater increase in revenue and lead generation.

Ensure that you aren’t being hosted on a shared server, as this can drastically reduce your website’s speed, and look at minimizing your HTML, CSS and JavaScript. You should also enable Browser Caching and optimize images on your website.

For your website’s server, the best option is to have a dedicated server. However, this can be expensive. A Virtual Private Server is the most cost effective solution, and the results can be worth the investment.

2. Meta Tags

Always ensure that your website’s meta tags are effectively employed. Your meta tags are your keywords, page title, URL and meta description; everything a search engine will use to identify the subject of your page. It is important that you have one keyword/phrase that is important on each page and it should be different on each page.

Having a local focus on your pages is also important. Local SEO is far more effective than nationally targeting your page, usually because Google results tend to show more local results, and queries are often more locally focused.

At the same time, you shouldn’t really think of your name as a keyword. Your brand name is rarely going to be the search term.

So, for example, if you are Joe Bloggs Accountancy and you are based in Memphis, you can create the keyword: Accountancy Services, Memphis. These keywords should be included in your page title, URL and meta description.

On the page, these keywords should also be included between one and two times every 100 words.

On another page, the keywords could be slightly altered so it reads Accounting Services, Memphis.

3. Inbound Links

Inbound links have lost their place as one of the most important aspects of SEO. They used to be really important. However, that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be sought after. In fact, if anything, your efforts should still be to look for links to your website.

The problem is that this was the most abused rank factor in the past. Rogue websites used to use link farms. Now Google hunts these down and delists them from the search results.

For more legitimate inbound links to occur, then you have to develop content that people want to link to. You also have to participate in activities that will generate links to your content. Here are some of the best, approved ways to generate links to your site.

•       Create in-depth blog articles about your subject that others will want to reference.

•       Register your business on directories.

•       Comment on relevant blogs with a link to your site.

•       Help online reporters (HARO is a good source for this) by becoming a reference for their articles.

•       Guest post on other blogs.

•       Use press releases to attract attention to your brand in the local press.

4. Regularly Update Your Website

Google likes to see that websites are being constantly updated to meet changing consumer demands and best techniques. This doesn’t mean that you have to redesign your website every month completely, but adding new content or changing copy on pages so it remains current is important.

The easiest way to do this is to write regular blog posts. This should be done at least once a fortnight, though the more blog posts you create, the better the results. Hubspot has found that those producing more than once or twice per month generate 70% more leads than those that do no blogging at all. The report also found the more you blog, the better the results.

5. Optimize Your Website For Mobile

One of the latest big changes is the move from desktop to mobile viewing. More people are using their tablets and phones to browse the internet, and that means websites have to be optimized for both.

Having a responsive website isn’t challenging with some website tools, particularly WordPress. But be sure that your mobile site doesn’t interfere with your desktop site, as some people will use multiple devices to view your website.

6. Set-up Google+

Social media is important when it comes to your SEO. However, there is nothing more relevant than Google+, most obviously because Google owns it. Create and regularly update your Google+ page to see a marked improvement in your Page Rank.