Your company’s accounting marketing strategy is undoubtedly focused around generating leads for your CPA firm.
Without leads there are no new accounting clients and without new clients there is no business growth.
Google offers the most potential when it comes to online lead generation for an accounting firm. When a consumer has a general tax question or is searching for a local CPA, where do they turn to for answers?
Google search.
Being found on Google is important if you want to attract accounting firm leads, and a complete CPA marketing strategy includes occupying both the organic and paid results. This drives more impressions, more click-through opportunities and ultimately more potential lead conversions.
Let’s break down both, organic SEO strategies and Google Ads PPC, and highlight how to excel at both.
When you have both organic traffic and paid traffic mastered it delivers outstanding accountant marketing results.
Accounting Firm Google Ads (CPA PPC)
Do you want on-demand leads coming into your accounting firm? A well-designed accountant PPC campaign has the ability to generate qualified accounting leads and scale as you increase your daily CPA PPC advertising budget.
When an accounting PPC campaign is optimized properly, and the desired conversion rates and lead acquisition costs are met, it’s possible to increase the lead volume to meet your business growth needs. There are three different pay-per-click options available via Google Ads — let’s dive into each and explain how they can help drive great results for your accountant advertising campaign.
Google Search Ads (Previously AdWords)
This is Google’s standard paid ad format, which was previously referred to as AdWords. It’s cut-and-dry PPC — you bid on specific keywords and search terms and drive traffic to your accounting firm’s website.
The highest quality CPA leads are going to come from campaigns that are optimized for very specific location-based keywords. There are a lot of searches for accounting related terms, but many are simple information searches — not specifically looking to hire a CPA.
When we build out pay-per-click campaigns for accounting firms, we target keywords with a high indication of service-seeking, and then match those to ad copy that attracts service-intent clicks, sending that traffic to a highly optimized landing page where visitors are then converted into a lead.
Google Local Service Ads (CPA PPC)
Google’s local service ads convert accounting PPC traffic at a high rate because of the CTA (call-to-action) options given to consumers that come in contact with this ad format. Whereas a standard PPC ad redirects the consumer to your CPA firm’s website after a click-through, a local service PPC ad provides two options:
- Click-to-Call: If a consumer chooses this option he or she is instantly connected to your accounting firm. This is a warm lead that is clearly interested if they request to speak over the phone. These leads close at a very high rate.
- Request Information: If they don’t want to speak on the phone at that moment, they can request information. This delivers their contact information to you in the form of a real-time lead. Response time on your part is key — the quicker you contact them, the better the odds are that they convert into a new client.
Google Display Network for Accounting Firms
The GDN (Google Display Network) features thousands of websites and blogs that Google has an advertising relationship with. The best way to leverage the massive inventory of websites available via the GDN is to launch a re-marketing campaign to compliment your accountant marketing strategy.
Traffic that hits your website via your accounting PPC effort as well as through organic channels can be “followed” when they leave, allowing you to place highly targeted ads in front of them as they browse their favorite websites.
It’s a very effective accounting PPC strategy that can pull prospects back to your website, and if you present them with an irresistible offer there is a very good chance you can turn some of your previously abandoned traffic into leads.
Accountant SEO Strategy for Increased Organic Traffic
SEO (search engine optimization) is appealing for many reasons, with the number one reason being the potential for organic traffic to land on your accounting website around the clock, without having to pay a set price for every single visitor — like an accounting PPC campaign.
Lots of organic traffic is great, but when you are able to attract highly qualified traffic through accountant SEO it can really pay off in the form of a non-stop influx of accounting leads for your firm.
The prime real estate in Google’s organic search results is its Google Maps section. The majority of your accountant leads are going to start as a location-based search. Being found high on the Maps listing is the first step.
From there, your website’s landing page and call-to-action is designed to convert the traffic into leads, but for that to even be an option you need to be found. There are two key components of local SEO, both of which can help you dominate Google Maps.
Google My Business Profile Optimization
Your accounting firm likely has a Google My Business profile, but the likelihood that it’s optimized properly is slim to none. In fact, most Google local listings aren’t properly optimized — it takes more than just entering in your business address and website URL to reach the top of the organic search results.
Your Google My Business profile is one of the most crucial components of accounting marketing SEO. The information within that profile is what Google pulls from when determining what businesses to display in the Maps results, what keywords and search phrases triggers visibility and in what position on the map a particular business appears in.
We build-out very details profiles, with content that is strategically optimized for the particular keywords and terms we are focused on. Accounting SEO is highly competitive, making keyword research extremely important. This is especially true when it comes to uncovering low competition terms that we can rank for — allowing us to begin generating leads to use as a foundation, with scaling organic growth the goal.
Accountant Google Reviews
Reviews play a major role in local SEO and if you’re not focused on attracting new accountant Google reviews on a regular basis you need to implement a process immediately. Consistently collecting new reviews is beneficial for several reasons.
First, it gives prospects and potential clients confidence in your firm’s abilities. Anytime you can build consumer confidence prior to them contacting your CPA firm it greatly increases the chance of them at the very least converting into a lead.
Second, it helps your ranking on Google Maps. The local search algorithm is designed to show the most relevant results based on what Google thinks the user is looking for and what results Google feels are the most beneficial.
If your accounting firm has no reviews are they going to show you in a higher position on the Map than another local firm with fifty raving reviews? Of course not — the other result is likely to be more beneficial to its user.
Does that necessarily mean that other result is a better CPA firm? Not at all, but in terms of online presence, yes, it’s viewed as a better option.
Reviews can really help improve your accountant SEO, so ask your old clients to leave reviews and establish a system to ask for new clients to leave a review a short time after the initial on-boarding process.
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