Attract More Motivated Clients With Highly Targeted
Bookkeeper SEO
This Bookkeeper SEO Guide Has Been Comprehensively Updated for 2023
Due to consistent algorithm updates, the relatively recent Helpful Content Update in late 2022, we’ve updated the written content that already existed on the page. We’ve written new content. And we’ve filmed new video content. Everything is up-to-date, fresh, and helpful for your bookkeeping business to dominate Google for 2023.
How We Help Bookkeepers Grow Their Business & See A
5.7x ROI on Their Monthly SEO Investment
Increase Google Rankings
Get your bookkeeper website ranking on Google for high-value keywords that potential clients are searching for.
More High-Quality Web Traffic
Get more interested business owners coming to your website each month.
Increased Leads & Phone Calls
Get more motivated clients calling your bookeeping business to schedule an appointment.
You Get Your Time Back
Stop having your receptionist writing blog content or trying to figure out digital marketing on their own.
Here's What You Want To See With Your Bookkeeper Website & SEO
When Someone Types into Google "Bookkeepers Near Me", You Show Up Here...
When Someone Types into Google "Bookkeepers Near Me", You Show Up Here...
Think about the way people search for bookkeepers. They’re probably going over their finances, trying to make sure everything is correct while also running other parts of their business, and ultimately pull out their smartphone.
They go to Google and type in something like “Bookkeepers Near Me” – the FIRST thing to show up is the Maps area of Google called the Google Local Pack. The bookkeepers that are found here get the most phone calls and “win” over their competitors.
When Someone Types into Google "Best Bookkeepers in [City]", You Show Up Here...
When business owners are looking for bookkeepers, they often use the language of “best bookkeeper near me” or “best bookkeepers in [city]”.
The bookkeepers that rank in the Maps area for these keywords get the most website visitors and phone calls.
When Someone Types Queries into Google like "How to Manage Business Finances", You Show Up Here..
When Someone Types Queries into Google like "How to Manage Business Finances", You Show Up Here..
Business owners ask tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of questions into Google each day. Questions like…
- “What types of wine should be chilled?”
- “What are the biggest wineries in Oregon?”
- “How to get the most out of a wine tour”
Ranking for these keywords in Google proves that your website is an “authority” in your industry and can be trusted.
People Are Searching Differently For Bookkeepers Than They Used To
Simply take a look and see the increase in people searching for “bookkeeper near me” over the last five years.
This screenshot above comes from a tool called Google Trends (a tool created by Google itself). You can see the steady increase in the number of people searching for “bookkeeper near me.”
See The Common Theme? You Want To Increase Your Bookkeeper Business's Digital Presence Online To Be Found By Motivated Clients.
What it all comes down to is that you want more business owners in your city to know about you. Whenever they do a Google search online around bookkeepers, you want to show up over your competitors.
How Do You Get Tangible Results With Bookkeeper SEO Services?
Step 1: Comprehensive SEO Audit
Unfortunately, most SEO companies miss this step. And it’s the most important one of all!
How can you get your SEO where it needs to be if you don’t know where it is now?
We recommend doing a comprehensive SEO audit to determine your:
- Current SEO performance
- Current SEO errors
- What your local competitors are doing
- Technical SEO performance
- And more
Step 2: Local SEO Visibility Audit
The point of bookkeeper SEO is to increase your “local visibility,” as we call it.
We use robust and powerful third-party tools to run an “SEO visibility test” on your business. This allows us to see how visible your business is on Google.
Here’s an example of what the report looks like:
Step 3: Create a Roadmap Based on Data
We now have tons of data from the SEO audit and the local SEO visibility audit.
SEO for bookkeepers should be strategized based on data. Most other SEO companies don’t do this and, instead, “go with the flow” in hopes that something will work.
We recommend creating a comprehensive roadmap based on the data. If the data shows that your website is loading very slowly (which is negatively impacting performance), you should probably focus on fixing that first!
Step 4: Implement Highest Priority Changes First
Here’s something you should be aware of:
Not all SEO activities are created equal.
Adding internal links on a blog post from 2018 won’t be as impactful as optimizing the content on your homepage.
So, based to the data, you need to target the “low hanging fruit” opportunities first.
You don’t have a Google Business Profile set up for your bookkeeping business? You should probably create one! You don’t have a services page? You should probably build that first before worrying about the images on an outdated blog post.
Step 5: Local SEO Best Practices & Content Creation at Scale
Local SEO for bookkeepers comes down to the following:
- Consistent information that Google trusts
- Authority
- Accurate information
If the phone number listed on your business’s website is different than what’s found on your Facebook page, that’s a red flag for Google.
If Google chooses to rank your business, it can’t trust that a business owner will actually be able to get through to you if they tried to call.
It’s critical to have consistent NAPs on high-authority directories across the internet.
Now, in regards to “authority,” that’s where content becomes super important. If you create content that answers your target audience’s questions, Google will see your business as more authoritative than a bookkeeper that hardly has any content on their site.
Step 6: Meticulously Track Data
The goal of SEO is to have a tangible impact on your bookkeeping business. To increase website visitors. To increase your phone calls. And to ultimately have those activities lead to increased revenue.
To ensure your SEO campaign is performing well, you must track data. Build a comprehensive dashboard that gives insights into your:
- keyword rankings
- website visitors
- phone calls
- and other important KPIs
Bookkeeper SEO Services Shouldn't Be 
Cutter - Everything Is 100% Customized To Your Business
Bookkeeper SEO isn’t the same as other types of SEO. Unfortunately, many other SEO companies don’t treat it as unique. They use the same “tips and tricks” that they use in other industries, thinking that it’ll work with bookkeepers. That’s not the most effective strategy.
We take an individualized approach to each individual industry (such as bookkeeping), to your specific city (Philadelphia might be different than a smaller town in Georgia), and your specific website (is your website built on WordPress or Webflow).
5 Tactical Local SEO Strategies for Bookkeepers
Strategy 1: Google Business Profile Optimizations
This is an example of a bookkeeper’s Google Business Profile:
Well this is an example of the front-end of a Google Business Profile. The part that someone searching on Google can see.
Actually, let’s back up for a minute:
Why do Google Business Profile matter for bookkeepers? Google Business Profiles are relevant and important ranking factors in order to rank in the Google Local Pack. If you forgot what the Google Lack Pack is, here’s an example:
Optimizing your Google Business Profile helps you show up there ☝️
And, when you get found in the Google Local Pack, you WIN. You get more website visitors and phone calls over your competitors.
So, how do you properly optimize your Google Business Profile so you can get found in the Google Local Pack?
One word: Comprehensiveness.
The best way to optimize your Google Business Profile is to provide as comprehensive information as possible.
There are many sections in the GMB where you can provide comprehensive information, such as:
- Your categories
- Your services
- Your main description
- Your photos
- Your products
Here’s a quick example that explains the difference between being comprehensive and not being comprehensive:
For your main description, you may just write something like… “We are a team of motivated bookkeepers that are dedicated to keeping your finances organized and up to date.”
That is only one sentence… Google allots 750 characters for the main description. Use them to your advantage! Do you offer payroll services? Do you offer tax services? What about accounting services?
Answering ALL the questions your target audience has is how you can be more comprehensive.
Strategy 2: On-Page SEO for Your Homepage and Location Pages
On-page SEO for bookkeepers is just a fancy way of describing the content on your website.
It includes things like:
- Your title tags
- Your meta description
- Your header tags (H1, H2, H3)
- Your images
- Internal and external links
- And anything else you can add to a web page
Why is on-page SEO for bookkeepers important? Well, Google cares about it.
For single-location bookkeepers, the most important page on your website, from a local SEO perspective, is the homepage. For multi-location bookkeepers, your location pages are the most important pages on your website.
When doing on-page SEO for these particular pages, you want to be SEO-friendly by using keywords while also providing as comprehensive information as possible to the user (and Google).
For example, instead of a title tag like “Jackson Monroe Bookkeeping – 503.444.5555” you can provide more context to Google by writing something like “Trusted Bookkeepers in Downtown Portland – Jackson Monroe Bookkeeping.”
Strategy 3: Website Architecture Best Practices
This is an underrated SEO strategy for bookkeepers. Your website architecture and your sitemap are very closely connected.
Google crawls your sitemap to understand your website architecture, which then allows Google to understand what your website is about.
Here’s what a sitemap might look like to Google:
A bit confusing, right? Don’t let it worry you too much. Just know that when Google looks at a sitemap like this, it’s putting together what your website is about (which is super important for local SEO).
The main point is that your website structure should make sense hierarchically. Let’s use two of the main services that bookkeepers offer – 1) payroll and 2) tax services.
Where should these pages live on your site? First, you should probably have a “services” page that has the URL structure similar to .com/services/
Now, any services that you offer (such as payroll and tax services) should live UNDER this main services page. See below:
- .com/services/payroll
- .com/services/tax-services
This seems straightforward, but many websites don’t do this correctly. There’s no vertical architecture. Instead, every page lives directly under the homepage. See below:
- .com/services/
- .com/payroll/
- .com/tax-services/
- .com/accounting/
With this structure, it’s not clear to Google that “Payroll” is a service that you offer. It’s just another page on your site!
Strategy 4: Content Creation at Scale
This is where it gets interesting. Business owners search for thousands of questions into Google every day.
Some are very local:
- best bookkeepers for small business in Portland
- best bookkeeping for dentists near Portland
Some are generic:
- What is double entry bookkeeping?
- Are bookkeeping fees tax deductible?
- What is included in bookkeeping services?
- What does a bookkeeper do vs accountant?
If you answer these types of questions through comprehensive blog articles on your website, it will do 2 things:
1. You might rank in Google for these keywords that people are searching and ultimately drive traffic.
2. Google will take notice and see your website as an authority over your competitors. Google will think, “Wow, they’re answering all of these bookkeeping-related questions that users are searching for. Their website must be more valuable than local competitors who haven’t answered any questions.”
Strategy 5: User Experience is a Bigger Deal Than You Think - Stop the Keyword Stuffing!
You can’t get away with it anymore. Keyword stuffing… PBN link building… all the stuff that used to work.
Google’s getting smarter and starting to see that a user’s experience on a website is more important than ever.
What does this mean for you as a bookkeeper?
- Make it easy for website visitors to find what they’re looking for. They shouldn’t have to spend 5 minutes figuring out whether you offer payroll services or not.
- Make it easy for users to contact you. Your phone number should be clickable on a mobile device. You should consider an online schedule so someone can easily book a financial consultation. Anything to make the user’s experience SUPER straightforward.
- When writing content, you should actually offer value to the reader. Outsourcing writers who produce vague, keyword-stuffed articles is a thing of the past. Your content should thoroughly answer the user’s questions and add value to them.
On Average, Our Bookkeeper SEO Services Cost
31% Less Than Other SEO Companies
Compared to Other SEO Companies That Average Between $1.5k and $3k Per Month.
FAQs About Bookkeeper SEO Services
Here are the most common questions we’ve heard.
What is Bookkeeper SEO?
Bookkeeper SEO is a type of digital marketing that helps bookkeepers increase their visibility in search engines, particularly Google.
The specific SEO strategies used for bookkeepers are greatly varied (which is why all bookkeeper SEO is NOT created equal).
Strategies include:
- Google Maps optimizations
- keyword research
- on-page SEO
- off-page SEO
- local SEO
- content creation
- landing page creation
- PR
- and more
Why is Bookkeeper SEO Important?
Bookkeeper SEO is important because it allows you to get in front of your target audience (the motivated business owners looking RIGHT NOW to find a bookkeeper for their company).
Think about how social media marketing for bookkeepers works: People are scrolling through Instagram or Facebook and stumble upon an advertisement for a bookkeeper in their city. They might be actively looking for a bookkeeper, but those chances are slim.
On the other hand, SEO puts you in front of motivated clients looking for what you have to offer:
SEO for bookkeepers allows you to show up in Google for people actively looking for a bookkeeper. People searching for “best bookkeeper near me” or “bookkeeper in Beaverton.” Ranking for those keywords has a MUCH higher conversion than people scrolling on Instagram.
How Long Does SEO for Bookkeepers Take To Work?
Bookkeeper SEO can take 1 week – 6 months for you to start seeing results. It depends on the following:
- How big of a city you’re in
- How long your website has been around for
- How high your website’s “domain authority” is
- How your current SEO is performing
- And other similar factors
Some of our clients have seen 2x – 3x the phone calls within a month after starting their SEO campaign. Other clients don’t see noticeable increases in phone calls for 2-3 months.
Think about this, though:
If everyone could make a couple of tweaks on their website and rank overnight for the HIGHEST value keywords out there, like “best bookkeeper in New Orleans” then the internet would break down.
These things take time. Google purposely built their algorithms that way.
What Bookkeeper SEO KPIs Should We Track?
Bookkeeper SEO should be tracked closely.
You want to be sure, without a doubt, that the money you’re investing in SEO is working for your bookkeeping business.
Because of that, you need to track certain metrics to ensure that the campaign is working:
- Keyword rankings: Are your ranking on Page 1 of Google for your most important keywords? How are your keyword rankings changing from week to week? Month to month?
- Organic website traffic: Is your organic website traffic from Google going up or down? Which keywords are driving the most traffic to your site?
- Online lead submissions: Are you seeing more online leads? How are they changing over time?
- Phone calls: Are you getting more phone calls from people searching on Google? How are phone calls changing from one month to the next?
What Type of Content Should Bookkeeper Websites Have?
Bookkeeper SEO should include content that your target audience is actually searching for on Google:
How do we know what keywords/content your target audience is searching for? We use advanced software and tools that give us insider information and data. We, for example, know that 2400 people per month (on average) search for “bookkeeping services near me”.
So, with that being said, we do extensive keyword research to find the topics/questions that business owners have.
Questions like:
- “Do bookkeepers charge sales tax?”
- “How to do bookkeeping for a construction company”
- “What does full charge bookkeeper mean?”
If you create content that answers these questions, then you can potentially rank in Google when people search for these.
Also, Google will favor your site over your competitors because Google will have more trust in your site.
What are the Most Valuable Bookkeeper Keywords for SEO?
How To Work With Us
First of all – we don’t work with all bookkeepers.
We only work with bookkeepers that:
- Are ambitious about growing their business
- Have the bandwidth to take the growth that will come from working with us
- Treat their employees and their customers well
Step 2
Check Your Email
In less than 24 hours, one of our talented SEO specialists will send you a 3-5 minute customized video analysis. It will explain opportunities for you to outperform competitors.
Step 3
Sit Back And Watch Your SEO Skyrocket
Just look at our case studies of the success that other Portland businesses have seen. You can have the same results.
If you’re looking for Portland SEO services, we can help. Give us a call today to learn more about our pricing and availability.
Let's Take Your Bookkeeping Business From the "best kept secret" to the "most sought after brand"
