How to Advertise Online for an Accounting Firm

With the web becoming more and more central to our daily lives and with younger generations spending more time online than even in front of the TV, online advertising is fast becoming a must-have for an accounting firm that wishes to stay current. There are several considerations to make sure your decision to advertise online works out for the best of your accounting firm.

Instructions

Target, Target, Target

1. Consider that an accounting firm only derives revenue from clients and clients will most likely be local. Use the world wide web to advertise locally.

2. Narrow down your advertising efforts to hit as many potential buyers and as few ineligible buyers as possible. Banner ads on a high-volume website are not only expensive but make little sense, because you are primarily interested in attracting the attention of people within a small geographic area and not people from all over.

3. Refine your target audience to people within a small circumference of your business and further restrict it to people within your geographic area who are interested and able to purchase your services.

Get Into Their Heads

1. Anticipate the mindset that would make a potential client ready for a sales pitch from your accounting firm. Consider what question someone might ask to which your firm is the answer.

2. Extrapolate what kind of situations would prompt a person to think of the question to which your firm is an answer. For example, someone asking, "Where can I find an accountant around here?" has a reason to ask this and it might have something to do with an audit, a budget, a financial review or an estate plan.

Optimize for Search Engines

1. Gather all the key phrases that could point an interested party in your direction. For example, if your accounting firm does business primarily in Greensboro, North Carolina, a set of keywords that puts you within consideration is "audit services Greensboro North Carolina" or "estate planning Greensboro North Carolina." Someone searching for what you can provide would likely use words similar to these in search engines.

2. Contract with a search engine company so that an ad with a link to your website can appear within view when someone searches for key phrases you have identified. Your accounting firm pays on a per-click basis.

3. Pepper your website with content that matches the key phrases you have targeted so that your website can register high on the list of search results. This is one of the best ways to advertise, and many search engines do not charge for the benefit.

4. Link to other sites that mention your geographic area and also to sites that are concerned with matters directly or indirectly related to accounting.

Tips & Warnings

• Also consider using email marketing to perform targeted advertising.