It doesn’t matter what type of business you’re running, how long you’ve been operating, or even how big (or small) you are – the importance of having a strong online presence literally cannot be overstated.
Statistically speaking, we know that a few key things are true:
- Over 90% of all online experiences between a business and its audience begin with a search engine like Google.
- Searches for “near me” businesses (meaning local businesses) have increased over 200% in the last two years alone.
- An astounding 80% of those local searches will convert to paying customers.
If someone needs an accountant, they’re going to begin their search online. They’re going to look for local businesses. If they find yours, they’re likely to pick up the phone, give you a call, and become a paying client. None of this is particularly complicated to understand.
It does, of course, demand the question – how do you make sure that yours is the accounting firm they find when they pick up their phone to conduct that search? There are a number of techniques to help improve your local search rankings and directory listings are one of the most important that far too many people overlook.
Understanding the Impact of Directory Listings
All told, directory listings influence your larger search engine optimization efforts in a few distinct ways. In a general sense, they increase not only the visibility of your accounting firm, but also the overall exposure of your brand as well.
The more visible you are, the more traffic you get. The more traffic you get, the more authoritative you’re seen in the eyes of engines like Google. That generates more traffic from searches anyway, which leads to more clients and increased revenue.
But a major reason why directory listings are so important is because they generate backlinks from domains that are themselves authoritative. Backlinks are when other sites with prominent reputations link back to yours. About 58.1% of experts agree that backlinks have a “significant impact” on your overall search engine visibility. Since so many local searches in particular convert, this helps to drive down your customer acquisition cost – or the total amount of money you have to spend to bring in one new client.
The logic is that if your content were low quality, people wouldn’t be linking to it. Therefore, the more people link to it, the higher you rank in terms of quality and relevancy. Yes, certain backlinks will happen organically – like when you publish a new blog post and someone links to it. But to give yourself a bit of a jump start, the backlinks generated by directory listings are absolutely a way to go.
All of this is why accurate and consistent information across business directories is key. This is going to be a major way that people find your accountant firm for the first time. If you have one phone number listed on a directory and a different phone number listed on another that is old and no longer associated with your firm, you’re likely to miss out on potential clients. They might start to see you as less trustworthy than you are, which is a position a new business does not want to be in.
Steps to Localize Your Online Presence Through Managing Directory Listings
Claim and Verify Business Listings
As you begin localizing your online presence, the first thing you need to do is claim and verify listings on the directories that are most relevant to your business and your audience.
When people think about directory listings, they normally think of places like Google and Yelp. To be clear – both of those things are very important. But they’re also very broadly-focused. When you run a service-based business like an accountant firm, you need to go deeper than that, too.
Places like CPAdirectory, CPA Finder, and CPAverify are just a few examples of places people might turn to find an accountant like you. Claim and verify your business listings on all major directories so that you know where to focus your attention in the short-term.
Ensure Consistency in Business Information
As you claim those profiles, be sure that all business information you upload is consistent across the board. This is especially true in terms of your NAP information – meaning your business name, your address, and your phone number.
Make sure that your business name is presented the same way across all channels. If you update your phone number, do so everywhere. Any discrepancies or inaccuracies that exist across directories will only create confusion. Especially when you’re trying to gain new clients and grow your firm as quickly as you can, that is something you cannot afford to deal with.
Optimize Business Descriptions for Local SEO
All throughout this time, you should also be taking steps to optimize your business descriptions for local SEO. Any block of text you write about your business that will be published online can be an SEO opportunity if you’re willing to see it as one and take advantage of it.
You can do this in a few different ways, like by incorporating location-based keywords and local terms and phrases in your business descriptions. Don’t just describe yourself generally as an accountant. Go deeper by specifying that you’re an accountant in [CITY]. If there are certain examples of lingo or turns of phrase that are used by locals, use them as well to let people know that you’re one of them.
Provide detailed and relevant information about your financial products and services, again taking the opportunity to incorporate as many locally driven keywords as possible. When you consider that about 87% of all consumers used Google to evaluate local businesses in 2022 alone, it’s easy to see how this effort will quickly pay off.
Utilize Additional Features of Directory Listings
They say that you can only make one first impression, so you’d better pull out all the stops to make yours as good as it can be. In terms of directory listings, this means going above and beyond to present your accountant firm in the best possible light.
Don’t just write descriptive text and call it a day, regardless of how flowery you plan on getting. Add photos, videos, and other multimedia content to really enhance your listings and stand out from your competitors.
Not only that, but you should also encourage your customers to leave reviews on your directory listings of the real experiences they’ve had while using you as an accountant. People trust online customer reviews just as much as personal recommendations these days. Plus, online reviews are yet another opportunity to work in those local SEO keywords.
Leverage Industry-Specific Directories
This is important enough that it is worth repeating: always identify and prioritize those industry-specific directories whenever possible.
When developing local business listings management strategies for accountants, don’t forget that you’re an accountant first and foremost. Start by focusing your attention on places like Bill.com and expand outward from there.
You should also lean into customer listings to help highlight the unique financial services that you offer. This is again a perfect opportunity to separate yourself from the myriad of other accountants who are out there in the minds of your customers.
Monitor and Update Directory Listings
Above all else, you need to acknowledge that handling directory listings for your accountant firm is not something that you “do once and forget about.” Think about it like tax season – it rolls around again every year whether you want it to or not. That’s why this process isn’t just about claiming and filling out those business directory listings.
You need to establish a regular schedule to monitor and update those listings in the future. If your address or hours of operation change, that information needs to be updated everywhere. If you expand into a new area, all your directories should be updated to reflect your full service area.
Thankfully, there are a variety of tools and services that you can use to significantly streamline the management of directory listings, with Surefire Local being chief among them.
Analyze the Impact on Local Search Rankings
At the same time, you should also be proactive about tracking and analyzing the impact of your business directories on local search rankings. As you add new directories and keep things updated, your local SEO should be getting stronger. Your visibility and search rankings should always be climbing.
If they’re not, ask yourself why that is the case. Figure out what went wrong and fix it. Adjust your strategies based not on gut instinct or intuition, but on analytics and performance data.
Take action based on actionable information, the same way you would for your clients as an accountant.
Surefire Local: Using Directory Listings and More to Your Advantage
As you can see, crafting effective local business listings management strategies for accountants is less the product of any one major move and is more about a series of smaller ones. Steps like ensuring consistency in business information or leveraging industry-specific directories, on their own, may not seem like much. But rest assured, they add up to something powerful and the effort will continue to pay for itself by way of new customers over time.
All this is why small business owners like yourself should both prioritize and actively manage your directory listings and at Surefire Local, we want to help. We offer you access to the tools that make crafting local signals across platforms and profiles easy. The quicker new customers can find you, the quicker you can start turning them into repeat customers – exactly as it should be.
One of the most compelling features that our all-in-one marketing platform offers has to do with directory listings management. It simplifies the processes outlined above by allowing you to claim, edit, and publish new content, all in one easy-to-use place. You can highlight photos, videos, special offers, and more – all across more than 80 directory listings platforms.
Surefire Local gives you access to other helpful features, too, including ones like:
- Effortless content marketing. You can create locally targeted (and hyper-relevant) content for your blog, your Google Business Profile, those business directories, and even your social media profiles on sites like Facebook and Twitter/X.
- Analytics and reporting. Get an almost unparalleled level of transparency into the performance of your campaign to finally learn exactly how much your marketing dollars are generating. You can even get recommendations driven by artificial intelligence that tells you exactly what steps you need to take next in order to unlock the results that you’re after.
- Educational resources. Pour over blogs and view helpful webinars that are designed to assist you as you learn (and master) all things local online marketing.
If this sounds like exactly what your current efforts have been missing, the good news is that it’s a lot easier to achieve than you might think. To find out more about local business listings management strategies for accountants, or to speak to someone about your own needs in a bit more detail, please don’t delay – contact a member of our team today. You can also click here to attend a Surefire Local demo, which will allow you to see exactly what such a powerful platform can do for you.