Accountants · SEO
SEO for accountants
Clients search in specifics: landlord accountant, contractor accountant, help with Making Tax Digital. Arête builds your SEO around those searches, so your practice is in the running for the work you want most.
From £349 per month, fixed fee
The situation
Why your customers are searching.
Accountancy search results are crowded: local map listings, national online firms, comparison sites and HMRC guidance. Local practices can compete on niche and location terms. But only with pages that match those searches and content that proves you know the subject. Tax content also dates fast. An article that was accurate two years ago may now be quoting old figures.
What sends them looking
- A new limited company, sole trader business or contract role that needs its first accountant.
- The run-up to the 31 January Self Assessment deadline, when late starters need help fast.
- Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, phased in from April 2026, bringing sole traders and landlords into quarterly digital reporting.
- Slow replies, surprise bills or no proactive advice from the current accountant.
- Growth that brings VAT registration, payroll or a need for regular management accounts.
The problem
What costs accountants work.
Where the work slips away
- Generalist positioning makes your practice look like every other firm in town. Then prospects compare on price alone.
- Competitors show fixed monthly packages or instant online quotes, so a practice that hides pricing behind a call starts on the back foot.
- Enquiries bunch up around deadlines: a crush in January, quieter months elsewhere in the year.
- Plenty of tax searches come from people after HMRC itself, a calculator or a DIY guide. Left unfiltered, they eat your ad budget.
- Referrals don't reach clients who've never met a referrer, and winning those clients takes a website and search presence built for the job.
What makes customers hesitate
- Switching sounds like paperwork, lost records and an awkward conversation with the current firm.
- Does the fixed monthly fee hide extras for bookkeeping, VAT returns or year-end work?
- An online or remote practice can feel less accountable than the one down the road.
- Will a small practice have seen their industry or tax situation before?
How it helps
What SEO changes.
- Matches each search to a niche, service or location page, so every page has one job.
- Plans content around the tax calendar, publishing Self Assessment, payments on account and year-end guidance before demand peaks.
- Strengthens your Google Business Profile and local signals for every office you run.
- Keeps the technical foundations sound and the tax content reviewed, so older articles don't undercut the trust you've built.
What you get
Search and niche research
How contractors, landlords, e-commerce sellers and local businesses search, grouped by intent and matched to pages.
Niche landing pages
A page per specialism, written around the questions that client type asks and linked to the right package.
Tax calendar content plan
A schedule of articles and updates timed ahead of filing deadlines, Budget announcements and the start of each tax year.
Content review process
A routine for flagging and updating articles when rates, thresholds or rules change, with review dates shown where useful.
Local and profile optimisation
Google Business Profile categories, services and posts for each office, with consistent practice details across directories.
Technical foundations
Site speed, indexing, internal linking and structured data for your practice and its people. Fixed in order of what matters most.
Measurement
The enquiries that count, tracked properly.
What counts as an enquiry
- A completed quote or package calculator, with contact details attached.
- A discovery call booked through an online calendar.
- A contact form giving business type, rough turnover and whether they already have an accountant.
- A call from the website or Google Business Profile that lasts long enough to be a proper conversation.
What gets tracked
- Rankings and impressions for niche and local terms, grouped by specialism.
- Organic enquiries and discovery calls, attributed to the landing page that started them.
- Traffic to deadline content in the weeks before each deadline, compared year on year.
- Calls, website clicks and direction requests from your map listing.
Worth knowing
What customers check, and the rules to follow.
What customers look for before they call
- Package pages or a quote calculator showing what's included and what costs extra.
- Professional body membership, such as ICAEW, ACCA or AAT, stated accurately for both the people and the firm.
- Pages, articles and FAQs written for your niches: contractors, landlords, e-commerce sellers.
- Named, qualified accountants with photos and short biographies, so prospects know who they'll deal with.
- Recent reviews from your own clients, ideally describing the kind of work the prospect needs.
Rules worth knowing
- Descriptions such as chartered or chartered certified accountant are tied to membership of specific bodies, so your site's wording should match the qualifications your people hold.
- Practices offering accountancy services need anti-money-laundering supervision, through a professional body or HMRC. New clients go through identity checks, and your onboarding pages should explain them upfront.
- Professional body logos and firm descriptions come with their own usage rules, so each appears only as that body permits.
- Tax content dates fast. Rates, thresholds and deadlines need reviewing after each Budget and at the start of every tax year.
Straight answer
Is it right for you?
SEO is the long game. It suits practices with a defined niche best, provided someone qualified checks the tax content before it goes live.
Made for
- Practices with a specialism that has steady search demand.
- Firms happy to build visibility over several months, without expecting enquiries in week one.
- Practices with a qualified person able to review technical tax content.
Not for
- Practices needing new clients within weeks, where paid search is the quicker route.
- Firms unwilling to keep tax content updated, since outdated guidance does more harm than good.
Starting price
From £349
per month, fixed management fee
What moves the price
- How competitive the market is
- The current site's technical health
- How much content is planned each month
- Whether local search and maps are in scope
Your ad budget is separate. It goes straight to the platform and is never marked up.
Questions
SEO for accountants: your questions answered
Can a local practice rank against national online accountants?
On broad national terms, it's hard. Local and niche searches are more winnable. A practice that explains one client type in depth and keeps its map listing in good order can appear alongside much larger firms for those searches. Results take time and are never guaranteed.
Who writes the tax content for an accountancy SEO plan?
Arête drafts it, working from search research and your input. A qualified person at your practice then checks it for technical accuracy before it goes live. That review protects your clients and your reputation. It also gives the content the first-hand expertise that counts on financial topics.
Start a conversation
Tell Arête about the business and what currently feels missing.
You will receive a direct reply with the most sensible next step, even if that means recommending that nothing needs changing yet.
A direct reply
A personal reply, usually within one working day. No sales script, no chasing.
A short conversation
A look at the business, your current website and what a good result would look like for you.
A clear recommendation
The leanest sensible next step, with fixed scope and a fixed price. Sometimes that's nothing yet, and you'll be told so.
Prefer email? Write to info@aretemarketing.co.uk.