3 Tips to Improve Search Engine Optimization

Are you using Search Engine Optimization? I’ve taken informal surveys asking accounting professionals about SEO on their Websites – only to be met either extreme resistance (“I don’t have time”) or blank stares (“I don’t know how to do that.”).

First and foremost, make sure you realize one important thing: unless you’re technically skilled in HTML and Website behind-the-scences activity, optimizing pages is best left up to your Web services provider or someone skilled in this area. These resources should be easy to find; if you don’t have one readily available, ask your colleagues or professional friends for their recommendations.

I have 3 tips for you, but first, here is why SEO is important:

You can have the most functional, informative site, but if clients and prospects can’t find you through searches, then your efforts will be ineffective.
We’ve become a society totally conditioned to using the search function to find information. You no longer have to know the URL or even remember it.
SEO is one tool in a series of tools you should be using to effectively manage your Web site. Other tools include usability studies, competitive analysis and, above all, user feedback that doesn’t cost anything. When was the last time you asked your clients what they thought about your site?

Here are my 3 tips to improve SEO:

Continually optimize your 50 most popular pages. Once you have several months of data on what words people are using to search for you, you can use them to improve your ranking. The trick is to do this on a monthly or continuous basis.
Add footers to every one of your pages. It’s surprising how many firms use their footer space for their physical address only. At the very least, include your cities, but also include your services.
Keywords: Use the terms people might use, not what you think they want to use. When marketing a firm, we know that we need to talk about what we can do for the client, not what the firm is all about. This same concept holds true for keywords you have on your site. Tip: Ask your clients what they would use to search for accounting services.

There is a great deal more to cover about SEO, but I’ll reserve more tips for another CPATechViews blog. Please submit your own SEO tips and tricks! I’m sure our readers will want to know what works for you and your firm or company.