Most accountants I speak to get their clients one of two ways: word of mouth, or they’ve done a bit of Google Ads and winced at the cost. What far fewer are doing well is the thing that quietly brings in clients month after month without paying per click — turning up, for free, when someone local searches for an accountant. That’s what this is about.
Own the “accountant near me” moment
When a plumber, a shop owner or a new limited-company director decides they need an accountant, they do the same thing everyone does: they search. “Accountant in [your town].” “Small business accountant near me.” “Self assessment accountant.” And Google shows them a little map with three businesses pinned on it — and most people pick from those three. Getting you into that map pack, for the searches that matter in the areas you serve, is the heart of what I do. It’s the difference between being found and being invisible.
Stay busy when it isn’t January
Accountancy has a rhythm — the self-assessment crush before 31 January, the year-end scramble, the quieter spells in between. Good SEO smooths that out. By ranking you not just for “accountant” but for the specific things people search year-round — VAT returns, payroll, bookkeeping, company formation, landlord tax — you keep a steadier flow of enquiries coming in, instead of lurching from deadline to deadline. The work you do in the quiet months is what fills the diary later.
Beat the big firms at the one thing they can’t fake
You’re often up against large regional firms with big marketing budgets and national online accountants with slick funnels. You won’t outspend them, and you don’t need to. What you have that they don’t is local — you’re in the town, you know the businesses, someone can actually pop in. Local SEO leans into exactly that. Google increasingly favours the genuinely local, relevant result for these searches, and a well-run small firm can absolutely out-rank a distant giant for “accountant in [town].” That’s the game worth playing.
Reviews are your fuel — and your proof
For a trust business like yours, Google reviews do double duty: they push you up the local rankings and they’re the first thing a nervous prospect reads before they call. Handing their finances to a stranger is a leap, and a wall of recent five-star reviews is what makes it feel safe. So getting a simple, consistent way to earn reviews from happy clients is a core part of what I set up — it’s one of the highest-return things a local accountant can do.
What I actually do — and what I won’t pretend
No smoke and mirrors. It’s your Google Business Profile set up properly, your website built to rank for the services and areas you want, genuinely useful content that answers what your clients are Googling, the technical groundwork sorted, and reviews flowing. Then it’s kept up, because SEO isn’t a one-off — your competitors don’t stand still. What I won’t do is promise you an exact ranking by an exact date, because nobody honest can. What I will do is get you found by more of the right people, and show you it working.
If you want to be the accountant your local businesses find first, let’s have a chat about where you are now and where the easy wins are.