ToThe partners and practice manager
ReProposed engagement: search for an accounting firm
Dated
SEO for accountants, measured in clients who renew
Dear partners, referrals built your firm and they'll keep mattering. This letter sets out how we'd add a second source of clients you control: the business owners, SMSF trustees and people with messy affairs who search Google for an accountant, often months before they need one. We aim at the work that comes back every year, because that recurring fee base is what a practice is valued on.
- We aim at clients who stay on bookkeeping, BAS, tax and advisory, ahead of one-off returns.
- We build in the quiet months, so pages are indexed before the end of the financial year.
- Every claim stays honest and defensible, written with your Tax Practitioners Board obligations in mind.
- Fees are $500, $900 or $1,500 a month. No setup fee, no lock-in, cancel when it stops paying.
Note 1 to the plan
Why an accounting firm needs specialist SEO
An accounting firm needs specialist SEO because its best clients search in narrow, specific terms and stay for years, so ranking for the right handful of searches matters more than ranking for many. A generic campaign chases volume; a practice wants the business owner who'll hand over the books every quarter.
Referrals have two limits. They arrive at their own pace, and you can't turn them up when the partners decide to grow. A business owner whose bookkeeper has retired, a trustee setting up a self-managed super fund, or a contractor who has just registered for GST will often open Google before asking anyone. Whoever ranks for that search gets the conversation.
Referred clients search too. They look you up before they ring, and a thin website can undo a warm recommendation. SEO for accountants works alongside referrals: it reaches people your network never would and backs up the ones it sends.
| Question | Referral | Search |
|---|---|---|
| Who sets the pace? | Your network | You, through the pages you build |
| Who does it reach? | People who know your clients | Anyone looking for the service |
| Can you choose the client type? | Rarely | Yes, by the searches you target |
| Does it check you out online? | Usually, before the first call | Always |
The fee ledger
One client billed for five years, another billed once
A one-off individual return is a single transaction. A business on monthly bookkeeping, quarterly BAS, an annual return and some advisory is billed again every year it stays, and it adds to the recurring fee base a buyer or incoming partner looks at. That's why we point your SEO at the work in the top four rows.
| Work for the client | FY1 | FY2 | FY3 | FY4 | FY5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Business client: bookkeeping | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Business client: BAS lodgements | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Business client: annual return | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Business client: advisory | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Price-shopping individual return | ✓ |
The first payment is the fees, billed year after year for as long as the client stays with the firm.
The second is the value that client adds to the practice, which shows up when you sell, merge or bring in a partner.
Chasing the cheapest returns fills July with work that leaves by October and has to be won again next year. We judge the campaign by the clients who stay, and we'd rather report five of them than fifty price-shoppers.
A chart of accounts for search
Every search coded to the client it brings in
Nobody searches "accountant" and stops there. They search for the thing they need, and the wording tells you who they are. We code each search the way you'd code a transaction, then build pages for the accounts you want to grow.
A firm that ranks for business advisory in its area hears from owners looking for a long relationship; a firm that only ranks for cheap returns hears from people who leave for a lower quote. Area pages follow our local SEO method, written for a practice: who you act for, what you lodge and how the first meeting works.
The financial year
Pages built in autumn, ready before 30 June
We build your pages from February to May, because searches for an accountant climb around 30 June and through tax time. Firms already ranking when that happens pick up the new clients. Starting in June is too late.
Illustration of the work pattern, not search volume data. Your own Search Console will show the exact shape for your area.
Google's SEO starter guide says some changes show up within hours and others take several months. New pages need time to be crawled, indexed and trusted, so we start early.
Tax time is for turning a seasonal enquiry into a year-round client, with a clear next step on every return page towards bookkeeping, BAS or advisory.
Conduct file
Marketing a registered tax agent can sign off
If you're a registered tax or BAS agent, your marketing sits under the Tax Practitioners Board's Code of Professional Conduct, and general consumer law says advertising can't mislead. We write inside those lines from the first draft.
What we write
- Plain descriptions of the services you provide and who they suit
- Guides that answer the questions clients ask in the first meeting
- Your registrations, memberships and the people behind the firm, stated accurately
- Reviews from real clients, asked for in a way your professional body allows
What we won't write
- Promises about refund sizes or tax outcomes
- "Guaranteed" anything
- Comparisons that run down another named firm
- Advice dressed up as a blog post that a reader might act on without you
None of this slows the marketing down, because what wins an accounting client (trust and visible expertise) is what careful copy is made of. This is general information, not compliance or legal advice; we work to your professional body's requirements and you approve every page before it goes live.
Schedule A
The scope, itemised like an engagement schedule
You'd never accept a client without a written scope. Here is ours, in the order that usually grows a fee base fastest.
- A1Service pages
- One page each for business accounting, BAS, tax, SMSF and advisory, so each can rank for its own search and speak to its own client.
- A2Practitioner content
- Guides on the questions people bring to a first meeting: sole trader or company, when to register for GST, what an SMSF costs to run. Written with you and checked by you.
- A3Credentials on show
- Registrations, memberships, partner profiles and real reviews placed on the pages where a prospect decides whether to call.
- A4Maps and area pages
- Your Google Business Profile set up properly, plus pages for the suburbs and towns you actually act in.
- A5Client-type targeting
- The coded searches from the chart above, ranked in order of the clients you want most.
- A6AI answers
- Google's guide to its AI features says they draw on the same ranking systems as normal results, so the work above covers them, with no special files or markup.
Content is where accounting sites usually fall over. A business owner can tell a page written by someone who understands Division 7A from one stitched together for a search engine. We write with a practitioner in the room, so the page stays accurate enough for your obligations.
| The question in their head | Where your site should answer it |
|---|---|
| "Is this firm actually registered?" | Your tax or BAS agent number in the footer and on each partner profile. The Tax Practitioners Board keeps a public register anyone can search to check a tax or BAS agent, so link to it and let them look. |
| "How do I tell a good accountant from an average one?" | The memberships you actually hold (CA, CPA or IPA), the industries you act for, and a plain promise about reply times you can keep. |
| "Will the invoice surprise me?" | Fixed-fee packages, or at least a range per service, with what's in scope and what triggers extra work: catch-up years, ATO correspondence, a restructure. |
| "Do they understand my kind of business?" | A page per industry you serve, describing the work you do for it in your own words. No client names without written consent. |
| "Why not just lodge it myself?" | What a business client gets that software doesn't: structure advice, BAS handled every quarter, someone dealing with the ATO on their behalf. |
If your fees vary too much to publish, publish what drives them. The TPB Register reference is general information; check your own entry is current before you link to it.
Working papers
Five working papers, reviewed like a client file
The engagement runs the way you'd run a file: documented, reviewed each period, and signed off before anything goes live.
- WP1
Opening position
What a prospect sees when they look you up, where you rank for each service, and what nearby firms show.
- WP2
Plan and sign-off
Pages, credentials and target searches set out with dates that land before EOFY. You approve it before work starts.
- WP3
Draft and review
We write; a partner checks every technical statement. Nothing publishes without your tick.
- WP4
Authority
Earned mentions from local business groups, industry bodies and the publications your clients read.
- WP5
Monthly reconciliation
Rankings, page visits and enquiries by service, matched against the client types you asked for.
Example plans
Three starting points we'd propose to a practice
These are plans, not results: what we'd do first in a common situation, and the number we'd watch to know it's working.
The advisory push
Separate pages for advisory, SMSF and business tax, each with a partner profile and a clear first-meeting offer.
Measured by enquiries per service page, month on month
The pre-EOFY build
Return and BAS pages refreshed in March and April, each linking to the year-round services a new client might need next.
Tracked by impressions from April, then the share of tax-time enquiries that sign for more
The trust repair
For a firm that lives on referrals: registrations, reviews and the people behind the firm on every page a referred client checks.
Checked against the contact rate on the home and about pages
We report on the fee base, never a weekly lead tally. Each month you'll see rankings for the services you chose, visits to those pages, and the enquiries they produced, sorted by client type. One business client who stays a decade outweighs a season of one-off returns.
Fee schedule
Three monthly fees, itemised and fixed
No setup fee · no lock-in · full inclusions on the pricing page
If you refer work to lawyers or planners, our pages on SEO for lawyers and finance and professional services show how we treat theirs, and the industries list covers the rest, including the trades businesses many practices count as clients.
Questions partners ask
What accountants ask before engaging us
What is SEO for accountants?
SEO for accountants is the work of getting an accounting firm found on Google by the businesses and individuals searching for the services it offers. Because a practice runs on recurring clients, good accountant SEO aims at the searches that bring in long-term business, SMSF and advisory work, and treats one-off returns as a side benefit.
Do accountants need SEO, or are referrals enough?
Referrals are hard to beat, but you can't schedule them and they only reach people your clients know. SEO adds clients who search without a recommendation, and it gives referred prospects a site that backs up what they were told.
Should an accounting firm publish its fees online?
We think so, even if it's only ranges. Prospects who fear a surprise invoice tend to shortlist the firms that show a fixed fee or a clear scope, and a published fee screens out people who only want the lowest price. Say what's included and what costs extra, such as catch-up lodgements or ATO correspondence.
How can a practice compete with cheap online tax returns and DIY lodgement?
By not competing on the return. Someone with a simple PAYG return may be well served by software. Your pages should speak to the people it doesn't suit: business owners who need BAS, structure advice or someone to deal with the ATO for them, and investors with complicated affairs.
Which clients should accountant SEO target?
The ones you'd like more of in five years: small businesses on ongoing compliance, SMSF trustees, investors and contractors with complex returns, and owners wanting advisory. We build pages for them in that order.
Does SEO help with tax season demand?
Yes, if it starts early. Searches for accountants rise around 30 June and through tax time, so we build from February to May and you're visible when the rise begins.
Will SEO marketing put my tax agent registration at risk?
Not if it's done carefully. We avoid outcome promises, guarantees and anything that could mislead, state your registrations accurately, and send every page to you for approval. It's general information, not compliance advice, and your professional body's rules take priority.
How important are reviews for an accounting firm?
Very, because people are handing over their finances and they check before they call. We help you ask real clients for reviews in a way your body allows, and put registrations and partner profiles next to them.
How long does SEO take for an accounting firm?
Google's starter guide says some changes take effect in hours and others take several months. New service pages in a competitive city sit at the slower end, which is why we start well before EOFY.
How much do SEO services for accountants cost?
Our SEO services for accountants use the same three published plans as every client: Starter at $500, Growth at $900 and Performance at $1,500 a month, with no setup fee or lock-in. After the audit we'll say which one your firm needs and why.
Do you offer local SEO for accountants in Melbourne and other cities?
Yes. Boltly is based in Melbourne and works with firms anywhere in Australia by phone, email and video call. Local SEO for accountants covers your Business Profile, area pages and reviews, wherever your offices are.
How do you measure success for an accounting firm?
By the clients who sign and stay, not by how often the phone rang. The monthly report sorts enquiries by client type, so you can see whether the fee base is growing.
What does an SEO agency for accountants do in the first month?
We look at your site and Business Profile the way a prospect would, check what ranks for each service in your area, and write up a plan with dates. You sign it off before we touch anything. The free audit is the first half of that work.
Start the file before EOFY
Tell us the clients you want more of. We'll show you what a searching business owner finds about your firm today.