Most people looking for an accountant do not go far. They search “accountant near me” or “small business accountant in Chichester”, glance at the three businesses in the map pack, read a few reviews, and pick one to call. That whole process takes a couple of minutes. If your practice is not in that shortlist, you never got a chance to compete.
The good news is that local search for accountants is very winnable. It is a trust-heavy purchase, and most firms treat their website as a digital business card rather than a working part of the practice. A bit of deliberate effort goes a long way. Here is where I would put that effort.
Start with your Google Business Profile
For a local service like accountancy, your Google Business Profile does more heavy lifting than your website. It is what feeds the map pack, and it is often the first thing a potential client sees. Yet plenty of accountancy firms leave half of it blank.
Fill in everything. The right primary category (“Accountant” or “Bookkeeping service”), your opening hours, your phone number, a proper description, and a set of secondary categories that match what you actually do. Add photos of the office and the people. It sounds trivial, but Google rewards profiles that look active and complete, and a face next to a name lowers the barrier for a nervous first-time caller.
The two levers that move you up the map pack are relevance and proximity. Proximity you cannot change, but relevance you can. If someone searches “VAT returns accountant” and your profile and website both talk clearly about VAT, you are more relevant than the firm that just says “accountancy services”. Our full walkthrough on setting up and optimising your Google Business Profile covers the finer points, but completeness and accuracy are ninety percent of the job.
One thing to get right from day one is your name, address and phone number. Keep them identical everywhere they appear online. Inconsistent details confuse Google and quietly hold back your local rankings.
Build a page for every service, not one “services” page
This is where most accountancy websites lose out, and it is the biggest opportunity.
The typical firm has a single “Services” page that lists everything in a long bulleted block. Self assessment, VAT, payroll, limited company accounts, bookkeeping, tax planning, all crammed together. That page cannot rank well for any of them, because it says a little about a lot rather than a lot about one thing.
People do not search “accountancy services”. They search for the specific thing they need help with right now:
- “self assessment accountant near me”
- “VAT return help for small business”
- “payroll services for [town]”
- “accountant for limited company”
- “bookkeeper for sole trader”
Each of those deserves its own page, written for that reader. A self assessment page should talk about deadlines, what you need from them, what happens if they file late, and what your service costs to take the worry away. A payroll page should speak to a business owner juggling staff for the first time. When a page matches exactly what someone typed and what they are worried about, it ranks better and converts better. That overlap between the search and the intent behind it is the part of SEO people most often miss, and it is worth understanding how search intent shapes the pages you build.
A single “services” page tells Google you do a bit of everything. Ten focused service pages tell it you are the answer to ten specific questions people are actively searching.
These pages do double duty. They pull in organic traffic, and they give you somewhere genuine to send people from your Google Business Profile and any local ads you run. If you also serve nearby towns, a page for each area you cover can help you show up beyond your immediate postcode.
Reviews are your ranking factor and your sales pitch
Accountancy is a trust purchase. You are asking someone to hand over their finances, their HMRC login, and a lot of private information. Before they call, they want proof that other people trusted you and were glad they did.
Google reviews do two jobs at once. They influence where you sit in the map pack, and they are the deciding factor for a huge number of people choosing between you and the firm next door. A profile with 40 recent reviews at 4.8 stars beats one with 4 old reviews almost every time, even if the second firm is closer.
The mistake firms make is waiting for reviews to arrive on their own. They rarely do. Happy accountancy clients are busy and quietly satisfied, so you have to ask. The best moment is right after you have delivered something they were dreading, like getting their tax return filed comfortably before the deadline. Send a short, friendly message with a direct link to leave a review. Make it a habit rather than a one-off push. We go deeper on the how and the why in our guide to getting more Google reviews, but the short version is: ask, make it easy, and keep asking.
Trust signals do the quiet convincing
Ranking gets you seen. Trust gets you the call. For accountants, the trust signals matter more than in almost any other trade, because the stakes for the client are high and the relationship is ongoing.
Put the reassuring details where people can find them:
- Your professional qualifications and body, such as ACCA, ICAEW or AAT, with the logos shown clearly.
- Your registered office address and a local phone number, not just a contact form.
- Real photos of you and your team, not stock images of handshakes.
- Named case studies or short client stories, ideally from businesses like the ones you want more of.
- Clear information on how you work, what software you use, and what a new client can expect in the first month.
None of this is fancy, and that is the point. It is the small, honest detail that reassures a cautious business owner they are dealing with a real, accountable practice. If you want to go further on this, we have written about the small details that influence buying decisions.
Pull it together into a plan
If I were advising an accountancy practice starting from scratch, I would work in this order. First, get the Google Business Profile complete and accurate, because it is the fastest win. Second, build out a proper service page for each thing you offer, and an area page for each town you want clients from. Third, set up a simple system for asking every satisfied client for a review. Fourth, make sure your qualifications, address and real photos are impossible to miss.
None of it is complicated, but it does need doing consistently rather than once. Local search rewards the firm that keeps its profile fresh, keeps publishing useful pages, and keeps collecting reviews month after month. That steady effort is exactly what most competitors will not sustain, which is what makes it worth doing.
We do this kind of work for local service businesses across West Sussex, so if you would rather have someone handle the search engine optimisation side while you get on with the accounts, that is what we are here for. The principles above apply just as well if you would rather run it yourself.
Frequently asked questions
A well filled Google Business Profile can start showing in the map pack within a few weeks, especially in a less competitive town. Ranking your website pages for specific service searches usually takes a few months of consistent work. Reviews and fresh content speed things up, so the practices that keep at it see steady gains rather than one big jump.
Yes. A single page listing every service cannot rank well for any of them because it spreads its focus too thin. A dedicated page for self assessment, another for VAT, another for payroll and so on lets each one match exactly what people search for. These focused pages rank better and convert better because they speak directly to one reader’s problem.
There is no magic number, but recency and steadiness matter more than a single total. A profile gaining a few genuine reviews every month at a high rating will usually outperform one with a large pile of old reviews. Aim to make asking for a review a normal part of finishing a job rather than an occasional campaign.
Blog content helps, but it is not the first priority. Get your Google Business Profile and your service pages right before anything else, because those drive the searches with real buying intent. Once those are solid, useful articles on things like tax deadlines or choosing a business structure can bring in extra traffic and build trust with cautious readers.
Your professional qualifications and body, a registered address, a local phone number and real photos of your team are the big ones. Named client stories and clear information about how you work add to that. Because accountancy involves handling sensitive financial information, these signals often decide whether a visitor picks up the phone or moves on to a competitor.
