We recently received a question posed to us by an accountant in a small town location. His business relied heavily on local directory advertising and he wanted to know how he might be more effective in using the Internet to draw in potential clients. He had some experience of using pay per click as a marketing method but little else and we gave him some suggestions to help him learn how to reach people in his local area using the Internet.

To start off with we reminded him that he sold a specific set of services targeting a given audience – in other words bookkeeping and accounting services designed to assist other local businesses, clubs, associations and the like. As such, he should use the power of the Internet tailored specifically to his local area.

We noticed that his website did not contain much “meat,” and reminded that content is still king. We suggested that he needed to create articles directly related to his services and the need for good accounting practices. The articles should be optimized and specific, rather than generalized. In this way he could target specific words that were being searched for by potential clients. We noted that would-be clients are always looking for a company that is experienced in handling their particular problem and evidence of this ability should be displayed prominently within the site.

When it comes to the “social proof” that everyone is searching for, we recommended that there should be plenty of prominent opportunities for people to comment on the site and leave testimonials. These have a significant effect when it comes to search engine rankings and can help to elevate a site in front of potential clients.

The structure of the site was not particularly well thought out and we recommended that he sit down with a clean sheet of paper and map out how a person would more logically follow the information trail within the site. Make sure that the visitor has an easy time surfing through the site and should not be put off by broken links, which are also counter-productive when it comes to an analysis of the site by the all important search engines.

We suggested to him that the process of building an article bank of information within the site would help to establish him and his operation as experts in the field. As visitors read his articles and find them useful and informative this will also elevate his status within their minds as the “go to guy” to help them in the future.

As by its very nature accounting must be detail oriented, we reminded this gentleman that his website should be really well presented, comprehensive and should not appear to have any stones left unturned. This includes the need to fix or purge incomplete references, bad links, missing bios or any dated material, such as comments, some of which were obviously out of date and gathering cyber dust.

To help him corner the local market we suggested that he include the name of his town and nearest metro area within the keywords and title tags of his pages. This will help the major search engines to enhance his site visibility when someone searches, on a geographical basis, for an accountant in his area. It is, astonishingly, quite easy to rank highly for a geo-targeted keyword – in his case incorporating his town and the word “accountant” – by just following some fundamentals. It should be perfectly possible for him to elevate his practice to a high position on the first page of Google results within a fairly short space of time.

Sit down and plan out your site and make sure that it projects you and your organization professionally and as niche experts. Optimize your site from a geographical point of view and ensure that your content is always fresh and interesting. You will soon have an open door to your local market.

Tell us about your local internet marketing success?

Matthew Toren