With over one billion websites on the Internet today, the competition for attention is stronger than it’s ever been and is only growing stronger every day. It can be overwhelming, but don’t give up! There are hundreds of things you can do to boost your visibility.
First, check in your own backyard.
If you are not getting leads from your site, the first thing to do is to check your systems. Please don’t assume everything is working. Every week, we have someone make one or more of these mistakes, so please carefully review this list to make sure everything is A-OK on your end. Actually call and email your own business to see how it sounds and looks from a newcomer’s perspective.
- Is your phone number correct on the website?
- Is your voice message initialized with a friendly and welcoming message? No one will leave a message on a voice mail box that simply repeats the phone number or is not otherwise initialized. Make sure also that your message is clear, names your business, and doesn’t sound personal.
- Who answers the calls that come in? Are they assigned to the right person promptly? Are they logged to record how the prospect heard about you?
- Is your voice mailbox full? A carpet vendor I called last week lost my business because their voice mail box was full. They were running expensive ads too. Not smart!
- If there is no phone on your website, expect to get far fewer leads.
- Is your email address correct on the website?
- Do you check your spam folder regularly? Make sure emails from your website do not go into spam. You’d be surprised how many CPA firms have their spam filters far too tight for new prospect emails.
- Who receives the emails that come in? Are they addressed promptly?
- Is there a form on your website? If so, have you tested it lately to make sure you receive the information?
- Is there an appointment-setting button attached to your calendar so prospects and clients can make appointments with you?
Now that your communication system has passed with flying colors, it’s time to check out more of your site:
- Is there a professional picture of you on the site?
- Is there a professionally written bio on the site?
- Is there a page for client reviews?
- Is your address posted? Without an address, it is much harder for us to help you rank.
These items help to de-commoditize your business and also make it look like you plan to stay in business for years to come. If you don’t have them, your site will look like it’s for a startup business, which you don’t want.
Once you’ve corrected all of the above items, it’s finally time to check your rankings. The next step is to check how you rank locally. If the population of the city you live in ranges from about 30,000 to 200,000, use that city. If your city is smaller, choose a city that is larger that you want to focus on. If your city is larger, select a smaller suburb.
Go to the search engines and put in your city, state, and any of these phrases:
CPA firm
CPA
Accounting services
Tax preparation
QuickBooks
Bookkeeping
QuickBooks bookkeeping
Or something similar to those. You can then check your rankings manually. If you’re not sure how you rank, you can set a time with us.
What to do next depends on many things:
- Which of the current website packages you have with us. If you are ranking on page 4 or 5 and are in one of the lower packages and want to increase your lead volume, it might be cost-effective to upgrade your package so we can work on getting you to a higher page. One example is going from Pro to Platinum gets you attention with directory listings which are an important part of SEO.
- Adding social media content can help boost your rankings. If you’re on one of our web packages but not our social packages, you can find them right here. https://acceleratorwebsites.com/pricing/social-media-package-pricing/
- If we’ve talked a lot about your rankings and we’ve tried a lot of things, a next step could be adding content. You can provide this yourself or we can write articles and guides for you. Google loves fresh and high-quality content, and this is a great long-term marketing investment when it’s done right.
- An expensive short-term option is running paid ads.
At any rate, we’re happy to meet with you any time at no extra cost to you if you’d like to discuss increasing your lead volume from your website. Just grab a time on my calendar, and I’ll look forward to speaking with you.
