Introduction
There is an exciting new trend in SEO that can increase your search engine authority and page rank quickly and easily. Google and friends are spending a great deal of time and energy on indexing videos for competitive keywords. Looking to take the inside track on your market? My next few articles will discuss how to take advantage of Video in optimizing your CPA Website Design.
Why use videos?
People Search For Videos
More and more people are adding the search term “video” to their inquiries.
Video Gets Extra Prominence In The Search Engines
That’s right. Even if the searcher DOESN”T include the word “video” in their search videos are still highly likely to be ranked for it’s related keywords.
Video is Viral
Video consumers tend to be very computer literate and active. They tend to share content with one another. Unfortunately they also tend to be young, so the personal viral element is not likely to be too profound. Still, there is an automated viral element to video sharing sites. They tend to copy videos from one another.
Nobody Else is Doing It
Just ask Bill Gates. Doing it first means EVERYTHING. Apple invented GUI, not MS. Mac has a better GUI than MS. I love OSX. But I don’t use it. Never will. MS got Windows packaged and out the door first. The things I like to do on my computer, the things I NEED to do (Like provide first rate CPA Website Design and Accounting Firm Marketing Support), require Windows. That’s all it takes. Be the first to do it and you’ll be the first to reap the benefits! Sit on your hands and someone else will do it first.
This SEO Focus will have 3 more parts…
How to make your Video
How to Submit your Video
How to Publicize your Video.
As always, this series of articles will assume that you are working on an Accounting or CPA website design. If you are an executive search consultant, financial planner, or some other type of web owner in a completely unrelated field, you’ll need to extrapolate an appropriate strategy yourself but the basics of these articles will still apply to you.
It doesn’t matter how good your CPA Website is if nobody knows about it. In order to make money off a site, people need to KNOW about it.
Once you have a website, you’ll want to publicize it as widely as possible.
We’ll be talking about these strategies a LOT! Put your URL on all your stationery, business cards etc. Also… Include it in your email signatures and ask your friends and clients to mention it to their contacts.
And remember the golden rule of website marketing!!!
Online directories such as Superpages, YellowBook, and City Search can also be useful ways to drive traffic to your site.
You’ll also want to consider search engines. There are various ways of approaching search engine optimization. Submitting your site to Google, Ask. com etc is easy, but getting to the top of the rankings and staying there is not and, depending on what you want to achieve, can be quite expensive. Google offers pay-per-click advertising for search terms, which can be very effective. This subject requires a whole fact sheet for itself – if you’d like CPASiteSolutions’ free guide to search engines, email a request to ken@cpasitesolutions.com.
Who’s Kenny Marshall?
Kenny is a vice president and marketing consultant with CPASiteSolutions.com, a leading provider of websites for accounting and CPA firms. He has been marketing accounting services for over 10 years and has been working almost exclusively with internet marketing for more than half that time.
I can tell you exactly what their response will be. Your son or daughter will look at you like you’re an alien (you know that look) and say something like, “You don’t have a website?”
Out of the mouths of babes, eh?
Ask anyone between the age of twelve and twenty-one: the web makes the world go ’round. Whether it’s renting a summer house, buying insurance or choosing a dog groomer, the first thing most of us do these days is consult the internet. If you’re offering a service in a competitive marketplace and your prospects can’t find you on the internet you will miss out.
Professional service firms are no different.
And the website is not just there for anonymous browsers googling for “accountants in Sacramento”. These days you can bet that word-of-mouth referrals will have a quick look for your site before deciding to become a client. Referral sources will pass on your URL or perhaps even just say “they’re on the web”.
We’re beyond the time where accounting firms can get away with not having a website. Today, if you don’t have a site, people will wonder why.
Maybe you just can’t keep up?
And this will only become more and more the case – it’s never going to go back to the way it was before the world wide web came along, so go out RIGHT NOW and start looking for a good CPA Site Design Firm.
Having a first rate Accounting Website Design is a great way to impress clients and prospects, but it will be a much more effective prospecting tool if you take the time to personalize it!
So, what is a prospect looking for?
That’s easy, right? A good accountant!
Right?
Believe it or not… that’s wrong! That’s what you’d think a prospect was looking for. Heck, that’s even what the prospect thinks he’s looking for, but that’s not really what he’s looking for.
The biggest resistance any salesman has to confront is our good old-fashioned fear of strangers. This fear is compounded by the intimacy of the relationship between you and your clients. Keep in mind the old joke, “Only God knows a man better than his accountant.” Well trust me on this one… only accountants find that funny… Well… and probably God. To the rest of us it’s VERY intimidating.
The best way to get a prospect to pick up the phone and call you is to get him to LIKE you. Your site can be an invaluable tool for giving people a chance to get to know you BEFORE they have to pick up the phone and call you!
When writing copy for your website, keep this in mind.
There’s no point in convincing me you’re a great accountant if after visiting your site I’m still too shy to pick up the phone and call you.
The most important function of your website is to give your visitor a chance to feel like they know you. Include pictures. You don’t have to be pretty. It’s about making the prospect more comfortable, and having some idea who might pick up the phone will do that.
Personally I love football. If you love football too, we’ve made a personal connection! What are your interests? Dogs? Do you like golf? climbing? Scuba Diving? Bicycling? Clubs… Business organizations… Religious organizations… Charities you are involved with. All these things open the door for a personal connection and that personal connection is key to making your prospect feel comfortable with sharing his most intimate life’s details with us.
Get personal. Show your prospect some trust on a personal level. Not only does this make it more likely that you will get an initial contact, it also improves your odds of landing a sale. It’s just the way people think. Very few people make decisions intellectually. Most of us make our decisions emotionally, and then use our intellects to rationalize those decisions after-the-fact.
A good accounting website design is enough in and of itself to bring in new clients, but you won’t regret it if you take the time to personalize your site. It will become a MUCH more effective prospecting tool!
Copyright CPASiteSolutions 2008
