Dominating the Internet for Lead Generation

About 15 years ago, you would win the website marketing race by having a well designed generalist website. Heck, it worked well and the return on investment (ROI) was a no brainer.

As more accountants eventually caught on 5-10 years ago, it became more challenging to stay ahead of the curve and still get more than your fair share of website leads. That's when the general public became aware of search engine optimization and pay per click advertising. The ROI was still very attractive but you had to spend more to acquire the same number of leads.

Today, it is harder and harder for a single, generalist website to be placed towards the top of the search engine results pages for all of the services provided in your accounting practice. And if you operate in multiple geographic markets, it is even harder to be towards the top because your message to the search engines is more complex and watered down.

As more accounting firms have integrated blogs, social media, pay per click advertising, retargeting advertising and reputation management, it becomes more competitive to dominate the online lead generation game.

So what is the solution?

While there is no single solution, many savvy accounting firms have deployed a multiple website strategy to obtain dominate search engine placement for a limited set of keywords. Essentially, search engines scan your website and look for patterns which identify what you do, where you are located, and compare your website against a set of criteria within their algorithm. The more you do and the more consistent your message, the higher placement you will receive within Google, Bing and Yahoo which translates to more leads.

Secondarily, the multiple website approach enables you to tailor your message to the prospect and talk out of multiple sides of your mouth to create that aha moment for the prospect. In other words, some small business owners are searching by location and others are searching for a type of accountant (e.g., bookkeeper, enrolled agent, CPA Firm) and others are looking for a specialist (e.g., cpa for doctors, non-profit accounting for churches, business valuation, etc.). In the example to the left, the website has the example same branding but it totally dedicated to church accounting.

Third, each of the websites are supported with pay per click advertising to drive traffic to the website and then retargeting, which is designed to pull prospects back to the website.

Fourth, the firm is supported by online reviews in Google and Yelp to overcome skepticism. These online reviews enable prospects to select your firm over a more established competitor. In the example to the right, would you call the accounting firm with 0 reviews or 20 reviews?

In the examples below, here is a sole practitioner in Jacksonville who is using four websites to maximize lead generation. There is one website for broad searches like "CPA Firm in Jacksonville." For more refined searches, there are niche websites dedicated to three different industry sectors, dentists, real estate and property management, and churches. Each of the niche websites go into extensive detail about these area of concentration and make it appear like they are the only type of business your firm services.