Do blogging and accountancy really mix?
Internet marketer Nikki Pilkington looks at the ways in which accountants can use blogging to engage with the online community.
With the recent explosion of social media, building an online presence has never been so important. Across the western world, decision makers are increasingly adding online channels to their list of vital resources.
One way to create a competitive presence on the web is to add a blog to your existing company website, but is it possible to keep an accountancy blog interesting enough to keep readers coming back?
In my opinion, it is, so here are ten blogging tips accountants can use today to begin promoting their brand and reaching new audiences.
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New style of marketing
The blog should not be seen as something you tag on to your Website, rather it is the Website and (if you want to) a blog will help you take advantage of a new style of low cost high value marketing.
Smart businesses in all sectors are recognising that old outbound marketing like advertising, direct mail and telemarketing is getting harder. Although it is dying out, it still works and requires more investment to get the same results. So, firms are cutting their budgets and switching their resources to inbound marketing. The early adopters are winning more than their fair share of business and will get a head-start on the competition which may be hard to make up.
Inbound marketing requires less money because it is based on creativity so time is needed. But, it produces better quality leads which need much less sales resource and are happy to pay your prices because they perceive value before they contact you. It’s like getting referrals.
But, you need a content strategy as every post should be made for a reason and with your SEO keywords in mind. So, before you start make sure you do your planning otherwise you could end up wasting lots of time without getting any benefit.
It is also important to use an email system alongside your Website/blog so you can send updates out to clients with links back to your site. See who is reading what to understand what your clients and prospects are interested in.
This is such a big topic that I am just about to release a free video training on this topic and you can register by clicking here.
Bob
In answer to the Q => Sometimes
I wrote a piece on my blog for ambitious accountants in October 2008 titled: Blogging myths for accountants. The opening para included the statement which is equally true today: "I am frequently surprised when I encounter bloggers who seek to encourage accountants in general to start blogging."
Some of Nikki's suggestions are really good (as I would expect given that she really knows her stuff). But I would question the basic premise as to whether accountants in practice will generally get the return on investment they might hope for by writing a regular blog. I think there are frequently far more important activites to focus on before adding the 'nice to have' idea of a regular blog.
In addition to my pieces for AccountingWeb I write 3 blogs for accountants - there's the ambitious accountants blog, the TaxBuzz blog and Accountant jokes and fun. They each have slightly different target readership and purpose - hence the reason I keep them separate. If you're tempted to blog I would encourage you, as with websites, to consider who is your target reader and to write with them in mind. Yes, I know I should take my own advice! ;-)
Mark Lee
Now is a good time
I disagree with Mark because here are a few benefits of blogging:
- Another communication channel with clients = maintain prices and improve retention
- Nurture leads = reduces sales time
- Improve SEO = new clients
- Work with strategic partners by guest blogging = new clients
- Employee development by getting staff to blog = improve client service (the ultimate goal)
- Pull your offline and online lead generation tactics together = higher return
Like all marketing, it is possible to calculate a ROI for this and when you take into account lifetime value of a client and the impact of value prices I find it difficult to find another tactic which will produce a higher return. But, to get the value firms MUST invest some mind time and develop a content strategy within the firm’s wider practice development strategy.
At one point you didn’t need to have a Website. But, I think it is fair to say that if you are serious about practice development you must have a Website now and there will be a day when you must have a blog. Personally I think 2010 is a good time to start.
Bob
Yes, but...
We need to differentiate two things: blogs that integrate as part of the accountant website and blogs that are the accountant website.
To make the first one successful, you "only" need to invest a couple of hours on it per week (1 post/week). For the second a couple of hours a day is more likely (1 post a day).
Blogs are a very useful for many reasons:
- to get more content, and most importantly, more fresh / regularly new content in front of the search engines and your visitors;
- allowing tech savvy people to subscribe to your site via RSS;
- to discuss non related tax subjects with your visitors (life is not just about tax);
- to appear "switched on" as blogs easily link to social sites (FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter), and more and more people uses these daily.
As Mark said, there are other avenues that need to be explored before / are delivering better ROI than blogs, but blogs can complement your practice website nicely.
In fact we have been working hard for the past months in order to integrate Wordpress blogs with our bespoke sites and we are just about to "officially" launch this.
Accountant Websmiths | Websites for Accountants
Keeping an eye on the statistics
Statistics or Analytics, can also be a great source of information to find new things to talk about on your accountancy blog. They should help accountants find long tail keywords that already bring traffic to their site allowing them to expand on the subject via a blog post.
Blogs are a also great way to engage with visitors by enabling discussions on websites that are usually "static" sites. And by encouraging those discussions and replying to questions in comments, the accountant is able to show a more human "profile" that the simple about us page.
As Mark said in the top 5 mistakes accountants make on their website: people buy from people and the more you share on your site, the more likely people will engage with it (and you).
Tom - NetAccountant.net