How to maximise Xero Advisor listing

Location issue

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I've revamped my Xero advisor listing. I've looked at other accountants' listings. If I look for a Xero advisor in London, I occasionally find an accountant whose headline is "(name) services London area. Office in Bromley". I asked Xero how I could show "services X area" when I'm my office location is Y.
They replied telling me it couldn't be done by using 2 locations. I've replied asking how other people are managing to do this. I don't hold out much hope of a sensible reply based on the first reply.
What is the answer? Is the "services X area" just based on the number of clients geographically based in that particular area?

Replies (8)

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By Cloudcounter
16th Aug 2019 08:54

The location issue in the directory is a shambles. Given the closeness of the various towns/villages around here we actually service several of them but when I queried the position (a while back now) I was told that we could only appear in one location.

The total distance across the three main towns that we deal with is actually less across the boundaries of the nearest big city - and we have plenty of clients there as well.

Frankly it's useless

Thanks (1)
Replying to Cloudcounter:
By Moonbeam
16th Aug 2019 09:34

I think Xero could do a lot more for us with a bit of judicious programming their end and a few more fields on our profiles. They are so keen for us to plug their services, but we don't get much in return.
I shall wait for some others to comment on here and then send my Account Manager a considered message on the subject.

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A Putey FACA
By Arthur Putey
16th Aug 2019 09:33

I take it that your current listing says something like "(name) services Bromley area. Office in Orpington". It appears to get the area from the postcode area (BR) and the office from the town name. So I assumed that to get a London listing you need a London postcode, but when I dug a bit deeper I found that some practices come up as "serves London area" when they are not based there. They tend not to have the "office in ..." bit so perhaps they list as an online practice? But if you did that you might lose out on Bromley searches. I appear to have a new Xero account manager, I might ask them to clarify.

Thanks (1)
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By Mr_awol
16th Aug 2019 09:45

We had this. Originally to find us you pretty much had to be searching for us - such was the specific term you had to put into the search box for us to come up. The problem is, nobody ever would and it's much more important to us to come up in searches in the neighbouring areas. We queried this and was told we would start appearing in other locations once we had 'enough' clients in those locations.

We now show up in some of our neighbouring towns, by virtue of the number of Xero clients we have there. As we onboard* more clients our status in the various areas will increase.

* Yuck - I've spent too long with these software reselling idiots and started using their terminology. I feel dirty.

Thanks (2)
John Toon
By John Toon
19th Aug 2019 13:01

The location information is based on two things - your office address(es) which provides the "office in" part of the listing and your client's physical address (entered in the client details page) which provides the "serves in" - both are searchable in the advisor pages. However, for this to work properly the addresses need to have been entered using the search function (linked to Google maps/post office database) rather than manually entered.

This functionality only came in a few years ago (and isn't fool proof for vanity addresses or new addresses not in the database) so if you have been a long time user of Xero and had to manually enter addresses previously or do so on a regular basis, more recently, you need to go back through your client addresses (one by one) and use the address search function to override manually entered addresses. This is in an area where clients can also change things so they may have inadvertently affected your listing as well.

I'm told this is being worked on and account managers should be able to identify which clients/addresses aren't being flagged but speaking from experience of having to update 100's of addresses it's not a fun job.

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By Moonbeam
19th Aug 2019 13:23

I wrote to my account manager an hour or so ago, pointing out that postcodes are not a good way of working out "location", as others have said.
I think Xero need to go back to basics and ask what is the purpose of the advisor directory (spelt wrong of course).
If it's to get us new clients, the location option isn't good enough. If it's to reward us for signing up Xero people, well we could sign up more if they knew we were 2 miles down the road.
It turns out it only really helps the big boys/girls who have zillions of clients anyway. So that's probably their aim.

Thanks (4)
Chris Bensted-Smith
By Chris Bensted-Smith
28th Aug 2019 14:40

Hi Moonbeam,

I recently optimised the xero listing for one of my clients. He'd been listed for several years hadn't received any leads at all. In the 6 weeks since, he's taken in 8 - not loads but certainly an improvement.

With regards directly to your question, the algorithm will favour you much more if you focus on the one location your office is based in.

It’s very much a winner takes all environment and the higher the certification status (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum), the higher your practice will rank on the directory.

Xero did one study which found that 96% of the top 1000 partners had a referral rate of less than 10%. All told, there are more than 2000 accountants listed in the UK and the vast majority receive no leads at all.

The Directory obviously works by allowing visitors to enter their industry and location before showing what it believes to be the most relevant result based on those two criteria.

The following will detail how to maximise the relevance of your firm for those two criteria.

To be eligible, you must achieve and maintain Xero Bronze Partner status with at least one Xero-Certified member of staff.

Create a Xero advisor directory listing in Xero HQ, under the Practice tab.

Much like with your Google My Business Listing, it’s imperative to input as much valuable information about your business as possible.

Within the clients' organisation settings, geo-tag all locations by selecting their location from the list that displays as you type.

In Xero HQ Explorer, tag all of your clients with their industry code.

Include your own Geo-tagged address as well.

Ensure that as much of the following information is uploaded as possible:

-Links to your website and social media pages
-Logo
-Telephone number
-Industry Affiliations
-Xero Certifications (the more the better but this will take time)
-Profile Pictures of the team complete with summaries
-Bank Connections
-Any apps you use to connect to Xero (Receipt Bank, Go Cardless etc)
-‘About Section’ that sells your firm (820 Characters max.)

Thanks (3)
Glenn Martin
By Glenn Martin
28th Aug 2019 15:17

I must say its never really worked for me.

I think I have had 3 enquiries and 1 of them was a rival software provider.

I operate in a town outside Durham. I would want to show up in Accountants Durham, however I don't feature.

I show up under Accountant My Town which no one would really search for.

I have done all the tagging of clients but that does not seem to lead to any enquiries via the directory.

I do believe there is something like 800 searches a week on the directory for Xero accountant so the leads must go some where

Thanks (1)