Accountancy marketing
Most accountancy marketing fails before any of it is executed, because the firm has not decided who it is for. We start with positioning, then build the website, content and enquiry paths around it. Websites from £1,450, ongoing marketing from £497 a month, and we will tell you if you do not need the second one.
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Accountancy marketing is everything that gets a practice in front of the right business owner and turns their attention into an enquiry: the positioning, the website, the content, the local search presence and the follow-up.
For most practices the website is the constraint, not the traffic. A build is from £1,450 one-off with a £50 a month care plan. Ongoing marketing is from £497 a month, optional, and we will tell you if you do not need it yet.
Six things you get
Positioning first
Who you want more of and who you would rather turn away. Everything else is downstream of this, and it is the part most agencies skip.
A website that converts
Specialism above the fold, a fee guide, an obvious next step, and your practice software connected so the site removes admin rather than adding it.
Content that gets cited
Guides written to be quoted by AI search and useful to a human. In most accountancy niches nobody has written the obvious guide yet.
Local presence
Google Business Profile, the map pack and location pages that are genuinely different from each other.
Lead paths, not a contact form
A quote flow, WhatsApp, a fee calculator, a booking link. Different people convert on different things.
Compliance built in
Everything reviewed against the ICAEW Code of Ethics and the ACCA Rulebook before it is published. Marketing claims are where firms get caught, not techniques.
Want a price for this?Four details and we come back within one working day with a fixed number and a launch date, in writing.
The expensive version of this problem
A click on accountants for contractors costs £67.64 on Google Ads in the UK right now. Firms are paying that because they have not built anything that earns the same visit for free, and because they are competing against every other generalist for the same generic terms. Positioning is what makes the cheaper route possible.
Why we start with who you turn away
A practice that serves everyone competes on fee, because fee is the only thing left to compare. A practice that says it is for construction contractors, or landlords with four or more properties, or dental associates, gets compared on fit instead. That decision changes the website, the content and the pricing, which is why it comes first rather than last.
Every channel, and what we honestly think of it
The standard advice given to accountancy practices is to do all of these at once. A practice with one marketing hour a week cannot, so here is our view on each, including the ones we will not sell you.
| Channel | Our view | Worth your hour? |
|---|---|---|
| Search and local search | The highest-intent traffic a practice can get. Someone typing “accountant for limited company Croydon” is further down the path than any other audience you can reach. | Yes. Start here. |
| Google Business Profile | Free, fast, and the map pack sits above the organic results on every local search. Most practices have one they have never logged into. | Yes. Highest return per hour available. |
| Guides and written content | One genuinely useful guide, kept current, gets cited for years and is now the main route into the AI answers above search results. Ten thin posts get cited never. | Yes, if you will keep it current. |
| Referrals and introducers | Still where most practice growth comes from. Marketing’s job here is to make the website good enough that a referred prospect does not lose confidence when they look you up. | Yes, and it is mostly a website job. |
| Email to existing clients | Underrated. A short note when something actually changes, sent to people who already pay you, is the cheapest additional revenue in the profession. | Yes, sparingly. |
| Works for practices whose partners genuinely enjoy it and will post in their own voice weekly. Fails completely when outsourced, because it reads as outsourced. | Only if you will do it yourself. | |
| Other social media | For most UK practices it is a worse use of an hour than one good guide. We do not offer it. | No. |
| Google Ads | Accountancy clicks are among the most expensive in UK search. Ads rent traffic that content and local presence would have earned you. If you already run them we will tell you what to fix. | Rarely, and we do not manage them. |
| Directories and lead-generation sites | You are buying a shared lead, competing on fee, against three firms who bought the same lead. It works for filling capacity fast and works badly for building a practice. | Short term only. |
The order to do it in
Most practices start in the middle, publishing content before anyone can find them and before the site can convert the ones who do. This is the order that compounds.
| Stage | What happens | Why it comes here |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Decide who you are for | Look at your five most profitable clients and the five you most enjoy. The overlap is the specialism. | Everything downstream is cheaper once this is settled, and almost everything is wasted before it. |
| 2. Fix the website | A page per service, a page per specialism, a published price, named people, a short enquiry form. | There is no point driving traffic to a site that converts nobody. |
| 3. Claim the local ground | Google Business Profile completed properly, details consistent everywhere, honest reviews requested. | Free, fast, and it sits above the search results. |
| 4. Publish the few things worth publishing | Three or four guides that answer what your clients actually ask, kept current each tax year. | This is what earns citations, links and AI mentions. It needs the structure underneath it first. |
| 5. Tell the clients you already have | A short email when something genuinely changes. Not a newsletter for its own sake. | Cheapest revenue available, and it only works once the site supports it. |
| 6. Then consider paid | Only if you have proven the rest and need volume faster than it can build. | Renting traffic before you own any is how practices spend a year’s budget with nothing left behind. |
The specialism decision, which is the whole thing
Practices compete on fee because nothing else distinguishes them. A specialism is the only reliable escape, and it costs nothing to adopt.
What a specialism is not
A list of sectors on the homepage. If you name five and give none of them a page, a prospective client in one of those sectors sees the same generalist everybody else sees.
What it is
A page, written for one kind of business, using their words, naming their software, knowing their year end and their specific pain. A landlord and a Shopify seller share almost nothing.
What you keep
Everything. Narrowing the marketing does not narrow the practice. You still take the general work that walks in; you simply stop competing for it on price alone.
What it is worth
A specialist can charge more than a generalist for the same hours, because the buyer is no longer comparing you to three identical firms. That is the entire economic argument for marketing a practice at all.
We build specialism pages for contractor, e-commerce, property and medical practices, and for whatever else your best clients have in common.
Accountancy marketing, answered
Do you run Google Ads?
Not as a standalone service. At £29 to £68 a click on accountancy terms, ads are an expensive way to rent traffic you could own. If you are already running them we will tell you what to fix, but our work is building the asset rather than renting the visits.
Do you do social media?
No. For most UK practices it is a poor use of time compared with search, local presence and referral. We would rather you spent that hour writing one guide that gets cited for three years.
What if we do not know who our ideal client is?
That is the most useful answer you can give us, and it is common. Look at your five most profitable clients and the five you enjoy most. The overlap is usually the specialism, and we can work it out from your enquiry.
How quickly does marketing work?
Positioning and website changes show up in enquiry quality almost immediately. Search and AI visibility take three to four months for first movement and six to nine for meaningful volume. Anyone promising faster is either targeting terms nobody searches or doing something you will have to undo.
Can we just have the website?
Yes, and plenty of practices do. The website is a one-off; the marketing retainer is optional and separate. We will say in the quote if we think you do not need the second one yet.
What is the best marketing for accountants?
For most UK practices, in order: a website that states who you are for and what it costs, a properly completed Google Business Profile, and three or four guides that answer what clients actually ask. Those three cover the highest-intent traffic available and cost less combined than a year of paid advertising. Everything else is optional until they are done.
How do accountants get new clients?
Historically through referral, and that still dominates. What has changed is that a referred prospect now looks you up before they call, so the website decides whether the referral converts. The second route is search, where someone types a problem rather than a firm name. The practices growing fastest tend to be strong at both rather than either.
What is digital marketing for accountants?
The online part of getting found and getting chosen: the website itself, search and local search, the Google Business Profile, written guides, email to existing clients, and increasingly whether AI assistants name your firm when someone asks them to recommend an accountant. It is not a synonym for social media, though it is often sold as one.
Is there free marketing for accountants?
Several of the highest-return activities cost nothing. Claiming and completing your Google Business Profile, asking satisfied clients for honest reviews and replying to all of them, making your name and address consistent across every directory and your professional body listing, and writing one genuinely useful guide a quarter. A practice that does only those will beat most of its local competition.
Should accountants use LinkedIn?
If a partner will write in their own voice weekly and enjoys it, yes. It works because it is personal. It stops working the moment it is outsourced, because readers can tell. We do not offer LinkedIn management, and we will say plainly that an hour spent on a guide usually outperforms an hour spent posting.
Do accountants need a blog?
You need a small number of pages worth reading, kept current. Whether they sit under a blog or a guides section is irrelevant. Four thoughtful guides updated each tax year beat forty posts nobody finished, and an abandoned blog with its newest post from 2021 actively dates the firm.
How much should an accountancy practice spend on marketing?
It depends far more on what you are trying to do than on turnover. A practice that needs three more clients a year needs a decent website and a Google Business Profile, not a retainer. A practice trying to move into a specialism and compete in several towns needs ongoing content, and ours starts at £497 a month with no minimum term. We will tell you honestly which one you are.
What content should an accountant write about?
Whatever you get asked three times a week. Should I incorporate. What can I claim. What does Making Tax Digital mean for me. When is the money actually due. Write those properly, with numbers and dates, aimed at the kind of client you want more of. Generic tax-deadline reminders are written by everyone and read by nobody.
How quickly does marketing for an accountancy practice work?
Positioning and website changes show up in the quality of enquiries almost immediately, because the site starts filtering. Search and AI visibility take three to four months for first movement and six to nine for meaningful volume. Anyone promising faster is either targeting terms nobody searches or doing something you will have to undo.
Can you do the marketing without rebuilding our website?
Sometimes. If the site is structurally sound and only the content is thin, we can work with it. If it has no service pages, no specialism pages and no way to convert an enquiry, spending on traffic is spending on a leak. We will tell you which situation you are in before you commit to anything.
What practices say about the enquiries
More than just a good-looking website
Michael T.Accountancy Practice OwnerWe wanted a website that could help us attract new clients, not simply act as an online brochure. The finished site looks excellent and is already generating new business.
We're getting better enquiries
Sarah M.Chartered AccountantSince launching the new website, we've seen a noticeable improvement in the quality of enquiries coming through. Potential clients understand our services before they even speak to us.
Professional, clear and easy to navigate
Emma C.Chartered Certified AccountantOur new website makes it much easier for clients to understand what we do and how we can help them. We've had fantastic feedback from both existing and prospective clients.
Collected directly from practices we have built websites for. Names are shortened at their request. We do not publish reviews we cannot evidence, and we do not add star rating markup to our own pages.
Tell us about your practice
A fixed price, a page plan and a launch date within one working day. In writing, with no obligation.