How Accountants & Tax Pros Need to Adapt Their Marketing for AI Engines
Key Takeaways
- AI is changing how search and SEO work, and accountants and tax professionals need to adapt their marketing in order to get found online.
- Traditional SEO is still alive and well. It’s important to continue doing onsite and offsite work to show up on page one.
- Creating original content, structuring your content so it can be read by AI engines, using conversational language, getting visibility on other creditable industry platforms, and leveraging AI to drive your processes are some of the keys to mastering Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).
Today I want to answer some important questions that accountants and tax professionals are asking about AI and its impact on search results.
If you’re not yet asking these questions, you will be soon. And I can guarantee your competitors are too.
(I wrote more of an introductory note on this topic on our blog here. Check it out for more context about what’s happening on Google when people are searching for tax and accounting services.)
And now for some Q&A…
Is traditional SEO obsolete?
Answer: Not at all.
AI-powered search is definitely impacting SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) in big ways, and that will continue to evolve for quite some time. Some search traffic is being diverted into AI overviews and zero-click searches, but all of the tried-and-true methods for getting seen on page one of Google are still very effective.
For more about how SEO works for accountants, go here.
Will SEO still matter if AI begins to dominate search?
Answer: Absolutely yes.
Where do you think AI is getting answers to questions to show in those AI overviews? ➡️From quality sources online who are practicing good SEO and from those who adapt their website content strategy so that AI can find those answers. Practicing the fundamentals of SEO, while adapting to changing trends, is crucial.
Should tax professionals and accountants block AI from crawling their website?
Answer: For our industry, no.
See my answer to the last question. This has been a highly contested topic of discussion, even in the courtroom. Because you rely on organic search to find your content, you want the AI engines to come to your site for answers and cite the results they find there.
What are some keys to structuring your website content for AI-driven search?
Answer: Here are few things that are driving results right now:
1) Rank in the top 10 for highly searched keywords in our industry. This is organic marketing at work, moving you up in page results over time.
2) Structure your content with clear, concise answers that AI can reference. Use sections, bullet points, FAQs, and concise explanations.
3) Use conversational language. This is something we’ve been preaching for years, which means our sites are already optimized for the direct, conversational phrasing that AI models can easily interpret.
4) Get your name out there. Getting featured on news sites and industry blogs will increase visibility that LLMs notice.
5) Create original content. Don’t just copy what others are doing.
6) Leverage AI but don’t overuse it. AI is helpful for brainstorming and research, but sketchy for fact-checking and website-ready content. The human touch is vitally important in an online environment that still values quality over quantity.
You and I are both experiencing the ever-and-quickly-changing dynamics of this AI-powered world we’re now living in. Whether or not we’ll adapt is up to each of us.
At TaxProMarketer, we’re adapting for the sake of our clients’ businesses and livelihoods.
Are you?
If your answer is anything other than “yes, and I’m already adjusting my marketing accordingly,” then let’s talk.
To not adapt is to disappear.
