Accounting marketing
SEO for
accountants.
SEO for accountants starts with one fact: the ATO answers the rules. Rates, thresholds and due dates are its pages, and they're the official source. Firms win on situations: what a rule means for a tradie, a landlord or a new company, in your area. So build pages for the kinds of clients you serve best, link to the ATO for the rules, and make your Google Business Profile and fees clear. Google's own guidance favours original, people-first content over commodity summaries.
Written by Dan Picken, a marketer who checks the sources. Last checked 2 November 2026.You won't outrank
the ATO.
Search a tax rate or a due date and the ATO is usually the answer, often in Google's own summary at the top. It's the official source, and it should be.
Writing your own version of the tax-free threshold page is effort spent where you can't win. Link to the ATO instead, and spend the effort on what the ATO doesn't do: explaining what a rule means for a particular kind of person.
Can you beat
the ATO?
Paste your topic ideas. It sorts them into rules the ATO owns, situations you can win and searches from people ready to hire.
Topic sorter
Can you beat
the ATO?
Paste topic ideas, one per line. It sorts them into what the ATO already answers, what you can answer better, and searches from people ready to hire. The starting list is an example.
Write these first: winnable
Build pages for these: ready to hire
Link to the ATO instead: rules and dates
Sorted by wording only. Check the real results before you write.
Win on
situations.
'Tax deductions for electricians', 'company or sole trader for a cafe', 'what a landlord can claim on a renovation'. These are questions where experience matters and the ATO's general pages leave people unsure.
Google's guidance for its AI features says to create non-commodity content that's helpful, reliable and people-first. For an accounting firm, that's the situation you see every week, explained properly, with a clear line on when someone needs advice.
Local
search.
'Accountant near me' and 'tax agent [suburb]' are decided largely by the map results. A complete Google Business Profile with the right category, hours, services and reviews matters more here than any page. Businesses must deal with customers in person during stated hours to be eligible.
Review requests have rules too. The ACCC says you can't offer an incentive only for positive reviews, or hide negative ones.
The page people
actually want.
Most people want to know what it'll cost before they call. A clear fixed fee page answers it, and gives search engines and AI tools something specific to show.
The ATO says fees for managing your tax affairs are deductible when paid to a registered tax agent. It's a useful line for a fee page.
What I see most often
What I see
in accounting SEO.
- 1
Rewritten ATO pages
Blog posts restating tax rates and dates, which the ATO answers better and Google prefers.
- 2
Suburb pages with nothing in them
The same page copied for ten suburbs with the name swapped.
- 3
No niche pages
The firm's best clients are tradies or doctors, and nothing on the site says so.
- 4
An incomplete Business Profile
Wrong category, no services, old hours and no reply to reviews.
The honest bit. SEO for a local practice takes months. If you need clients this tax time, referrals and well-timed Google Ads come first.
Questions
people ask.
How do accountants rank on Google?
With a complete Google Business Profile for local searches, pages for the kinds of clients they serve best, a clear fee page, and links to the ATO for the rules rather than copies of them.
Should accountants write a blog?
Only about situations you can explain better than the ATO, like what a rule means for a particular trade or business structure. Restating rates and due dates rarely ranks.
Do suburb pages work for accountants?
Only if each one has something real to say about that area. Copied pages with the suburb swapped tend to be ignored.
How do accountants appear in AI answers?
By being clear and consistent about who they help and how they charge, and by publishing original explanations of real situations. Google says its AI features rely on the same SEO basics and people-first content.
Related
Keep
going.
Get a free
search audit.
Takes a minute. Audits come back within 1 to 2 business days. For anything else, I'll get back to you as soon as possible.
What happens next
- 1I'll ask for read-only access, or just your website for a search audit.
- 2I go through it and write up the 3 biggest fixes.
- 3A 20-minute call to walk you through it. No pitch unless you ask.