Striking the right balance between publishing high-quality content that both people want to read and search engines want to index is key to a firm’s online marketing strategy. After all, it is a waste of time, money and energy writing high-quality copy that no-one will see since it is not optimised properly for SEO purposes.

SEO (search engine optimisation) is the umbrella term used for all the methods and strategies accounting firms can use to ensure the visibility of their website on search engine results pages (SERPs).

SEO optimised content is content that has been written to rank well on SERPs. Here are five tips to writing copy that is optimised for both search engines and your firm’s online readers and followers.

Place primary keywords in the right places
Ideally, keyword-rich phrases should be used in your headlines and throughout the body of your post. Placing keywords in both the headline and body helps search engine crawlers as well as the readers searching for that particular phrase. However, be careful not to use too many keywords for the sole purpose of SEO as Google will penalise keyword stuffing – hence decreasing your site’s ranking.

Include long-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords are longer and more specific variations of your primary keywords. They generally get less search traffic but will have a higher conversion value and better quality traffic. For example, if your primary keyword is ‘photographer,’ a long tail keyword phrase could include ‘photographer for weddings’ etc.

Update your content regularly
Search engines favour recent posts as they are more relevant and useful to the reader. Updating your content regularly helps to improve your rankings and provide readers with up-to-date news and information about your firm.

Publish ‘unique’ content
Ensure your content is original and is not duplicated from other sites or featured more than once on your own site. Search engines penalise plagiarism and duplicate copy that is the same or extremely similar.

Write for your audience – not search engines
When writing content for your site, it is important not to lose sight of the audience as they are the ones reading your copy. If your site is SEO optimised but does not deliver interesting, relevant and engaging content for your readers, it is unlikely you will be selling a great deal. Leverage your expert advice or industry news for optimal engagement.