SEO, marketing and social media for a Bookkeeping/Accounting business, is it worth it

[ok112]

Hi Everyone,

I am new to this forum but have read a lot of useful information so far. I am trying to start doing bookkeeping/ freelancing on the side because I am aware it is not easy to start making decent money in this kind of business right away. I also have a degree in accounting.
I noticed a lot of people on this forum suggest also doing blogging/ social media for SEO purposes. There are companies that offer services/ packages to do it for you. Many offer blog posts, Facebook/Twitter posts, advancement in search engines, etc. Do you have personal experience purchasing this kind of service? What is your opinion, is it worth it? I would greatly appreciate your input.

[vangogh]

Welcome to the forum ok112.

I don't know the specific companies you're talking about, but I suspect none are worth hiring. There are companies that will promise you lots of traffic and search engine rankings, but many are doing artificial things that at best will technically get your more traffic and at worst will spam the internet in your name. There are good and legitimate companies that do similar work. I'm not trying to trash an industry. it's hard to say one or the other without knowing the specific companies in question, but beware as many are the spammy variety.

Both blogging and social media can help bring search traffic to your site. To get people to your site you need content on the site that people find entertaining, informative,
useful, etc. You can create that content through a blog. Social media can help, because it's where people spend time, so it's where you can reach them. Think of social media like real people at a party. You probably wouldn't walk into a party and start handing out business cards or climbing on the furniture and screaming your company name. Instead you go to be social and talk to people. If the conversation happens to turn toward business, you mention what you do. That's the best way to use social media online.

The problem with hiring SEO companies is some are more likely to walk into the party with business cards in hand and ready to show from the top of the kitchen table. Not all, but I suspect the companies you're talking about the shout from the table kind.

That said there are things you can do to help get the word out about your business. First add a signature here with a link to your site. You're here. You joined this community. We're curious. Add a signature with a link to your site and people here will click on it. More will do the same if you help answer questions, specifically questions related to accounting and bookkeeping. You should people who read threads here that you know what you're talking about and you do your best to come across as a genuine human being and some people will check out your site and possibly hire you. Many people here do business with each other after getting to know each other.

I would certainly encourage you to join other social sites like Facebook and Twitter. There are plenty of others too. Just don't see them as sites to help with your SEO. See them as communities of real people, who will respond to the same things they respond to offline. If you can create content that people will want to consume, then I'd also encourage you to create that content. It could be in the form of a blog, but it doesn't have to be.

Just beware of companies that promise lots of traffic through their inexpensive SEO packages. Those are more likely to be spam than legitimate.

[Harold Mansfield]

There are companies that offer services/ packages to do it for you. Many offer blog posts, Facebook/Twitter posts, advancement in search engines, etc. Do you have personal experience purchasing this kind of service? What is your opinion, is it worth it? I would greatly appreciate your input.

My opinion is that you should learn how these things work, and how to do them yourself. You're just starting out. You need to learn what marketing is or you'll just keep wasting money on fly by night services that make great promises, but only deliver short lived tricks that don't do anything to actually build your credibility online.

Yes, it's hard, there's a lot to learn, and it's time consuming. It's a long game. Welcome to running your own business.

If you were going to spend any money to try and accelerate the process, I'd spend it on advertising. At least you can see where your money is going and if done properly you can get direct, measurable results (good or bad). You should still learn what you're doing, and by that I mean learn how to build an effective ad including copy writing, calls to actions, creating a nice offer, and a destination/landing page that converts, along with all of the other things to learn about managing an ad campaign...but I'd rather take a chance on my own ads to bring leads directly to me, than dumping (wasting) the money at someone promising Twitter followers.

Also, bad SEO and Social media tricks can get your website sand boxed, banned, and your social media profiles deactivated.

JMO of course.

[Mont Ellis Consulting]

What fantastic replies, Harold and Vangogh!

I recently discovered that knowing the theory of strategic marketing (and on-line marketing specifically) is one thing, but doing it yourself, for your own business, is a whole other ball game. Everything you put out will be a representation of your brand and your values. In terms of content creation through blogs, LinkedIn articles and similar, a huge part of this means finding your voice and identity - that is, how are you potraying your values and brand through the language you use and the things you write about? I have tried a few different styles and am still working on finding the one that works perfectly for ME.

ok122, I wholeheartedly agree that you need to start doing this yourself, before you even considering paying a third-party to do it for you. Maybe down the track, once you have created enough original content that accurately portrays YOU and your business, you can consider paying someone to write content for you, in the same tone and style.

Looking forward to reading some of your stuff, as mentioned above - give us a signature!

[RJ Redden]

Great answers so far! I do have just one more thing to add.

It's another reason to learn more about social media before hiring people. Here it is: It's really hard to manage someone when you don't know what they do for you. A while back, a client hired me to review his SEO for him. When I did, I found out that he was being taken for $2,000/month (he came up #20 on Google). I started asking him some questions, and it turned out that he hired his SEO people because they had an office, and that was enough to inspire his trust.

He wanted to hire someone so that he could check that box on his to do list, and go back to work. In my experience, small business owners get taken for a ride when they do that, especially with marketing. It's easy to get overwhelmed with people offering services out there. In this case, do yourself the extra favor and know what you are paying for. You'll save money in the end!

Good luck!!

[Alexcook]

Please keep in mind that it's a time consuming task to build good reputation on search engines. No matter how much anyone is offering to do magic for your business, there is no short cut to success.Social media gives you flexibility of direct targeting your audience. Blogs are there to have your viewers well informed & engaged.
There are many agencies offering these kind of services, how well they will deliver would totally depend upon their reputation.

[HooktoWin]

Hi Everyone,

I am new to this forum but have read a lot of useful information so far. I am trying to start doing bookkeeping/ freelancing on the side because I am aware it is not easy to start making decent money in this kind of business right away. I also have a degree in accounting.
I noticed a lot of people on this forum suggest also doing blogging/ social media for SEO purposes. There are companies that offer services/ packages to do it for you. Many offer blog posts, Facebook/Twitter posts, advancement in search engines, etc. Do you have personal experience purchasing this kind of service? What is your opinion, is it worth it? I would greatly appreciate your input.

Hi ok112,

Congrats on branching out on your own.

Do you have a rough marketing plan of some kind?
I ask because that really determines whether any marketing you do (whether you do it yourself or pay someone) will be effective.

Here's a few examples of what I mean.


Do you have uniqueness? A genuine, measurable and compelling reason for customers to do business with you (instead of someone else)?
Who's your ideal customer? I'm not talking about the person that has money and is willing to give you some. I'm talking about the customer that sees the value in what you do.
Any Risk Reversals in place? Customers are going to want some kind of assurance they won't be screwed. Asking a business to give you their books can be a very personal thing for many companies. When we worked with an accounting/tax client we found all kinds of unexpected things (e.g. customers who needed an accountant were ashamed of their books and wouldn't hire one, customers receiving conflicting advice from other "professionals.").

There are a few things customers want to see when they arrive on your site. If you're paying for ads, for marketing services and you don't have these things setup, it's going to be much harder to attract and win customers.

Assuming you have these things in place already...

Here's my thoughts having been on all ends of the table (e.g. helping accountants and CPAs just like you, hiring accountants for our businesses, etc.)
To win customers consistently, you'll need consistent access to a site that has a large audience of customers.

You can achieve that cheaply by:


Guest posting on well known, high traffic sites like Mint.com (http://blog.mint.com/), GetRichSlowly, insider blogs (http://www.businessinsider.com/the-20-most-influential-blogs-2011-1), etc.
Siphoning their audience back to your site with an enticing offer.
Creating an offer that takes them from subscriber to prospect, to lead, to customer.
Create content on your site that accomplishes the same thing in step 3.
Share your guest posts on social networks.
Pay for ads via cheap ad sources like remainder ads, social networks, ad networks, etc.

SEO works really well. The problem for you is this: your industry is someone competitive. You're competing with large, well funded sites for a wide variety of keywords.
If you follow #1 for example, you'll be able to use their SEO work to your benefit. If write for mint.com for example, you'll be able to create an article that ranks well on their site. It attracts a regular flow of customers, who click through the links in your post to download the free goodies hosted at your site.

You can do this over and over with all kinds of powerful sites and it most cases you can do it for free.

You can do this, it does work.

Andrew