Pages an accountant's website should have

A site that says only "friendly, experienced, here to help" tells a visitor very little. If you searched "accountant seo", you probably want to know which pages to build and what goes on them. So here's the list. Every page below has one job, and each one earns its place by answering a question a real client is already asking before they ring you.

Purpose: Tell a stranger in about ten seconds who you help, what you do and what to do next.

Lead with the plain version. A line such as "Chartered accountants for sole traders and small limited companies" (if that's true of you) says more than "Your trusted financial partner". Name the services you offer, name the people you help, and say where you work. Put a clear way to get in touch near the top, then again lower down.

Link out to your service pages, your fees page and your qualifications page from here. The home page is a signpost, not a brochure.

Avoid vague claims you can't back up, a wall of stock photos and a slider that rotates before anyone has read it. Avoid listing every service under the sun just in case. If you don't do it, don't list it.

Purpose: Answer one search properly, so the person looking for it lands on a page that matches.

Build a separate page for each service you genuinely offer. That might be bookkeeping, year-end accounts, self assessment, VAT, payroll or tax advice. Might. Only build the ones you really do. A page for payroll when you outsource it all and barely touch it is a promise you can't keep.

Each page should say what the service covers, who it suits, what you need from the client, and what happens after they get in touch. Write it the way you'd explain it across a desk. Use the words clients use, not the words your software uses.

Say what's included and what isn't. Say how clients usually send you their records. If there's a deadline that matters, mention that the work is time-sensitive and tell them to get in touch early, without quoting dates you haven't verified.

Avoid cramming five services onto one page. Avoid copying the same paragraph across every service with a word swapped. Avoid jargon the client has to look up. Pages like that read as filler.

Purpose: Let a visitor see themselves on your site.

Sole traders, limited companies and landlords all have different worries. Write a short page, or a short section per group, for the client types you really work with. Cover the problems they tend to bring you and how you handle them.

Ask the clients you already have what worried them before they hired you, and say that, in their words.

Avoid claiming to serve everyone. "Businesses of all sizes in all sectors" is the same as saying nothing. Avoid listing a client type because it sounds good. If you've never worked with landlords, leave them off. Visitors can tell.

Purpose: Remove the fear of the unknown, so people feel safe making the call.

You don't have to publish a price list to be useful here. Explain how fees are set instead. Is it fixed per service? Does it depend on the volume of records, the complexity of the affairs, or the number of people involved? Do you agree it in writing before starting? Say so.

Then explain how you work. What happens after the first call? How do clients send documents? Who do they speak to? How often will they hear from you? A visitor who can picture the first month has less to wonder about.

Many practices avoid this page because they're nervous about pricing. A page that says nothing about cost leaves a visitor guessing.

Avoid quoting figures you'll later have to defend or update. Avoid hiding behind "contact us for a quote" with no explanation of what shapes that quote. Avoid small print that surprises people later.

Purpose: Show there are real, qualified people behind the practice.

Put names and faces on the page. For each person, give their role, what they handle and their qualification, stated exactly as held. If someone is ACA or FCA with ICAEW, say that. If someone is ACCA, say that. Link to the body's directory entry for that person where you can.

Add a line or two of human detail. What kind of clients do they enjoy working with? That's enough. Nobody needs a life story.

Avoid claiming a designation the firm or person doesn't hold. This matters more than almost anything else on the site. Avoid vague titles like "tax expert" with nothing behind them. Avoid a team page made up entirely of stock photography.

Purpose: Show what you hold, because the word "accountant" alone proves nothing.

Here's the awkward truth. ICAEW says: "Legally anyone can call themselves an 'accountant' – they don't need any qualifications, training or experience." So your qualifications and your regulator are a genuine differentiator. State them plainly and give them their own page.

Say which professional body you belong to. ICAEW Chartered Accountants use the letters ACA or FCA after their name, and ICAEW has an official online directory, "Find a Chartered Accountant" (find.icaew.com), plus a membership verification page. ACCA describes itself as "the global body for professional accountants" and has a "Find an accountant" facility on its site. Link to whichever applies, so a visitor can check you in a minute.

Then say who supervises the firm for anti-money laundering. GOV.UK's guidance lists "accountancy service providers not supervised by a professional body" as supervised by HMRC, while firms already supervised by a designated professional body, such as ACCA, fall under that body instead. State which applies to you.

Avoid hiding all this in the footer alone. Avoid logos with no explanation. Avoid any claim you couldn't prove if someone asked.

Purpose: Answer the questions people ask before they're ready to ring.

A short set of honest answers does a lot of work. What do I need to bring to a first meeting? How do I send my records? What happens if I'm behind? Write the questions your clients actually ask, in the words they use.

Keep it practical and keep it current. If you can't maintain a resources library, don't start one; five good answers beat fifty stale ones.

Avoid generic tax explainers copied from elsewhere, and tax advice you haven't checked is current. Avoid questions nobody has ever asked you. Avoid pages that haven't been touched in years.

Purpose: Make the next step obvious.

Give a phone number, an email address and a simple form or booking link. Say what happens after someone gets in touch: who replies, and roughly how the first conversation works, without promising a response time you can't hit.

Tell people what to have ready, if anything. A first call is easier when nobody's scrambling for paperwork.

Avoid a form with fifteen mandatory fields. Avoid a contact page that's only a form with no other option. Avoid asking for detail you don't need yet.

Purpose: Meet your legal duty and quietly build trust.

If you're a UK limited company, GOV.UK says you must show your registered number, your registered office address, where you're registered, and that it's a limited company on business letters, order forms and websites. Put them in the footer of every page. Add your regulator and professional body there too.

Avoid leaving it out because it looks dull, and avoid tiny, unreadable text. It's a requirement for limited companies.

If you visit clients rather than seeing them at your own address, you're a service-area business. Treat your profile that way. If you don't serve customers at your business address, remove the address from the profile. You can set up to 20 service areas, so list the places you really work.

Be realistic about what moves the needle. There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. Local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and prominence, and more reviews and positive ratings can help. So ask happy clients for honest reviews, and don't invent any.

The same logic applies to your site. Never clone town pages by swapping the town name. Google's spam policy treats scaled content abuse, meaning many pages made mainly to manipulate rankings, however created, as spam. Write one honest page per place you really work, with something true to say about it, or don't write it.

If you're starting from scratch, or fixing a thin site, do these in order:

1. Home page. Say who you help, what you do and how to get in touch.
2. Your main service page. Pick the one that brings in the most work and make it properly good.
3. Qualifications and regulation. State your body, your letters and your anti-money laundering supervisor.
4. Fees and how you work. Explain how fees are set and what the first month looks like.
5. Contact and book-a-call. Make the next step easy.

Then add the remaining service pages, the team page, who you help and your FAQs as you go. For the wider picture, see our guides on SEO for small business, content gap analysis and getting found on Google, and the pages you should have directory.

Not sure which of these pages you already cover well, and which are thin or absent? Seracu offers a free snapshot: a look at which topics your site lacks compared with its competitors. It's a quick way to see where to start.