Avoiding an Internet Cloak of Invisibilty

While a "cloak of invisibility" may have appeal for a comic book superhero or a desperate boy in any number of teen sex romps, being invisible on the Internet is NOT a good place to be for a CPA firm. Nevertheless, Online Marketing Group found that nearly 40% of small CPA firms use no keywords suitable for Internet searches and over 80% received a poor or fair rating for their keyword strategy (or lack thereof). Larger CPA firms barely do better; over 40% have no keyword and five out of eight do fair at best in keyword use. Larger firms are better at social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) profiling with almost three of four referencing a social media site on their webpage versus one out of SIX for small firms. Mike Murray of Online Marketing Coach asserts that many CPA firms are not paying enough attention to social media and search engines and that both can be powerful generators of potential new business.

The marketers have a legitimate point here: CPAs cannot waste opportunities to generate potential business. Two counterpoints: [1] in the busy world of the CPA, any number of client issues probably seem more urgent that updating the website to setup a Facebook or Twitter page or digging through their website to generate keywords; [2] social media business generation, while clearly having significant potential, is somewhat of a "scattershot" proposition at the moment and CPAs may prefer a more focused approach to client development. One suggestion--during the lighter months of activity (certainly NOT the next four months for most CPA firms), have a local consultant (perhaps even a grad student in marketing for smaller CPA firms) look through your website and suggest ways to make your website more visible to those with real client potential.