The numbers behind accounting SEO — and what they mean for your firm

Statistics pages in the SEO industry have a credibility problem: many cite the same recycled numbers without explaining where those numbers came from or whether they apply to your situation. This page takes a different approach.

The benchmarks here draw from three sources:

• Campaigns we've managed for accounting and professional services firms — observed ranges from engagements we've run, without overstating sample size
• Publicly available keyword and search volume data from tools including Google Search Console exports, Semrush, and Ahrefs — interpreted within the context of accounting verticals
• Industry research from credible third parties including BrightLocal's annual Local Consumer Review Survey, Google's own search behavior publications, and Moz's Local Search Ranking Factors study — cited with their respective methodologies in mind

Where we use ranges rather than point estimates, that's intentional. A figure like "CPA firms rank in 90 days" is almost always misleading. A firm in a rural market with a two-year-old website targeting a single service line will move faster than a mid-size firm in Chicago competing for "tax accountant" against forty established practices.

Disclaimer: Benchmarks in this guide vary significantly by market size, firm specialty, and starting domain authority. This content is educational — it is not a guarantee of results, and it does not constitute accounting, legal, or financial advice. Verify any regulatory references with your licensing authority.

Where we cannot source a claim to a named study or our own observed data, we say so explicitly using phrases like "industry benchmarks suggest" or "many firms report." If you see a precise percentage without a source, that's a red flag on any statistics page — including this one.

The majority of accounting firm clients start their search locally. Searches like "CPA near me," "tax accountant [city]," and "bookkeeper [zip code]" make up a substantial share of the queries that convert to actual client inquiries. Understanding local search benchmarks helps firms allocate effort correctly.

Google Business Profile Visibility

According to BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey (most recent edition), the majority of consumers use Google to evaluate local businesses before making contact. For professional services like accounting, this behavior is especially pronounced because trust is a prerequisite — searchers are looking for signals of legitimacy before they call.

In our experience, accounting firms that fully optimize their Google Business Profile — including accurate categories, complete service descriptions, consistent NAP data, and active review responses — tend to appear in map pack results for a broader range of queries than firms with incomplete profiles. The map pack typically shows movement within 6–10 weeks of a focused optimization effort, faster than organic blue-link rankings.

Review Volume and Ratings

BrightLocal data consistently shows that consumers expect a minimum number of reviews before trusting a local business. For professional services, industry benchmarks suggest a threshold of 10–20 reviews as a baseline credibility signal, with overall rating mattering more than raw volume. Firms actively requesting reviews from satisfied clients after each engagement tend to build this baseline faster than those relying on organic review generation alone.

Local Keyword Competition

Keyword difficulty for local accounting terms varies dramatically by market. In smaller metros and suburban markets, targeting "[city] CPA" or "[city] tax preparation" often requires only moderate domain authority and a well-optimized GBP. Major metro markets — New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston — are meaningfully more competitive, with top-ranking firms typically carrying years of accumulated backlinks and content.

Benchmarks vary significantly by market, firm size, and service mix. Apply these ranges as starting context, not fixed targets.

One of the most common questions accounting firm partners ask before starting SEO is: how long until we see results? The honest answer is that it depends on a handful of variables — but we can give you a useful framework.

The Four Variables That Determine Timeline

• Starting domain authority: A five-year-old firm website with some existing links and traffic will move faster than a brand-new domain. Google needs time to establish trust in a site's history.
• Market competition: Targeting "CPA firm" in a city of 80,000 is a different challenge than targeting the same phrase in a market with hundreds of competing firms.
• Content baseline: Firms that already have service pages, a blog, and some indexed content are building from a better foundation than those starting with a five-page brochure site.
• Consistency of effort: SEO compounds over time. A firm that publishes two strong pieces of content per month for twelve months will typically outperform a firm that publishes a burst of ten articles and stops.

Observed Ranges

Based on campaigns we've managed for professional services firms:

• Google Business Profile improvements: Visible impact typically within 6–10 weeks of optimization
• Initial organic ranking movement (page 3 to page 1): Most firms see meaningful movement in the 4–6 month window
• Competitive first-page rankings for high-intent terms: Often 8–14 months in competitive markets
• Sustained lead flow from organic: Typically requires 12+ months of consistent effort to become a reliable channel

These are observed ranges, not guarantees. Firms that start with strong technical foundations and existing content authority move faster. Firms entering highly competitive metro markets should budget for the longer end of these ranges.

Traffic volume matters less than what that traffic does when it arrives. A firm generating 500 monthly organic visits from service-specific queries will typically outperform a firm generating 2,000 visits from informational blog content that never converts to inquiries. Understanding both traffic benchmarks and conversion behavior helps set realistic expectations.

Conversion Rates from Organic Search

Industry benchmarks across professional services suggest that organic search visitors — particularly those arriving via high-intent queries like "hire a CPA [city]" or "tax planning for small business" — tend to convert at higher rates than visitors from display advertising or social media. This is because the intent signal embedded in the search query pre-qualifies the visitor before they land on the page.

In our experience working with accounting firms, contact form submissions and phone call conversions from organic search tend to outperform paid traffic for branded or service-specific queries, though PPC can close the gap on high-volume seasonal terms during tax season.

Tax Season Search Volume Patterns

Search interest in accounting-related terms follows a predictable seasonal curve. Volume for queries like "tax preparation," "find a CPA," and "tax filing help" typically peaks between January and April, with a secondary spike around business tax deadlines in September and October. Firms that publish optimized content in the October–December window are better positioned to capture this seasonal demand than those who start publishing in February.

Keyword Difficulty Context

Accounting keywords sit in a moderately to highly competitive difficulty range across most SEO tools. Terms like "CPA firm" and "tax accountant" in major metros frequently show keyword difficulty scores in the 40–70 range (on a 100-point scale), requiring meaningful domain authority to rank on page one. Longer-tail terms — "QuickBooks bookkeeper for contractors [city]" or "tax planning for medical professionals" — typically show lower difficulty with comparable or better conversion intent.

The search environment for accounting firms has shifted meaningfully over the past several years. Understanding the directional trends helps firms invest in the right areas rather than optimizing for a version of Google that no longer exists.

AI Overviews and Zero-Click Search

Google's AI Overviews (formerly SGE) now appear for a meaningful share of informational queries, including some accounting and tax questions. This has two practical effects: traffic to purely informational pages has declined for some query types, while the value of ranking in the map pack and having a strong GBP has increased because local and transactional results are less affected by AI overview displacement. Firms that built organic traffic on generic tax content are seeing more volatility than those with strong local signals.

E-E-A-T Signals in Professional Services

Google's quality rater guidelines place accounting and financial content in the YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) category, meaning content on these topics is evaluated more strictly for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Practically, this means author credentials, firm credentials, and third-party validation (reviews, citations, press mentions) carry more weight for accounting firm pages than they might for a general business website.

Mobile and Voice Search Patterns

A growing share of "find a local accountant" queries originate on mobile devices, with a subset using voice search. Voice search queries tend to be longer and more conversational — "who is the best CPA near me for small business taxes" rather than "CPA small business." Firms optimizing for natural-language, question-based content are better positioned for this query format.

The Direction of Travel

The overall trend in accounting SEO favors firms that invest in genuine authority signals — real credentials, real reviews, real content from real practitioners — over those chasing technical shortcuts. Google's direction across multiple algorithm updates has consistently rewarded demonstrated expertise and local trust signals for professional services queries.