subject: CPA Websites: Creating Effective Copy [print this page] Your CPA website is never really finishedYour CPA website is never really finished. After you get the site published it's time to compose a little unique content for it. The majority of accountants do not do their own copy writing. Many choose to purchase website "templates", ready-made CPA websites with content already included.
This is a strategy with problems. Don't misunderstand me. If you're looking to get a website published this is certainly the best line of attack. It will allow you to get the website up quickly, and the sooner you get your site up the sooner it will start bringing in new customers and accumulating domain authority in the search engines.
The downside to this strategy is that you are presenting what the search engines call "duplicate content". It's unlikely that you're the only CPA using that content provider, and all these other CPA Websites have essentially the same content on their websites as you have on yours. These pages will not usually be indexed well in the search engines. Duplicate content pages get indexed, but the page that indexes first gets the lion's share of the credit. This means all the other sites using the same page will need to change the page to get full credit for it. All these pages count... they'll get crawled and your website will get credit for them, but they won't appear on the search engine's results pages.Fortunately there's a easy fix for this problem.
The way to get around this problem is to customize your pages once the site is up.
Do your "index" page first. The "index" page, also often called the "home" or "welcome" page, tends to get indexed first, and as a rule has the most inherit authority. By rewriting it you are creating "unique content", and that's what the search engines are looking for.
Once that's done selectively rewrite other pages. As a rule the more pages you re-write, the better. You'll get more pages with better rankings, and your overall site will accumulate authority faster. To avoid getting bogged down in a huge project do your pages one at a time. Do the most important pages first and work down.
There are some important rules of thumb to keep in mind that will maximize your appeal both to search engines and prospects.
Change Your Meta Tags
Before you begin writing create a keyword rich page title for your page. Make your page title 5-7 words, and make sure you include the city and state you're marketing to. For example:
Los Angeles, CA Accounting and Business Planning
Put this in the "Page Title" Meta Tag for the page (if you don't know what a Meta tag is or how to change it your web host may need to help you with this).
Now create a keyword rich, headline-style introduction to the page for the search engines to display when your page comes up. For example:
Your Los Angeles, CA Accounting and Business Planning Solution. Free initial consultation for Business Owners.
Put this in the "Page Description" Meta Tag for the page (again, your web host may need to help you with this).
Now... rewrite your page copy.
Most people find it easiest to just use the existing copy as a guideline. This is fine. Just make sure you "spin" it enough that the search engines don't catch on. There are no exact guidelines to offer, but the industry standard among SEO's says you should have variation in at least 30% of the sentences. Some people claim that figure should be closer to 70%.
Make Your Copy Search Engine Friendly
The search engines want a "concise summary" of the information: Too long and the search engines will penalize you because they'll think you're either babbling on or getting too technical; Too short and they'll assume you're summary isn't detailed enough. Make your page 400-600 words.
Use your keywords in your text. Try to use your page title keywords (in the example above that would be"Hoboken ", "NJ", "Accounting", and the keyphrase "Business Planning"). Optimally you want a 1% "keyword density". If your page is 450 words use each keyword 4 or 5 times. Don't overuse your keywords. This is considered a type of spam and could result in your page being de-indexed.
People Friendly Copy
Don't write too smart. Making youre visitors feel stupid will just frustrate them or make them angry. Don't waste their time with the details. Prospects don't care about the details. Your prospect wants to know what's in it for him. He or she really doesn't care how you're going to do it or how clever you are for figuring it out. Concentrate on this. How will your service make the readers life better? Write conversationally. Good copy reads casually. People friendly copy is just that... friendly.
By taking these simple steps your website will benefit enormously. You'll get a full-featured CPA website posted quickly and inexpensively, and you'll get the benefit of custom content and Meta data as you add it.
