I justed created a new guide for accounting and CPA firms: “How Accounting and CPA Firms Can Succeed with SEO.”

Get  your copy of the accounting and SEO guide today.

It’s from World Synergy and Accountants and CPA Firms.

Here is an excerpt:

Accounting firms have many options when it comes to marketing. They can start with traditional efforts like generating leads through networking and following up on referrals from existing clients.

For a moment, you might think that no one would hire a professional services firm just by searching online.

But it happens that way – all of the time.

Yes, individuals and companies check with friends and business associates to find an accounting firm that could be a good fit for their interests and needs. They also rely on directories and search engines like Google and Bing to identify potential firms. Here’s a quick sampling of monthly searches on Google:

And that’s just the broad, national data. Here’s a cross-section of local searches:

In this guide, we’ll look at key ways accounting firms can leverage search engine optimization (SEO) to connect with prospective clients:

SEO has been around since the early 1990s and people still seem bewildered by SEO like it’s some kind of special magic that only some marketers understand and few master. It is complicated and based on many variables. But it can work if you’re smart about your strategy.

If your accounting firm wants to succeed with SEO, you need to start with a simple reality – your web site’s viability. It can change over time, but each web site at any given time has certain strengths and an ability to rank well on major search engines.

You can’t just pick keywords like you’re a kid in an apple orchard. It’s not that simple. Take stock of your situation and get a handle on what your web site has going for it.

Search engine rate all sorts of information for every single page, including:

• Domain name
• Domain age
• Number of pages
• Inbound links from other web sites, newsletters, blogs, magazines, directories, etc.
• Keywords in title tags
• Keywords in page headers (like headlines)
• Keywords in subheads
• Keywords in the core content
• Keywords in and around links between pages on a web site (also called anchor text)
• Keywords in the navigation
• Keywords in URLs (page names)
• Amount of content on each page
• Keyword themes throughout a web site
• Keyword density (percentage of keywords in relationship to other words on a page)

It’s not that hard to gain some recognition as an SEO marketing specialist.

I just tried.

It started in 2005 when I got a chance to speak for the first time at a Search Engine Strategies conference. I’ve always been grateful to Danny Sullivan for giving me a shot.

Between then and now, I’ve spoken at a lot of different places and written many articles and industry guides. The effort has paid off for the places that hired me and my career. Everyone wins.

The key is to be authentic and informative. I make sure that nothing I say, present or write is like a big advertisement. That wouldn’t sit too well with anyone.

Have I been accepted to speak every place I contacted? No.

But I kept trying. Timing (and a good topic) paid off.

Here are some of the subjects I have covered and the organizations that have been kind enough to welcome me – both for speaking and for writing.

• “SEO Overkill,” “Can You Please Them All?” “75 Minute Search Abs,” “SEM Pricing Models,” and “Dealing with Difficult Clients” – Search Engine Strategies conferences in New York, Chicago and san Jose
• “How To Turn Search Engines Into Sales Machines” – What’s Working Now! Conference
• “How To Boost Your Website ROI” – American Marketing Association, Cleveland chapter
• “How To Reach More Customers in A Search Engine Marketing World”  –Franchisee meeting (2008)
• “Reaching New Bank Customers”  – Banking and marketing workshop
• “SEO and SEM: What Does It Take to Succeed?”  – Educational Travel Conference in Providence, Rhode Island
• “All About Search Engine Optimization” – University of Toledo Internet Conference

In the News…

• “10 Minutes with Mike Murray”– Marketing News magazine
• “San Jose – Search Engine Strategies” – WebProNews Video Interview
• “Hot Links” – LifeTips, WebmasterRadio
• “Start Your Search Engines” – Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine
• “Study: Health Sites Fail on Natural Search Marketing” – Direct Marketing Association Blog
• “Manufacturers Need to Learn the Joy of Search Engines” – IndustryWeek
• “SEO for Large Corporations” – SEO Radio

And stuff I wrote:

• “10 Critical Errors to Avoid with Your SEO Campaign”– Visibility magazine
• “It’s Not Mojo: How to Take the Guesswork Out of Keyword Selection” – WebProNews
•  “Tips for Taking a Holistic Approach to SEO & PPC” – SEO video
• “Google Duped By Massive Comment Tag Stuffing Ploy” – Search Engine Land’s Sphinn discussion forum, citing blog post
• “Excuse Me While I Give My Sales To Someone Else” – ReveNews
• “Improve Your SEO in Minutes with Titles” – iMedia Connection
• “How Lousy SEO Smothers Good Practices” – WebProNews
• “New Archenemies? SEO and ROI – Say It Ain’t So, Joe” – Marketing Pilgrim
• “Is Search Engine Optimization Worth It? SEO and the ROI Debacle” – an industry guide
• “U.S. Health Care Web Sites Resist Natural Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Online Sales Leads,” national study of 350 health care companies
• “10 Ways to Master SEO Keyword Selection” – eMarketing & Commerce(eM+C)
• “13 Ways to Sabbotage Your SEO Efforts” – WebProNews
• “Ranking Analysis – How to Look Beyond What Is or Isn’t Ranking” – SiteProNews
• “How to Navigate Online Marketing’s Slippery Path” – SiteProNews

Online marketing is a tough business – and it’s not easy to know how to navigate each element.

I recently wrote an online marketing piece for SiteProNews to guide businesses through some of the most important topics they will face as they strive to succeed online.

Website marketing services can cover everything from link building and keyword research to website design and web analytics. Walk through some of those and you may have a tough time deciding what to do.

My first tip in the article is to grow thick skin, which means to be open to criticism. For example, if a business has a bad design, maybe it’s just time to own up to the mistake and start over.

It doesn’t make sense to keep working with a design that isn’t going to guide visitors or convert them.

Crispin Sheridan has a great piece about how to leverage data and analysis from both PPC and SEO – areas that should never operate as separate silos.

Both have their advantages and drawbacks; together they can make any online marketing program more powerful and worth the cost.