Your CPA firm is no less a brand than Tiger Woods, Apple Computer or Starbucks Coffee . Most people know where to go to buy an iPhone. When a business or individual searches for a tax preparation or accounting firm via a search engine however, they in all likelihood do not already know of your firm. Therefore having your firm name in your HTML page title as a keyword for CPA websites is not helpful, and here is why.
First Page. I would bet you are interested in appearing in the first page of search results for Anywhere USA Tax Preparation. Remember it is Google’s responsibility to show relevant search results for the term being searched on. Therefore you naturally stand a very good opportunity of being on the first page of search results, if not number 1, for your firm’s name, especially if the searcher also included your city or town name.
Google’s main priority is to show relevant search results, and they know your website is the most relevant search result for searches on your firm’s name. You may very well pay less to be higher in the sponsored listings for your firm’s name than someone else bidding on your firm’s name as a keyword.
Page Title. The page title is what you see at the very top of your browser window. It is what appears in a browser’s bookmarks if someone bookmarks your site (unless they manually name the bookmark). It is also what appears in blue text in the search results pages.
Your Firm’s Name Is Not Your Keyword. When you perform search engine optimization for your site, having your firm’s name in the page title does nothing for your SEO effort. In fact it can even dilute the relevance of your target keywords.
Some firms demand having their firm name in the page title. What do you think is a more attractive link to someone who searches on “Anywhere USA Tax Preparation”, a blue link that says “Bauer and Evans CPA“, or a blue link that says “Anywhere USA CPA, Accounting, and Tax Preparation”? People are more apt to click on links that show the same text as they searched on.
There is more you need to do for SEO then adjust your website’s page title . In fact Google has said there are over 200 things they look at when considering a site’s placement in the search results. Adjusting the page title however is an important part of the SEO process and a good starting point .