This special guest post, contributed by Christian Jones, CEO of TaxProMarketer, highlights How to Help Your Tax or Accounting Firm’s Website Continue to Reach New Prospects in the New Age of AI Overviews.

Key Takeaways

• AI is changing how search and SEO work, and accountants and tax professionals need to adapt their marketing in order to get found online.
• Research shows a growing trend toward zero-click search results, where people can find answers to their questions without clicking to a single website.
• You still need to do traditional SEO in this new age of AI in search. It’s important to continue doing onsite and offsite SEO work to show up on page one.
• But accountants ALSO need to adapt website and blog content to show up in the new AI overviews.
• Creating original content, structuring your content so it can be read by AI engines, using conversational language, getting visibility on other creditable industry platforms, and leveraging AI to drive your processes are some of the keys to mastering Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).
• It’s important to keep up with these ever-changing trends in search results, or hire someone to do it for you.

Ranking on Google has historically been a product of on-website and offsite factors: Google Business Profile optimization, reviews, and other key local listings profiles play a large role in ranking in the Google Maps section. 

None of that has changed. You as an accountant (tax professionals and bookkeepers too) still need to be optimizing all of those platforms to show up there.

But in this new age of AI search, there is a new section on search results pages that summarizes the answer to your question for you — without clicking to a single website.

Google has launched “AI Overviews” to provide AI-generated summaries in search results. These AI summaries now show up in almost half of search engine page results, including searches for an accountant. They look a little like this…

Who is the best accountant in Pittsburgh? ⬇️

How do I file a tax return?  ⬇️

But who is really relying on AI search results to answer these types of questions? Well, a lot of people actually…

• 80% of consumers rely on zero-click results in at least 40% of their searches 
  (Source: Neil Patel)
   
• 1 in 10 U.S. internet users now use generative AI first for an online search 
  (Source: SEM Rush)
   
• ChatGPT has 800 million weekly active users 
  (Source: Fortune.com)
   
• 400+ million people use Meta AI each month 
  (Source: Meta)
   
• Organic search engines, including Google, have declined in traffic 
  (Source: SEM Rush)

This is, in fact, a real trend that we’re tracking so we can make real-time adjustments to our clients’ websites, blogs, local listings, and SEO.

Your website is going to play a big role in persuading AI platforms that you truly are the best accountant in your area. And your marketing needs to adjust from “search engine optimization” to “search everywhere optimization.” 

GEO — Generative Engine Optimization — (the fancy term for AI search) is another term being used to describe this trend. (And a few others: AEO, AIO … it’s all the same thing.)

If you’re not adjusting to this new search reality, you need to start now. 

Now for HOW to make those adjustments…

Q&A: How AI is Changing Search for Accounting & Tax Firms

Is traditional SEO obsolete?

Answer: Not at all. 

AI-powered search is definitely impacting SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) in big ways, and that will continue to evolve for quite some time. Some search traffic is being diverted into AI overviews and zero-click searches, but all of the tried-and-true methods for getting seen on page one of Google are still very effective. 

For more about how traditional SEO works for accountants, go here.

Will SEO still matter if AI begins to dominate search?

Answer: Absolutely yes. 

Where do you think AI is getting answers to questions to show in those AI overviews? ➡️ From quality sources online who are practicing good SEO and from those who adapt their website content strategy so that AI can find those answers. Practicing the fundamentals of SEO, while adapting to changing trends, is crucial.

Should tax professionals and accountants block AI from crawling their website?

Answer: For our industry, no. 

See my answer to the last question. This has been a highly contested topic of discussion, even in the courtroom. Because you rely on organic search to find your content, you want the AI engines to come to your site for answers and cite the results they find there.

What are some keys to structuring your website content for AI-driven search?

Answer: Here are few things that are driving results right now:

1) Rank in the top 10 for highly searched keywords in our industry. This is organic marketing at work, moving you up in page results over time.

2) Structure your content with clear, concise answers that AI can reference. Use sections, bullet points, FAQs, and concise explanations.

3) Use conversational language. This is something we’ve been preaching for years, which means our sites are already optimized for the direct, conversational phrasing that AI models can easily interpret. 
4) Make sure you’re hard coding schema markup on all of your website pages.

5) Get your name out there. Getting featured on news sites and industry blogs will increase visibility that LLMs notice.

6) Create original content. Don’t just copy what others are doing. 

7) Leverage AI but don’t overuse it. AI is helpful for brainstorming and research, but sketchy for fact-checking and website-ready content. The human touch is vitally important in an online environment that still values quality over quantity.

You and I are both experiencing the ever-and-quickly-changing dynamics of this AI-powered world we’re now living in. Whether or not we’ll adapt is up to each of us.

At TaxProMarketer, we’re adapting for the sake of our clients’ businesses and livelihoods.

Are you? 

If your answer is anything other than “yes, and I’m already adjusting my marketing accordingly,” then let’s talk. 

Marketing has always been an industry of constant change. But with the rapid development of AI and the subsequent AI search queries and dependence, it feels like things are speeding up.

And we are speeding to keep up. 

To not adapt is to disappear.

Christian Jones is the CEO of TaxProMarketer, which has been providing marketing services exclusively for the tax and accounting industry since 2007. His search marketing strategy has helped set the standard within the tax and accounting industry, and as CEO he is committed to service innovation so that tax professionals and accountants get seen online. 

He teaches on a variety of topics in CPE webinar settings, at live events, and on other platforms in the industry. He was named a top presenter on CPA Academy for 2023 and the "Top 20 Under 40" by CPA Practice Advisor. He is also the host of The ProMarketer Podcast and led TaxProMarketer to its second year on the Inc 5000 list in 2024.

More from Christian

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-jones-44b18346/ 
The ProMarketer Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-promarketer-podcast/id1518597006 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@taxpromarketer