.svg)
.svg)
When it’s not tax season, your job isn’t to coast — it’s to fill the pipeline for the next rush. That’s where content marketing for accountants and accounting firms comes in. 61% of B2B buyers now prefer a rep-free buying experience and do their own research through digital channels before talking to a provider. Data from Statista.com shows that fewer than half of all millennials trust advertising, which makes it even harder for traditional ads alone to convince younger clients to reach out.
The firms that show up with helpful content online are the ones that get short-listed.
A focused digital content strategy lets you bring in new clients and stay top of mind with existing ones year-round. Instead of relying on newspaper ads or billboards, you’re meeting people where they already spend time — searching Google, scrolling LinkedIn, and looking for clear answers to their tax and advisory questions.
The Role of Content Marketing for Accounting Firms
Today, with AI changing how clients research firms and search engines rewarding trustworthy expertise, content marketing for accounting firms works very differently from old-school ads. Instead of billboards and print, you invest in digital content that keeps working for you. Data-driven teams that blend personalized customer experiences with generative AI are 1.7 times more likely to increase market share.
With content marketing, you share helpful resources like checklists, explainers, tax guides, and updates that answer your ideal clients’ questions — all for free. That free value builds trust over time and makes your firm the obvious choice when they’re ready to hire an accountant.
8 Proven Tactics To Master Content Marketing for Your CPA Firm
Accounting firm marketing with content starts with a written document that outlines the goal, action steps, and strategy used for a time-bound campaign. This organized plan will be the leading document that everyone can collaborate on for long-term success.
You may find that the plan can change as you move forward. That’s OK. A dynamic document that adapts as you learn what’s most effective will save resources and get better measurable results for CPA firms.
1. Identify Your Target Audience and Build Personas
Every marketing plan is centered around the target audience, and content for accountants is no different. The narrower and more focused your audience is, the more likely you can create content that will resonate deeply and encourage them to choose your firm. Whether the CPAs prefer to work with private individuals or businesses, you need to clearly understand who you want to connect with each piece of content.
One way to do this is by building customer personas. These are avatars that have the same demographics, habits, pain points, and needs that people in your target market have. Use data from your region or current customer base to flush out the persona — and remember it as you decide on social media platforms, topics, and the rest of the campaign.
2. Craft an Effective Content Strategy Based on Goals and KPIs
Next, agree upon the definition of success or the goals for your campaign. A goal can be measured using key performance indicators or tools like a ROI calculator. Using a quantifiable metric, you can compare before the campaign and after the campaign to see if you’ve met a goal.
All goals must be connected to marketing accounting firms' big-picture business objectives. Don’t be scared to reach, but keep the goal achievable. Once you’ve set the goals, you can break the work into objectives and action steps.
3. Build an SEO-Friendly Website
Once you know who you’re talking to and what you want them to do, your website has to pull its weight. For most prospects, your site is their first impression of your firm — long before they call, email, or hand over a shoebox of receipts.
Even with AI search rising, classic Google results still matter. Semrush’s 2025 data shows Google’s AI Overviews appear in about 13.14% of searches, which means the vast majority of queries still show traditional organic results — the rankings your firm can influence with SEO and content.
For content marketing for accountants and accounting firms, an SEO-friendly site typically includes:
- Professional, fast, mobile-optimized pages — especially for tax, advisory, and CAS services that time-pressed owners might search on their phones.
- Dedicated, search-optimized service and industry pages (e.g., “Dental practice CPA in Phoenix,” “CAS for SaaS startups,” or “nonprofit audit and compliance services”).
- A resource hub with blogs, tax guides, CAS explainers, and FAQs that answer the questions your ideal clients actually Google.
- Trust signals built into the experience — clear bios for partners, professional memberships (AICPA, state societies), case studies, testimonials, and links to your Google/online reviews.
- Technical SEO basics: proper title tags and meta descriptions, headings, internal links between practice areas and articles, and schema where appropriate.
If your site loads quickly, answers real questions, and proves you’re trustworthy, every other marketing dollar you spend (including on content) works harder.
4. Plan Your Strategy With a Content Calendar
When it comes to content marketing for accounting firms, no decision can be left to the last minute. Otherwise, you risk overlooking a crucial step that will cause last-minute stress and scrambling. A strong editorial content calendar will prevent this.
Decide how often you want to connect with your audience, and then set publication dates on a spreadsheet. With each date, list:
- Type of content
- Topic
- Keywords
- Platforms for publishing
- Person responsible for producing content
- Person responsible for editing/review
- Person responsible for posting on platforms
- Notes
Your calendar may have additional or fewer sections. Creating an infrastructure within the document that works for your individual accounting firm's marketing team and goals is important.
5. Create Helpful and Educational Content
If your website is the storefront, your educational content is the conversation happening inside. For accounting firms, that conversation needs to do more than say “we’re accurate and responsive” — it has to prove you understand the real-world problems your clients are trying to solve.
High-quality, educational content is also directly tied to referrals and perceived expertise. In a 2025 referral marketing study of professional services firms (including accountants), the Hinge Research Institute found that 27.4% of the factors that drive referrals are tied to “visible expertise,” and that generating quality, educational content is one of the top five “must-haves” for a successful referral strategy, making up a significant share of visible expertise overall.
At the same time, B2B decision-makers are actively seeking out this kind of content. Edelman and LinkedIn’s 2024 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report found that 73% of decision-makers consider thought-leadership content a more trustworthy way to assess a provider’s capabilities than traditional marketing materials.
For accountants and accounting firms, “helpful and educational” typically looks like:
- Plain-English explainers of complex topics (e.g., “What New 1099 Rules Mean for Freelancers")
- Niche, industry-specific guidance (short, practical pieces tailored to dentists, nonprofits, startups, etc.)
- How-to and “what to expect” content (e.g., “What to Bring to Your First Meeting With a CPA")
- Perspective on new regulations and technology (e.g., "How AI Tools Intersect With Bookkeeping, Compliance, and Advisory Services)
When you consistently publish this kind of material, you build the visible expertise and trust that make prospects more likely to choose your firm over the one that only posts generic “We’re here for all your tax needs” messages.
6. Repurpose Your Content
Most CPA firms don’t have an in-house media team churning out fresh articles, videos, and webinars every day — especially not during busy season. The firms that win treat each strong piece of content as a reusable asset, not a one-time blog post.
This isn’t just theory. According to a 2024 McKinsey study, Decision-makers now use about 10 channels on average in their buying process — websites, email, webinars, LinkedIn, events, self-service portals, and more. And 65% say they’d abandon a purchase or switch suppliers after a poor omnichannel experience.
You don’t feed that many channels by writing everything from scratch. You do it by repurposing content.
A “Year-End Tax Planning Guide for Small Businesses” can become:
- 4–6 shorter blog posts (one per big question)
- A downloadable checklist or calculator
- A 3-email nurture series for business owners
- Talking points for a webinar or live Q&A
- Short LinkedIn posts for partners, each highlighting one takeaway
Repurposing matters even more in accounting because the firms that take marketing seriously are already outspending you. A 2025–26 marketing budget benchmark study from the Association for Accounting Marketing (AAM) found that high-growth accounting firms spend roughly twice as much as other firms on marketing than other firms.
If you don’t want to double your marketing budget to keep up with other firms, repurposing your content can help you stay visible. You get more value from every whitepaper, webinar, and tax guide you create. Partners have more content to share on LinkedIn and by email, without having to start from scratch. And prospects see your firm regularly on your website, in search results, in their inbox, and on social media.
7. Optimize Your Content for Search Engines
All the online content will help your firm’s website rank higher on a search engine results page — if you complete and follow a keyword research report. Google’s algorithm will scan all written words published on your site, so make sure you’re incorporating the short- and long-tail keywords whenever you can.
Plus, you’ll want to follow the Google best practice known as E-E-A-T. This stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. If your content meets these quality ratings, you’ll have better SEO and reach a bigger audience.
8. Measure Your Content Marketing Campaign’s Performance Regularly
As you complete the draft outlining your content marketing for accounting firms, clarify when and how you will measure the impact of your work. Create a baseline and then track the key performance indicators at periods throughout the campaign cycle. This is how you’ll know if your marketing for accountants is working — and then how to continuously improve so the next effort will be even better.
Best Types of Content Accountants Should Consider
Accountants have a wide range of content formats available to them, each serving a different purpose in attracting and converting potential clients. The key is choosing content types that align with your audience and your capacity to produce consistently.
Blog Posts and Comprehensive Guides
A blog is perhaps the most popular piece of content for marketing accountants because it provides a good opportunity to answer all those common questions. Blogs will range in length from around 500 to 1,500 words each.
Guides are similar but provide action steps for readers, while blogs can just discuss topics. You’ll want an effective blog writing toolkit to start publishing a blog.
You can create a weekly or bi-weekly schedule for producing a new blog or publish even more frequently as the tax season approaches.
Social Media Posts
A large percentage of your target audience likely spends some of their free time on social media platforms, so those sites are a good place for content marketing for accounting firms.
In particular, video is becoming an increasingly popular content style for social media. Try a campaign that features one of your CPAs giving top financial tips. Reels only need to be 10 to 20 seconds, so you can make many of them to gain brand awareness and increase sales.
Email Marketing
Accounting email newsletters are another powerful type of content to consider for your firm. Email marketing allows you to connect directly with your current customers, and you can encourage them to forward it to a friend. This also allows you to build up a valuable email list to help you communicate important firm news.
When your clients give you their email address, they want to receive email from you. You can strengthen the relationship by helping them with problems they may be encountering. If you know your audience well enough and segment your email list effectively, you can personalize your message to really resonate.
Case Studies
Case studies are articles that detail the experience your clients have working with the CPAs in your firm. Let this powerful content serve as an in-depth testimonial that you can share everywhere: in email newsletters, on social media, on your website, and any place else you can imagine.
These help potential clients build trust in your firm through real stories. Demonstrate how you helped a client navigate a financially challenging situation, and you’ll let prospects know you can do it for them, too.
SME Reviews
SME reviews is a term that includes the shorthand for subject matter expert. This kind of content is done in collaboration with an expert in your industry. Sometimes, an SME will write the content on behalf of a client, and sometimes, they will review the work to ensure other professionals are accurate.
Working with an SME when handling content marketing for accounting firms is a good idea, especially when the work has anything to do with tax laws. This helps you avoid mistakes that would work against your campaign goals.
eBooks
Another kind of content is eBooks, which take a longer form than a blog or a guide. These electronic books can be as long as necessary to cover the topics your potential customers are interested in. These establish your firm as an authority in your field and a credible source for accounting help. Prospects may want these valuable resources in exchange for their email address. Current clients may appreciate the book as a thank you for working with you. It’s a big project that can have a high ROI for years.
White Papers
White papers are yet another kind of content to consider. These are well-researched documents that outline a specific topic in a way that provides context and clear understanding. They rely on technical writing to turn complex tax rules, reporting standards, or regulatory changes into clear, actionable insights for your clients.
For example, you could publish white paper writing about a new tax law that will impact clients in a way they may not have considered. You may even be able to garner earned media by letting local reporters know about the technical white paper.
Master Content Creation for Your Accounting Firm With Compose.ly
If you’re ready to move forward with a content creation plan for your CPA firm, you may already know that you’ll want to work with a content management agency. As you consider options, look for an agency with experience working with marketing teams for accountants. Compose.ly can help you create and execute a strategy that will meet your firm’s goals. Contact Compose.ly’s finance writing services team today to learn more.
