How Accountancy Firms Can Generate More Leads Beyond Referrals

For years, most accountancy firms have relied on referrals to bring in new clients. Warm referrals are great. But solely relaying on referrals, You’re waiting for someone else to make the introduction, rather than actively generating your own pipeline.

If you’re a firm looking to grow beyond referrals, marketing doesn’t need to be overwhelming or expensive. It’s about being consistently visible, trustworthy, and easy to find, both to humans and to search engines.

Here are FIVE areas that make the biggest difference when it comes to generating new leads for accountancy firms.

1. Google Business Profile: Your second website

Many firms set up their Google Business Profile and forget about it. But it should be treated like a second website.

A well-maintained Google Business Profile helps accountancy firms:

• Improve local visibility for local searches
• Strengthen trust signals through Google Reviews
• Support wider SEO performance
• Drive trackable website traffic
• Generate direct enquiries
• Reinforce credibility online

Read more: Google Business Profile for Accountants

2. Testimonials & Case Studies: Build trust for conversation

Choosing an accountant is a trust-led decision. Potential clients are looking for a firm that:

• Understands their industry they work in.
• Has relevant experience to solve their problems.
• Delivers great service and can prove it.
• Feels approachable and reliable. As well as easy to understand.
• Has helped businesses like theirs before.

Without social proof, websites often feel generic, and hard to differentiate from competitors.

Many accountancy websites lean on the same phrases:

“Trusted advisers.” “Personal service.” “Tailored support.” “Experienced team.”

Case studies go further, showing:

• The problem you solved
• The challenge the client faced
• Your expertise in action
• The outcome achieved
• Your sector experience

This also helps position your firm around the specific industries or services you want to attract more of.

Read more: Testimonials & Case Studies for Accountants

3. A LinkedIn strategy for accountants

One of the first conversations I have with accountancy firms is about personal profiles vs company pages.

LinkedIn’s algorithm favours personal profiles, company pages simply don’t get the same organic reach without paid support.

Personal profiles benefit from:

• Higher organic reach (check the % of your audience who weren’t already connections).
• More meaningful engagement — people comment on people, not logos.
• Trust & relatability — seeing the face behind the firm builds familiarity.
• Better discoverability through active, consistent posting.

This doesn’t mean abandoning the company page, it still has value for credibility and advertising. But it shouldn’t be expected to do all the heavy lifting alone.

Accountancy firms are built on relationships. Your LinkedIn presence should reflect that.

Read more: LinkedIn for Accountants

4. SEO for accounting firms

Separate pages for different locations can be really helpful and drive higher keyword rankings, but there needs to be a good focus on quality content that’s actually helpful and useful to searchers. It’s quite common to see location pages with quite heavily duplicated content. Google will look at them and say that’s not unique enough.

Each location page needs to genuinely reflect the local area, local clients, and relevant services, not just a copy-paste template.

You can rank quite well locally with a lower volume of blogs, but it’s a lot more challenging to do it with no blogs. Blogs are still a really important way to share quality content that helps Google understand your website and its specialist areas.

It’s rarely about volume, it’s about relevance. Most accountancy blogs fall into one of two camps:

1. Completely out of date (last post was around Covid)
2. Consistent and strategic and winning!

The firms that see the best results are writing content genuinely relevant to the clients they want to attract.

What makes an accountancy firm website trustworthy in Google’s eyes?

Google uses E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). For accountancy firms, this means showcasing the real people behind the practice.

A simple way to do this: author profiles, where every blog is assigned to a named accountant or specialist, with their qualifications and experience visible. This gives Google more confidence in attaching authority to that content.

Read more: Accountancy Firm SEO

5. AI Search — A new lead generation source

AI platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini are starting to recommend accountancy firms directly to potential clients, not just show search results. If your firm is the one cited, that’s a warm lead landing on your website, someone who’s already been told you’re the right fit before they’ve even clicked through.

There’s a big change for accountants to adapt to, a shift from just trying to rank in Google, to being cited by AI platforms.

This isn’t a separate strategy or a reason to start again. It sits on top of the SEO foundations you should already have in place, clear service pages, niche positioning, and strong content. The firms most likely to be cited by AI are the same firms already doing SEO well.

The firms that stand out are the ones that get really clear on their ideal client and whether there’s a genuine niche they can own. That clarity doesn’t just make for better marketing, it makes for better SEO and better AI visibility too.” — Sarena Harwood, Marketing with Sarena

The lead generation takeaway: niche, specific content earns you both Google rankings and AI citations. Get the SEO foundations right, and AI visibility follows.

Read more: AI Search for Accountants

Ready to take this further

If you’re not sure where your firm stands right now, I offer marketing audits, a clear look at what’s working, what isn’t, and where the gaps are.

If you already know you need ongoing support but don’t want a full-time hire, I offer marketing retainers of senior-level marketing support, built around your firm, without the overheads of hiring in-house.