GEO Checklist for Accounting Firm Websites

How Should an Accounting Firm Use This Checklist?

Work through this generative engine optimisation (GEO) checklist one group at a time, in order. Tick an item only when it passes on the live site. Order matters: crawler access and adviser identity come first, because an engine that can’t read a page or confirm who wrote it ignores the rest.

Each item has 2 parts. The "Why it matters" column says what to fix and why. The "How to check" column shows how to confirm it in under 5 minutes, usually with a browser and your firm’s registration details.

The list is written for Australian practices. It uses the Tax Practitioners Board, income years that start on 1 July and ABN Lookup, which gives free access to public Australian Business Number (ABN) information from the Australian Business Register. The same logic works in any market where accountants are registered.

This page goes deeper than a general audit. Our LLM SEO checklist tests any website in 4 stages. LLM SEO means SEO for large language models (LLMs), the AI behind tools like ChatGPT. This one applies the same thinking to the pages an accounting firm publishes.

Can AI Crawlers Reach Every Page of the Firm’s Site?

AI crawlers can only quote pages they are allowed to fetch. A practice site can block them without anyone at the firm knowing, often through security settings the IT provider set up years ago. Check access before you fix anything else.

Does the Homepage Tell an Engine Exactly What the Firm Is?

The homepage should say, in its first 2 sentences, what the firm does, for whom and where. Engines match firms to questions such as "accountant for construction businesses in Geelong". A vague line about "trusted advisers" gives them nothing to match.

Do Service Pages Answer the Client’s Real Question, Including Price?

Each service page should answer one client question in its first paragraph. Then it should show what’s included, who delivers it and what it costs. Price matters more than most firms expect, because engines compare options when a client asks about cost.

One page per service also explains why a firm can be cited for one service and not another. Our guide to why accounting firms are invisible in AI search shows how each service line behaves differently.

Can an Engine Confirm Who Each Adviser Is?

An engine can only confirm an adviser when the profile gives a full name, a role and a registration it can match to a public record. For Australian tax agents, that record is the Tax Practitioners Board register. A photo and a first name are not enough.

Our guide on how to publish credentials for AI search goes step by step through matching each adviser to the register, with before-and-after examples.

Is Tax and Advice Content Sourced, Dated and Current?

Tax content should name the income year for every figure, link the main source and show a review date. Rates, thresholds and caps change on 1 July, so a figure without a year goes wrong without warning. An engine comparing 2 pages can’t tell which figure is current unless the page says so.

Are FAQ Pages Written for AI Answers Rather Than Rich Results?

FAQs still earn their place, because each question and answer is a ready-made passage an engine can quote. What has changed is the payoff. Google stopped showing FAQ drop-downs for most sites in 2023, so write FAQs for the answer itself.

Do Off-Site Profiles Match the Website Word for Word?

Every profile outside the website should use the same firm name, address, phone number and adviser names as the site. Engines read business listings and directories alongside your own pages. A mismatch forces them to decide whether 2 records describe the same firm.

Keeping these records lined up is ongoing generative engine optimisation work, because one outdated listing can contradict a page that is otherwise correct.

How Does a Firm Know the Checklist Is Working?

A firm knows the checklist is working when it shows up in AI answers to the client questions it chose at the start. Pick 20 questions clients ask before they hire an accountant. Run them every month across the main engines and record whether the firm is named, cited or missing.

Google gives you a second signal. Google’s guide to its AI features says sites appearing in AI Overviews and AI Mode are included in overall search traffic in Search Console, reported in the Performance report under the Web search type. The same guide says no special schema.org markup is needed to appear, so treat schema as a way to state facts clearly.

If time is short, do these 5 first:

1. Crawler access. Nothing else counts until the pages can be fetched.
2. Adviser profiles with registration numbers in text. This is the proof an engine can confirm.
3. A fee range on the 3 most visited service pages. Cost questions are where "contact us" pages drop out.
4. Income years beside every tax figure. This stops correct pages going stale on 1 July.
5. A matching Google Business Profile name. It removes the most common mismatch outside the site.