Industries · How accountants get recommended by ChatGPT and AI search
Small-business owners ask AI to recommend an accountant. Be specific enough to be named.
"CPA in [city] who knows restaurant taxes" is a typical question to an assistant. Firms that say exactly who they serve and what they do get recommended; generic "full-service" firms blur together.
Free, no account. We only read public files.
What people ask AI assistants
- “CPA near me for small business taxes and payroll”
- “Accountant in [city] who works with Etsy sellers”
- “Do I need a CPA or a bookkeeper?”
- “Tax preparer in [city] for rental property owners”
Why does AI search matter for accountants?
Accounting buyers choose on specialism and trust. Assistants can only match a firm to "accountant for dentists" or "crypto tax CPA" if the site says so in plain words.
Many firm sites list the same dozen services as every competitor. Naming your niches, the software you support and the size of client you work with is what gives an assistant a reason to pick you.
What we know so far
Full report and method →We haven't scanned accountants websites yet, so we won't quote numbers for them. Our first study covered 101 dentist, law-firm and home-service sites. The gaps below are the ones we check for on every small-business site, adapted to how accountants are usually found.
The accounting firm checklist
Things to do this week, roughly in order.
- Name the industries and situations you specialise in, each with a short page.
- Say who on the team is a CPA or EA, and which states you're licensed in.
- List the accounting software you support (QuickBooks, Xero and so on).
- Explain how pricing works: fixed monthly fees, per-return pricing or hourly.
- Add AccountingService schema with address, areaServed and sameAs.
- Date your tax explainers and update them each filing season.
What are the common mistakes, and the fixes?
- 01
Generic service lists
Replace "tax, audit, advisory" with the industries and situations you're good at, each with a short page.
- 02
Credentials not stated
Say who's a CPA or EA, and which states you're licensed in, as text.
- 03
No AccountingService schema
Mark up the firm with AccountingService, address, areaServed and sameAs.
Free tool: Schema / JSON-LD Generator → - 04
No llms.txt
A short file listing your specialities and how to get a quote gives assistants a clean summary.
Free tool: llms.txt Generator & Validator →
Which schema should accountants use?
AccountingService is the schema.org type for accountants and bookkeepers, a FinancialService subtype that takes address, areaServed and hours.
Generate it for your accounting firm →Recommended type
"@type": "AccountingService"
Start with the free check. If you'd rather hand it over, there's the Snapshot.
The free AI Crawler Checker shows in seconds whether AI crawlers can read your site. The $99 Snapshot audit goes further for one accounting firm: 10 customer questions × 4 AI engines, crawler, robots.txt & CDN review, llms.txt and schema written for you, prioritised fix list (PDF). Delivered in 5 working days.
FAQ