SEO for accountants is the work on a Google Business Profile, website pages and content that makes a practice show up when someone in its town looks for an accountant or for a tax answer about their own council. In the UK "accountants near me" gets 12,100 searches a month, yet when we measured three Italian cities on 12 November 2026, only 5 of the 499 accountant listings within 5 km of the centres of Bologna, Bari and Verona had 30 reviews or more (Visilay survey with DataForSEO).
Five out of 499.
It means the map in a mid-sized city can be won with a few dozen reviews. In Bari, three of the four practices in the local pack (the box with the map and the first listings) had a single review each.
So why does almost nobody try?
Because practices believe clients come through referrals. They do, but whoever gets your name opens Maps before calling, and compares ratings, opening hours and website there.
The mistakes we see most often:
- chasing "accountant + city" in the organic results, where 10 of 26 results in our survey were about another city and only 5 were practice websites;
- running a blog of national tax news, the same as the tax authority and the big online services, instead of pages about your own council;
- worrying about losing individual clients to cheap tax-return desks, which on Google are a separate market.
We have already covered how an accountant's website should be built, Google Ads for accountants and lead generation for accountants; positioning and seasonality across regulated professions are in marketing for accountants, architects and consultants. This piece is only about local rankings: the map, the category, reviews, searches that name a council, and ChatGPT's answers.
Why listen to an agency about an accountancy practice?
Because the mechanism is the same for any service people choose by area. For Sunscape we built a set of regional pages from scratch: in six months the tracked keywords on page one went from 1 to 38 out of 143 and organic impressions from 329 in March to 5,809 in August 2026 (the Sunscape case). For Contesini Consulenze, two high-street offices in northern Italy, local search brought 299 enquiries at €7.20 each between September 2023 and March 2024 (the Contesini case).
Inside:
- who shows up for "accountant" in three Italian cities;
- how many reviews it takes to get into the map;
- why tax-return desks are not your competitor on Google;
- council tax searches, where a local practice can rank first;
- what ChatGPT reads when asked for an accountant in a city.
Let's start with the results page.
Who shows up when you search "accountant" in Bologna, Bari and Verona (5 practice sites out of 26)
For "commercialista" (accountant) Google shows a map with four local practices first, then a list of sites where practices are a minority: on 12 November 2026, at 6 am, on a smartphone, across the three cities we counted 5 practice websites out of 26 organic results, and 10 of the 26 were about another city. The query is large: "commercialista" gets 33,100 searches a month in Italy, peaking at 49,500 in October 2026 (DataForSEO, Google Ads Italy, average November 2025 to October 2026).
| Search "commercialista", smartphone | Bologna | Bari | Verona |
|---|---|---|---|
| Listings in the map and their reviews | 4 (20 to 130) | 4 (24, 1, 1, 1) | 4 (16 to 91) |
| Practices in the "Related websites" block | 7 | 5 | 6 |
| Practice websites among organic results | 1 of 9 | 1 of 8 | 3 of 9 |
| Organic results about another city | 4 | 2 | 4 |
| Paid ads | 0 | 0 | 0 |
The organic results are a jumble: a directory page listing practices in Venice on a search made in Bologna, a marketplace listing firms in Padua, two publishers defining the job, an Instagram profile from Rome.
Of the 5 practice websites, two were in Milan and Rovereto.
On the generic query a practice website competes with directories, publishers and students. The map and the "Related websites" row (a strip of local practice sites right under the map) are the only spaces reserved for local firms.
The UK picture points the same way: "accountant" gets 33,100 searches a month and "accountants near me" 12,100, while "seo for accountants" gets 170 (DataForSEO, Google Ads UK, same period). The near-me search is where the map decides. We looked at Milan and at why a single practice should not copy national players in our guide to SEO for professional services; here we look at mid-sized cities, where the map is far more open.
How many reviews it takes to get into the map (in Bari, one was enough)
Getting into the accountant map in a mid-sized city takes few reviews: within 5 km of the centres of Bologna, Bari and Verona there are 499 accountant listings and 295 have no reviews at all. Only 5 have 30 or more.
| Accountant listings within 5 km of the centre | Bologna | Bari | Verona |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total listings | 227 | 136 | 136 |
| With 30+ reviews | 4 | 0 | 1 |
| With no reviews | 135 | 91 | 69 |
| With a linked website | 117 (52%) | 40 (29%) | 66 (49%) |
| Claimed by the owner | 154 | 89 | 99 |
In Bologna the most-reviewed practice in the local pack had 130 reviews, the other three between 20 and 39. In Verona the range was 16 to 91. In Bari three of the four listings in the map had a single review, and the top one had 24.
So reviews are all it takes?
No. Google says local results are "mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity", and you cannot change how far the searcher is from you. But in a city where 59% of listings sit at zero, twenty genuine reviews move a practice from page four of Maps into the map.
The category: plain "Accountant" or the licensed-accountant label
In the 12 listings across the three maps, Google showed three categories: the Italian label for a chartered, licensed accountant on 7, plain "Accountant" on 4 and "Chartered accountant" on 1. Across the 499 listings, plain "Accountant" was the primary category on 450.
We are not claiming the category lifts a listing: 12 is a small sample. We are saying the more precise one is the one a qualified practice can use honestly, and that Google asks businesses to use "as few categories as possible" to describe the core business. How to pick the primary category is in our guide to Google Business Profile categories.
Then the name. The same guidelines say practitioner profiles "may include title or degree certification", but forbid adding information that is not part of the real name. "Smith Accountants Leeds Tax Returns" does not pass.
If several accountants work in one office, Google wants a profile for the practice, separate from any individual, and a practitioner gets their own listing only if they are directly reachable by the public at that address during stated hours. The detail is in our guide to Google Business Profiles for practitioners: splitting reviews across three listings for the same office is the quickest way to have too few on all of them.
Reviews, without naming clients
Ask for reviews the moment a client gets a result: the return filed, the company set up, the year-end accounts done. How to ask without forbidden incentives is in our guide to getting Google reviews.
The catch for an accountant is in the replies. In Italy, article 44(4) of the accountants' code of conduct says client names must never appear in promotional information; in the UK, professional confidentiality points the same way. A reply like "Thanks Mark, great to finish your company accounts" confirms who the client is and what you did for them. Thank people without details: templates are in our guide to responding to Google reviews.
When someone a few streets from your office searches for an accountant, does the map show you or a listing with one review?
You have just seen that in Bari one review was enough for the local pack and that 295 of 499 listings sit at zero. We review your profile, category and pages with you and show you which local searches you are missing today.
Book a strategy callTax-return desks are not your competitor on Google (27,100 searches against 4,400)
People looking for a cheap tax-return desk run a different search and see a different map: in Italy "caf vicino a me" (tax assistance centre near me) gets 27,100 searches a month, six times "accountant near me", and in the three cities its local pack showed 12 tax centres, welfare offices and trade unions, not one accountancy practice.
These are people filing a simple return or a means-test form who want the nearest desk. In the organic results, 18 of 24 were about other cities, mostly directory pages: Google had no good local pages to show.
Should you add a tax-preparation category to catch those searches?
Only if you really do simple personal returns and want that work. Categories must describe the business, and people searching for a tax desk expect a tax-desk price. A practice serving companies and the self-employed does better to leave that map to the desks and own the searches where the client wants a professional. The UK equivalents are small but valuable: "self assessment accountant near me" gets 260 searches a month and "tax return accountant near me" 210, both with CPCs above £7 (DataForSEO, Google Ads UK).
Searches about your council, where a practice can rank first (property tax and local levies)
Tax searches that name a council are where a local practice can beat national online services, because none of them writes Verona's property-tax rates: on 12 November 2026, for "imu bologna 2026" (Bologna property tax), the first organic result was an article by a Bologna professional firm, above the council's own pages. Across 27 results for the three property-tax searches, 12 were public bodies, 11 were calculators and service sites, and 1 was a practice.
No map. No ads.
| Italian search | Monthly searches (average) | Peak month |
|---|---|---|
| tari bologna (waste levy) | 2,900 | 6,600 in June 2026 |
| aliquote imu (property-tax rates) | 1,000 | 3,600 in December 2025 |
| imu bologna | 390 | 1,300 in June 2026 |
| imu verona | 320 | 880 in June 2026 |
| imu bari | 140 | 480 in December 2025 |
The June and December peaks are the two payment deadlines. Whoever searches "imu bologna" in June owns a second home, a let property or a warehouse: the client a practice wants. The UK version of this is council tax, business rates and local reliefs, all set council by council.
What to write:
- one page per local tax, with this year's rates, a link to the council's decision and the update date at the top;
- one worked example per type of taxpayer (second home, let property, business premises);
- updates before each peak, not after.
Ten pages about your council beat a hundred posts about the national budget. To build local pages without swapping city names in the same text, see our guide to location pages for SEO.
Which pages a practice website needs (service, client type, council)
A practice website needs three families of pages: one per service you sell, one per type of client and one per local tax. The Business Profile links to one, but Google and ChatGPT read the rest when deciding whether you do what the searcher asked.
| Page | Italian search it catches | Monthly searches in Italy |
|---|---|---|
| Self-employed set-up and VAT number | commercialista per partita iva | 140 |
| Flat-rate scheme, with the price | commercialista forfettario | 90 |
| What the practice charges | quanto costa un commercialista | 390 |
| Practice + city on the home page | commercialista bologna / verona / bari | 590 / 480 / 390 |
The pricing page is the one practices write least, yet the Italian code of conduct treats information on fees as free to publish, provided it is not comparative or exaggerated. Page structure, credentials and prices are covered in our guide to the accountant's website. One technical detail helps Google join website and profile: identical name, address and phone in both places, plus AccountingService markup on the contact page, explained in our guide to LocalBusiness schema.
What ChatGPT reads when asked for an accountant in Bologna (1 of 4 picks was in the map)
ChatGPT picks which accountants to recommend by reading practice websites, not just the Google map: asked (in Italian) "I need an accountant in Bologna for the flat-rate scheme: who do you recommend?" on 12 November 2026, with web search on, via DataForSEO, it suggested 4 professionals and only one was in Bologna's local pack.
- First pick: an accountant whose site title names "VAT number set-up" and "flat-rate scheme".
- Studio Pegoli, with 2 reviews, chosen because its site describes a flat-rate service at €500 + VAT. It was in the "Related websites" row, not the map.
- Franchi & Rigosi, 20 reviews, the only one also in the local pack.
- Studio Nassiri, 31 reviews, offering meetings in person or online.
The practice with 130 reviews, first in the map, was not there. The answer then quoted a fee range of €400-700 a year, taken from two 2022 guides by the online service Fiscozen.
For AI answers, what counts is saying on your site who you work for and what it costs. ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI Overview break a question into sub-questions (flat-rate scheme, Bologna, price) and cite the pages that answer each one: the mechanism called query fan-out. A practice that never writes "flat-rate" on any page is not picked for that question, whatever its rating. The same held for property tax: the AI Overview for "imu bologna 2026" cited three council pages, a property portal and three calculators, no practice.
Google's documentation on AI features in Search says no special optimisation is needed beyond SEO basics, and nobody can promise a citation. More local tests are in our guide to local AI visibility, and how we work on it is on our GEO page.
FAQs on SEO for accountants
Yes. In Italy the accountants' code of conduct treats information about services, specialisms, qualifications, the practice and fees as free to publish, as long as it is not comparative, exaggerated or superlative and never names clients. A Business Profile, website pages and articles all sit within that.
It depends on the city: on 12 November 2026 three of the four practices in Bari's local pack had a single review, while in Bologna and Verona the range was 16 to 130. Within 5 km of the three city centres, only 5 of 499 accountant listings had 30 or more.
It depends: Google wants a profile for the practice and allows a personal listing only for a practitioner who is reachable by the public at that address during stated hours. For a small practice, one profile collects all the reviews and is usually the better choice.
Yes, if they are real prices for a defined service. In our test ChatGPT recommended a Bologna practice with 2 reviews precisely because its website gave the price of its flat-rate service.
No, if it covers national news: the tax authority and online services win there. Write about your own council's taxes instead: for "imu bologna 2026" the first result was an article by a Bologna practice, above the council's pages.
Where to start (the profile first, then the council)
5 of 499 listings with 30+ reviews.
In Bari, one review got a practice into the map.
The tax-desk map is a different race.
On Bologna's property tax, a practice outranks the council.
ChatGPT picks practices that state service and price.
The rest of the work on maps, citations and pages is in our guide to local SEO, and if you would like to do it together, start from our SEO service page.
One last thing, which the June figures tell better than we can. Someone searching "imu bologna" (1,300 times in June 2026) has just found out they owe something they cannot work out: that is the moment they decide whether they need an accountant. The practice that answers them that week, naming their council, is on their shortlist before they ever open Maps.
