How to generate CPA blog topics for your firm

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Say goodbye to writer’s block with these easy ways to inspire new ideas for your accounting blog.

Accountants and bookkeepers who are blogging are helping themselves remain competitive.

If you’re an accountant or bookkeeper who writes and publishes blogs on your firm’s website, you’re probably well aware that they’re an excellent way to position yourself as an expert. And when you write and publish informative, engaging and authoritative pieces, you’re increasing your chances of attracting potential clients.

Yet, there’s a flip side: the need to come up with CPA blog topics, bookkeeping topics or more general finance topics you can blog about, week after week. After week.

The challenge of coming up with CPA blog topics

When you first start writing blogs, it’s likely you’ll be excited about the new venture and have a long list of topics to write about. Once you’ve published blogs on all those topics, however, you may struggle to come up with new ideas (we’ve been there!) Then you might event feel pressure to come up with something quick, so you can stick to your publishing schedule.

We’re here to help. Below, you’ll find our list of ways to come up with CPA blog topics for your firm and say goodbye to writer’s block and the curse of the blinking cursor.

Connect words through a word-association exercise to spark ideas for blog posts.

Brainstorm through word association

Grab a notepad and a pen and write down words associated with what you do – think of this as a word-association exercise. Write the words randomly on the page, don’t feel you have to list them. Then draw a line that connects one word to another word or two. Keep doing this with other words on the page.

For example, you may have written down “accounting,” “clients,” “small business,” “audits,” “deadlines,” “tax returns,” and “financial advice.” Then you may have drawn a line from the word “accounting” to “clients” to “financial advice.” Boom – there’s your blog topic: Financial advice accounting professionals actually follow.

Another example is linking “small business” and “audits” to generate a blog on how to avoid tax audits as a small business owner.

Consider the time of year

There’s no doubt you’re busy during tax season, and your clients might be, too. Leverage this time of year for accounting and finance blog ideas. For example, you can write about expenses that are tax deductible, the Top 5 mistakes people make when filing their own income taxes, or what people can do if they’ve made a mistake on their income tax return.

In January, you can blog about creating a budget for the year ahead or on how to save more money during the coming year.

Think about what keeps your clients up at night

Take a closer look at who your clients are and why they come to you. What do they need help with from your accounting practice? Do a lot of your clients require help with the same thing? Identify patterns, and you’ll likely discover something to blog about.

Maybe your clients are small business owners. One of them may be wondering what his or her next move should be when it comes to expanding his or her business. Or perhaps you specialize in international taxation and have a client confused about whether or not he or she needs to pay local taxes on the salary he or she earned while working abroad.

Christopher Cousins and Anna Gunn as Ted Beneke and Skyler White in Breaking Bad.

Watch, read and listen

Watch or read the news and consume content in general – books, movies, TV shows, podcasts – whatever you like. An accounting news story or an episode of a TV show that taps into what you do can inspire a blog topic.

For instance, remember the hit series Breaking Bad, when Ted Beneke asked Skyler to help him cover up tax fraud and she posed as a dim-witted bookkeeper to fool the IRS? That scene can spark a blog on what to do if you’re being audited, or a blog titled, “Signs it’s time to replace your bookkeeper.”

Or perhaps a story on the news reported on changes to tax laws. You can then expand on that by blogging about what impact these changes will have on your clients.

Keyword research

you’ve gathered a few topic ideas, you can validate them to ensure they are actually what people are searching for, on search engines like Google and Bing. This is called keyword research. You can also use this process to find new blog ideas.

A keyword or keywords are basically the words you enter into the search bar of a search engine. A good way to come up with blog topic ideas using keywords is to enter your keyword into the Google search bar and see what comes up as suggested terms right below the search bar. You can also look at “Related searches” at the bottom of the search results page.

Once you have your keywords, you can enter them into a free tool like Ubersuggest and see things like the search volume for your keyword, and even keyword ideas. You might find your topics don’t appear here, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write about them. There are a lot of terms that don’t track on tools like this, but it’s even better if they are topics people are searching for.

Use a blog ideas generation tool

If you’re really stuck for CPA blog topics, you can always turn to an online blog ideas generation tool.

These are websites where you enter one or two words into a search box, click a button, and then the tool generates and presents you with one or more ideas. HubSpot’s Blog Ideas Generator is one example of these tools. We also like SEOPressor.

By blogging about your area of expertise, you can instill credibility in potential clients, which helps turn them into actual clients.

Conclusion

Writing and publishing accounting blog posts is a great way to position yourself as an expert in your industry – someone clients can trust and want to work with. Ideally, your blog content should provide your readers with value, whether it’s in the form of education or entertainment.

There are several ways to generate CPA blog topics for your accounting firm on a regular basis. Set aside some time to do some word association, plug keywords into an online tool, read a magazine article or two, or list the common things your clients need help with. Throw in some keyword research and before you know it, you’ll have a fresh batch of ideas.

Remember, too, that blogs are just one of several tools and strategies you can use to grab potential clients’ attention.

Another strategy is outsourced accounting. By outsourcing your day-to-day accounting or bookkeeping tasks to a global team, you’ll have more time to focus on attracting clients and/or delivering superior service to your current clients. Curious to learn more? Then sign up to receive a free checklist for accountants.