What should an accountant blog about?

The short answer

An accountant should blog about the questions clients ask before they ever pick up the phone: deadlines, tax changes, what they can claim, and what a service involves. Write one clear answer per post, time the deadline posts ahead of each deadline, and end every post by pointing to the service that solves the problem.

Below are 25 blog ideas sorted into eight types, a way to find more from your own inbox, a calendar a small firm can keep up, and how to check the blog is bringing in work. The example titles are made up to show each type. Swap in your own clients and your own area.

Why a blog wins work for an accountant

People look for an answer before they look for an accountant. A sole trader searches "what can I claim working from home", a new landlord searches "do I need to do a tax return for rental income". The firm whose page answers that question clearly is the first firm they meet, at the moment they need help.

A blog post does three jobs a service page cannot do on its own:

• It meets people earlier. Someone searching a question is not yet comparing firms. A useful answer gets you onto their list before the comparison starts.
• It shows how you explain things. Clients want an accountant who makes tax make sense. A clear post is proof of that, in a way a list of services is not.
• It gives you something to share. Each post is material for LinkedIn, your newsletter and replies to client emails, so the writing pays off more than once.

Why answers like these help a site appear in Google, and how to write them so search engines trust them, is covered in our guide to how SEO works for accountants. This guide is about what to write and how to keep it going.

Pick topics from client questions

The best topics come from your inbox, not from what the firm wants to talk about. A post about your new software interests you. A post about "why is my January tax bill so high?" interests the people who might hire you.

• Keep a question log for a month.Ask everyone who answers the phone or client emails to note each question in a shared document, in the client's own words. Those words are what people type into Google.
• Look at your first calls with new enquirers. What did they not understand? What were they worried about? Each worry is a post.
• Match questions to services. Keep the questions that lead to work you want more of. If you want more landlord clients, landlord questions go to the top.
• Check the question is still open. Search it yourself. If the top results are vague, out of date or written for the US, there is room for a clear UK answer from a local firm.
• Write one question per post."Everything about Self Assessment" is a book. "What happens if I miss the Self Assessment deadline?" is a post.

25 blog ideas for accountants

Here are eight types of post, with example titles for each. The titles are made-up examples to adapt, not titles known to rank. Before writing about a rule, check the current position on GOV.UK, because thresholds and dates change.

1. Rule explainers (4 ideas)

Explain a rule in plain words and say who it affects. These are the posts people search for most when something changes.

• "Making Tax Digital for Income Tax: when does it apply to you?"
• "Do I need to register for VAT? How the threshold works"
• "Payments on account explained: why your January bill is bigger than you expected"
• "What the Budget means for [sole traders / landlords / small companies]", written in the week after each Budget

2. Deadline posts (3 ideas)

A deadline post tells people what to do and by when. Publish it four to six weeks before the date, while there is still time to act and to hire help.

• "Self Assessment: what we need from you, and by when, to file before 31 January"
• "Expenses and benefits forms are due by 6 July: what employers need to gather"
• "Tax year end checklist: five things to do before 5 April"

3. Guides for one type of client (3 ideas)

Pick the clients you serve best and write for them by name. A post for one trade beats a post for "small businesses", because the reader can tell it is about them.

• "What records a landlord should keep, and for how long"
• "Expenses a self-employed hairdresser can and cannot claim"
• "Going limited as a contractor: a first-year checklist"

4. Jargon busters (3 ideas)

Take one term clients nod along to without understanding, and explain it in under 500 words with an example.

• "What is a balancing payment?"
• "Accounts or tax return: what is the difference, and do I need both?"
• "Profit, cash and turnover: three numbers every owner should know"

5. Myth busters (3 ideas)

Take something clients wrongly believe and correct it kindly. Explain the actual rule and what to do instead.

• "'If it's for the business, it's tax deductible': not quite"
• "'I don't need an accountant until I'm VAT registered'"
• "'HMRC will tell me if I owe tax': why waiting is risky"

6. Client stories, with consent (3 ideas)

Show a real problem and how it was solved. Get the client's written consent first, or change the details so nobody can be identified. The rules section below explains why.

• "How a local café got its books ready for Making Tax Digital"
• "From a shoebox of receipts to monthly figures: one client's first year"
• "What changed when a client moved from sole trader to limited company"

7. Behind the firm (3 ideas)

Show how working with you feels. These posts help the reader who is already comparing two or three firms.

• "What happens in your first month with us"
• "Meet the person who will look after your payroll"
• "How we handle your year-end accounts, step by step"

8. Checklists (3 ideas)

Checklists get saved, printed and forwarded. Keep them short and practical.

• "Self Assessment checklist: the documents to send your accountant"
• "Starting a business: the first ten tax and admin jobs"
• "Year-end checklist for limited company directors"

How often to post, and a realistic calendar

For a small firm, one good post a month is enough to start. Twice a month is better if someone has the time to do it properly. What matters is keeping it up for a year: a blog with four posts from last January and nothing since makes a firm look busy in the wrong way.

The tax year gives you a ready-made calendar. Plan the deadline posts first, four to six weeks ahead of each date, then fill the other months with guides, explainers and stories. The dates below are from GOV.UK pages on Self Assessment deadlines, payments on account and employers' expenses and benefits deadlines. Check them each year before you publish.

• Late February or early March: tax year end checklist. The tax year ends on 5 April and the new one starts on 6 April.
• Late May or early June: expenses and benefits for employers. Reports and employee copies are due by 6 July after the end of the tax year.
• Mid June: payments on account. The second payment towards a Self Assessment bill is due by 31 July.
• Late August: registering for Self Assessment. Someone who needs to send a return and has not sent one before must usually tell HMRC by 5 October after the end of the tax year.
• September: paper returns. HMRC must receive a paper tax return by 31 October.
• December: the January deadline. Online returns and the tax owed are due by 31 January.
• The week after each Budget: what it means for your main client types. Have the outline ready in advance.

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax gives landlord and sole trader clients a run of questions over the next few years. GOV.UK's Making Tax Digital for Income Tax guidance says those with qualifying income over £30,000 in the 2025 to 2026 tax year will need to use it from 6 April 2027, and those over £20,000 in the 2026 to 2027 tax year from 6 April 2028. Each of those dates is a post worth planning months ahead.

A blog is one channel among several. For how it fits with your website, search, social media and email in one plan, see our guide to digital marketing for accountants.

Turn each post into an enquiry

A post that answers the question and then stops leaves the reader with nowhere to go. Each post needs one clear next step, linked to the service that solves the problem it describes.

• Answer the question in the opening. Do not hold the answer back to force a call. People who get a straight answer trust the firm that gave it.
• Name the point where it gets complicated."If you also have rental income from abroad, the rules change" tells the reader when they need help, without overselling.
• Use one call to action, matched to the post.A Self Assessment post ends with "Send us your documents by [date] and we will file it for you", not a general "Contact us".
• Link to the service page.Every post should link to the page for the service it relates to, with words that describe it, such as "our landlord tax returns service".
• Make contact easy. Put a phone number and a short enquiry form at the foot of every post. Do not ask for an email address just to read the post.
• Say who wrote it and when.A named, qualified author and a "last checked" date tell the reader the figures can be trusted.

Stay within your professional body's rules

A blog post is promotional material, so the same rules apply to it as to the rest of your marketing. ICAEW's helpsheet on marketing makes several points that matter for a blog:

• Client stories need consent.It says using a client's testimonial is in order if the client has consented, and that the relationship between a firm and a client is confidential, so without consent it would be inappropriate.
• No disparaging other firms. It says firms must not say anything that disparages or discredits the practice or services of others, even a statement that is objectively true.
• No exaggerated or unsupported claims. It says firms should not make exaggerated claims for their services, qualifications or experience, and should be able to back up any claim of size or superiority.

ACCA, AAT, ICB and the other bodies have their own codes, so check your own body's code as well. Beyond the rules, accuracy is the main risk. A post with last year's threshold can mislead a reader, so review each post when the rules change and update the "last checked" date.

Reuse each post on social media and email

One blog post can give you a month of social posts and a section of your newsletter. The research is already done; you only need to cut it into smaller pieces.

• Week 1: the answer in two or three sentences, with a link to the full post.
• Week 2: the most common mistake the post warns about.
• Week 3: one item from the checklist, or one example from the post.
• Week 4: a reminder of the deadline or the date the change starts.

For more angles, our social media post ideas for accountants work well alongside a blog post. In your monthly email, give each new post a short summary and a link; our guide to email marketing for accountants covers what to send and who you can send it to.

Cutting a post into social posts is the step most firms skip, because it comes after the writing feels finished. It is also the step Pillr does for accountancy firms: it reads your website, drafts a month of posts in the firm's voice, and schedules them to LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram once a partner has approved each one.

How to tell if the blog is working

Judge the blog on enquiries, then on the searches it appears for. Visitor numbers on their own say little: a post can get plenty of readers from outside your area who will never hire you.

• Ask every enquirer how they found you. Note when someone mentions a post. One enquiry from a landlord who read your landlord guide tells you more than a thousand visits.
• Look at the searches in Google Search Console.Google's help page on the Search Console Performance report explains that it shows the queries people typed, with clicks, impressions (how often your site appeared) and average position, and that you can group the figures by page. Filter to one post and see which questions it shows up for.
• Use the queries for your next topics. If a post appears for a question it does not answer well, add a section or write a new post that does.
• Watch for posts that appear but are not clicked. Many impressions and few clicks usually means the title does not match what people searched for. Rewrite the title in their words.
• Review once a quarter. Update posts whose figures have changed, add links from new posts to older ones on the same subject, and drop topics that never led to a question or an enquiry.

Give the blog at least six months of steady posting before deciding whether it works. New pages take time to be found, and the deadline posts only show their value when the deadline comes round.

If you want to see what a month of social posts from your own website would look like, paste your firm's address on the Pillr home page, or look at plans and pricing.

Questions accountants ask