Maxwell Locke & Ritter LLP

Overview

Consistently voted by Accounting Today as one of the “Best Accounting Firms to Work For”, Maxwell Locke & Ritter LLP (ML&R) provides comprehensive financial guidance and accounting services to nonprofit, government, business, and other high-net worth clients. The client contacted us to reduce their website bounce rate and help improve page load speed. The client sought our help to develop and implement an effective local search engine optimization strategy and optimize their website to help improve user experience and grow their brand. 

See how our team was able to grow the number of high quality backlinks by more than 1,247.7% and improve the average ranking position for important keywords.

Problem

The client’s main goals for the campaign were to improve user experience by improving page load speed and to reduce bounce rates on its blogs, service pages, and home page. Existing website copy did not contain valuable keywords. Oversized, broken, and unoptimized images were negatively impacting page load speed. Our SEO audit identified opportunities to improve the visibility in search engine results such as adding missing alt text, including more descriptive file names, re-formatting the blog page and posts, redirecting 404 errors, and more.

The client wanted to grow their customer base for all their accounting-related keywords. They wanted to improve their relevant keyword ranking positions and increase conversions as a result of driving more qualified traffic.

Solution

Search Engine Optimization

There were multiple internal links pointing to missing pages. Our team removed 404 pages from the HTML sitemap and redirected them, as well as 404-error backlinks. We also secured several new backlinks for ML&R from high domain authority websites.

To enhance the website’s listed pages on search engines and improve rankings, we added breadcrumb schema, addressed schema errors and duplicate code issues, added an XML sitemap, and enabled the Robots.txt file that was missing. 

Our SEO copywriting team completed optimized content for the home, category, resources, Contact us, and service pages. We compressed all oversized images without quality loss, and added descriptive alt texts. To improve the bounce rate, session duration, traffic to the website, and leads, we updated the format of the blog posts to provide a more meaningful user experience and reduce friction to take the next action. We added questions and easy to follow sections in the blog posts and also put in article schema markups to increase the likelihood of the blog posts appearing at the top of search engine results pages.

Maxwell, Locke and Ritter LLP Blog Post on How the SECURE Act, SECURE 2.0 Act, and IRS Notice 2024-35 Impact Tax Planning for Inherited IRAs

Local Search Engine Optimization

Our local SEO strategy included optimizing ML&R’s Austin and Round Rock Google Business Profiles (GBP) to showcase their services and easily connect with potential customers. The client is able to post updates, list their services, respond to visitors’ queries, and improve their appearance in Google Search and Maps. We also expanded FAQ content sections.  

We created an additional local business profile for the brand to cover their other office, added local business, service, and organization schemas, and continuously monitored performance to help the brand improve rankings in the Local Search Grid (LSG).

Google Business Profile for Maxwell Locke & Ritter Round Rock, TX location
Apple Maps Listings for Maxwell, Locke and Ritter LLP Texas locations

Build Apple Map Listing

We added Apple Map Business Listings to cater to iOS users searching for accounting and finance services using “near me” keywords so Maxwell Locke & Ritter LLP can grow its customer base and market share over competition. 

Results

Within a year, ML&R experienced significant improvements across key metrics: bounce rates decreased by 35.4%, and average session duration increased by 37.3%. Phone clicks and contact form submissions steadily improved. Starting with 1,655 backlinks, our link-building efforts expanded their profile to 22,305 high-quality backlinks, a 1,247.7% increase. Initially, keywords like “commercial real estate accounting” and “entertainment financial services” were unranked; our optimized content achieved first-page rankings for these and others.

Year over year, new visitor bounce rate improved by 67.1%, and returning visitors’ bounce rate by 75.1%. Organic search became the dominant traffic driver, accounting for 85% of total sessions. Pages per session, conversion rates, and average session duration all saw improvements. Goals for phone clicks, contact form submissions, and “apply now” submissions were met.

96%

Contact form submissions growth

18%

User increase

31%

Business profile interaction increase

1,248% increase in backlinks

Quarter over quarter, users increased by 17.6%, sessions by 15.6%, and contact form submissions by 96.3%. The Austin location saw a 30.6% increase in business profile interactions within four months. Local rankings for top priority keywords improved, with “Accounting Austin Texas” rising from #19 to #1, and “Austin Accounting Firms” from #6 to #1.