A growing share of local searches start inside ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity — not on Google. For accounting firms, that shift is brutal: prospects ask highly specific questions ('best CPA for S-corp', 'accountant for freelancers') and get a short list of names. If you're not on it, the inquiry never reaches you.
Why accounting firms get skipped
- Brochure-style websites with no clear service taxonomy
- Missing or incorrect schema (models guess your specialism)
- Thin corroboration — few directory mentions, reviews, or third-party citations
- Copy written for humans scanning a page, not machines extracting entities
The 3-step fix
- Entity clarity — one sentence on who you serve, what you do, and how you're credentialed
- Structured data — AccountingService schema, FAQ blocks, and crawlable HTML
- Citation seeding — consistent mentions on directories, forums, and publications LLMs already trust
You don't need to dominate every query overnight. You need enough semantic consistency that when someone asks an AI for an accountant like you, your firm is a plausible, named answer.