Writing high-quality accounting and tax content is a key aspect of the SEO strategy for your accounting firm or bookkeeping business. For most accounting firms, the problem is finding time for content writing. Many business owners and marketing professionals attempt to press the easy button on content marketing by using artificial intelligence (AI), with mixed success. AI offers speed and efficiency, but it’s not infallible. Short of finding a unicorn—a full-time accounting content writer with a deep understanding of accounting and tax and a knack for writing engaging content—where can you find accurate, engaging, and original content website content, newsletters, and white papers in a field as precise and regulated as accounting and tax?
AI is a good start, but you still need a human touch.
Photo by hannah grace on Unsplash
AI’s role in accounting content writing
AI-powered tools like ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and others are useful tools in the content creation process. They can generate large volumes of content quickly, producing blog posts, articles, newsletters, and more in a fraction of the time it would take a human writer.
Editing tools like Grammarly can improve grammar and make suggestions to enhance the quality of your writing skills. SEO tools like Surfer recommend word count and keywords, making it easy to optimize content for search engines, ensuring better visibility and reach.
Despite these advantages, AI has its limitations.
Hallucinations
Generative AI is prone to “hallucinations.” It can sometimes generate content that appears plausible but is factually incorrect. Hallucinations can be particularly problematic in technical fields like accounting and taxes.
Out-of-date data
AI can also present out-of-date information. It relies on the data it has been trained on, which may not always reflect the most current laws and regulations. Tax code and accounting guidance change quickly, and inaccurate or outdated information can lead to serious repercussions for customers and prospective clients who rely on your content for guidance in financial management, choosing accounting software, and preparing tax returns.
Most clients depend on you for accurate and current information to make informed financial decisions. Inaccurate or outdated content can damage your company’s reputation and erode client trust, so you need to ensure reliability in every piece of content you publish.
Red flags
Anyone who spends enough time using AI tools for content writing can spot AI-generated content pretty quickly.
In my experience, just about every AI-generated blog starts with some version of “In the rapidly evolving landscape of …” AI also loves to use the word “delve” and is passionate about the passive voice.
If a human can spot low-quality, AI-generated content within minutes, Google’s clever algorithms will spot low-quality content in nano-seconds. While search engines don’t penalize AI-generated content by default, they do prioritize high-quality, helpful content. If your is doesn’t demonstrate expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, it will be penalized in the search results.
Lack of contextual understanding
OK, I’m certainly not an authority on how AI works, but I do know it uses Large Language Models to detect patterns and predict what words will follow other words. It doesn’t actually “understand” accounting services or taxes. Instead, it makes predictions based on all the information it’s trained on.
As a result, AI-powered writing tools can have a tough time understanding the context and nuance of certain topics. It might confuse two accounting or bookkeeping terms that sound similar, misinterpret certain phrases, or fail to capture the intended meaning of a topic.
A human writer with deep accounting knowledge, on the other hand, is able to understand complex auditing and accounting topics. They can also incorporate human emotions and cultural references to write content that resonates with readers. That gives your writing a personal touch that a computer simply can’t replicate.
Lacking a brand voice
Maintaining a consistent brand voice is essential to content marketing. Your content should reflect your firm’s values and expertise and provide clients with a sense of familiarity and trust.
AI-generated content often lacks a nuanced understanding of your brand’s tone and personality. Engineering prompts in ChatGPT that reflect your brand voice is possible, but it’s difficult and not always reliable. That human touch is just a tough thing to fake.
If you don’t have time to polish your content yourself, pay for a content-writing service or accounting content writer who does.
Tips for using AI to create high-quality content
Despite these potential downsides, I’m not opposed to using AI-powered tools in the content creation process. However, I think it’s essential to remember that they’re a tool in the content writing process—not a replacement for an experienced and talented accounting content writer or editor.
That said, here are a few tips for leveraging AI’s benefits in your tax and accounting writing.
- Require human review and editing. AI is great at coming up with ideas and putting drafts together, but always have a human carefully review, edit, and fact-check AI-generated content. This ensures accuracy, relevance, and consistency with your brand voice.
- Stay updated. AI tools are changing quickly. Using a free version of ChatGPT or another GenAI platform might be cost-effective, but it might be learning on out-of-date data. If content is a big part of your digital marketing strategy, it’s worth paying for the latest and greatest tools.
- Incorporate human insights. Blend AI-generated insights with human expertise. Have your accountants and tax professionals provide input to ensure the content is both accurate and insightful. Using quotes or other attributions from CPAs and other credible professionals also helps with your content’s authoritativeness—a crucial part of Google’s E-E-A-T Search Quality Rater Guidelines for SEO success.
- Clear definitions. One common content bottleneck in many firms is the difficulty of writing about complex topics in an engaging and accessible way. Whether you use AI, freelance writers, or content writing services, avoid using complex financial jargon without explanation. Ensure that your content is accessible to readers by providing clear definitions and explanations.
- Focus on quality over quantity. Prioritize providing high-quality, accurate information over producing a large volume of content. High-quality content builds trust and credibility.
- Be transparent about the use of AI. This might be controversial, but I think it’s a good idea to be honest about using AI in your content writing. Being transparent improves trust, and accounting, taxes, and bookkeeping are fields where trust is everything. (Full disclosure: I used ChatGPT to draft this article, spent a couple of hours polishing and editing it, and then used Surfer to help with SEO.)
Conclusion: Don’t forget the human touch in accounting content writing
AI can be a powerful tool for creating content for CPA firms, bookkeeping services, and accounting businesses. But just as AI won’t replace accountants, financial analysts, and auditing professionals, we shouldn’t think of Generative AI tools as a replacement for humans with experience writing web copy, articles, and other pieces of content.
AI simply can’t replace the personal touch. Ensuring your content is accurate, relevant, and consistent with your brand voice requires knowledge, research, and thoughtful human oversight. By supplementing your accounting writing services with the speed of AI, you can create better writing that builds trust and credibility with your clients.
If you need help creating, editing, and fact-checking your AI-created articles or website copy, please reach out! As a professional tax and accounting content writer with a background in accounting and taxes for small businesses and individuals, I’d love to help you produce well-researched content that is accurate, engaging, and perfectly aligned with your brand voice.
