If you have a meeting with a new client for your CPA firm or are considering a new hire, you might find it valuable to have data collected automatically on a person, group, or company. Here is a breakdown of using Gist, an online service that compiles information on contacts in one handy location for easy reference.

Contact lists and keeping track of the information from those you know is an ongoing project. Even though you may have a person’s basic information, you may not know much else about them unless you take the time to look. Gist not only does all of this for you but also keeps the information organized and updated.

Free Sign Up. Gist is free and easy to sign up for. Once your CPA firm starts using it you might wonder how you did without it.

Communications. Once you connect Gist to your email service then it keeps all the emails and attachments for a particular person or company. The information is available alongside all the other data on that same company making it easier to get an overview before a meeting.

Gist

Blog Posts and Tweets. All related blog posts or tweets are easily referenced. This gives you a quick idea of what a potential accounting client might be considering and a way to automatically connect and break the ice if this is your first meeting.

News About. Gist gathers all relevant articles or news on the client or company. You may need to look closely at this type of information to make sure it is accurate for the client. There are times when it might pull in news that seems like it is for that person but in fact it has no connection.

Automatically Updated. All of the information on all your CPA contacts is automatically gathered in one handy location and updated regularly. This makes it so easy to look at if you have only a bit of time before a meeting and want something good to start the conversation off with.

There are all kinds of details on potential or existing clients and companies that can be gathered. Gist makes it easy to keep updated information all in one place.

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Video has increasingly become a lot more commonly used on any website to help give users a quick and easy way to connect with what your website is about. There are some previous posts on how to use video to promote your CPA website.

One of the keys behind using video are the many different video sharing websites that can be used. Using these websites ensures that your message is seen by a lot more people along with being able to have it shown on your own accounting website.

Inspiration. One of the more common questions when using video is when to use it. If your looking for inspiration Proactive Tax Solutions uses video on many pages on of their website in a short yet informative way.

Georgia Rogers from Proactive Tax Solutions

Short Yet Informative. One example of a short but informative video is found on their Engagement Letter page. The points are reinforced via text, the voice is varied for interest, and the user is talking directly to the viewer.

Use of Clients. Another great way that Proactive Tax Solutions uses video is by adding in one of their clients Chuck. Chuck was audited by the IRS and was helped by the firm’s services.

Length. There are any number of thoughts around the best length of a video to use depending upon your content and the people watching. In general if you keep the video to 1-2 minutes in length then you can keep people from being distracted by something else.

Know What You Want to Say. At the very least you should have a list of of points you want to make that you can refer to during the filming. You can also set up your own tele-prompting via a computer screen off camera. Either way try not to make it obvious that you are reading or checking these points.

Video is a great element to add to any CPA website. If you do post it to video sharing sites you can also help to advertise your accounting firm.

Have a comment you want to share? Fill out the comments section below.

Twitter is a great way to socially engage with your CPA firm’s audience and build your brand or online image. It isn’t enough to just have a Twitter account, you then need to use it without having the process take over what little free time you have. Here is a breakdown of some ways to use Twitter effectively without the task being a drain on your limited time.

Stay Focused With A Time Limit

Set a Time Limit. First off set a time limit for when you sit down to work with Twitter and stick to it. A good fifteen or twenty minutes of focused time should be enough once you get into the swing of how things work.

Daily Tweet. Make it a habit to have a daily Tweet. This can be something you have been working on recently, an interesting article that you think might be helpful, or just simply a note of a future deadline or changes in a tax law.

Make sure to do it every day even if you find little motivation. Not all posts will be the best ever but you are establishing yourself as a place for people to go to for information.

Retweet. Take some time to find a person who has an interesting Tweet and retweet it. This means when you mention the idea you give them credit. You can state something like, “RT @cpasitesolution Thanks for the great blog post on our firm’s custom design.”

Mentions of Your Firm. You can search mentions of your firm by searching @yourtwittername. When you find something be sure to respond either directly in a private email or, even better, with a public tweet. This helps establish your CPA firm online even more so then if the comments went unnoticed.

These are all small things you can do each day in a short period of time. If you do them on a regular basis then you incrementally help your firm become even more established with an online presence.

Link building is one of the best ways to strengthen your domain. How you get those links and how relevant they are to your content can affect your domain as well. Here are some things to consider when looking at the link building process.

The Reason Behind a Link. The basic reason a website should have a lot of links to it is not for search engines but because the content of the website is valuable or interesting to a number of people. In other words it isn’t the link that is of value necessarily but the content that another website links to that is of importance. When the value is there, the search engines will naturally take notice.

Content is King. In the early stages of the Internet the saying went, “Content is King.” It is still very true that fresh and relevant content is important for attracting visitors who need the information. As a previous post states, the more unique and relevant your website is to your target audience, the more valuable your site is for search engines.

Duplicate Content. It is a myth that duplicate content, such as content that many other websites might already have, hurts your ranking. In fact, if your target audience finds this content of value, then that duplicate content is good for your website.

What improves your ranking is to add your own unique and fresh content to that same website. Then you can leverage the existing content with your own content to make a website like no other out there and have a good ranking with search engines.

Establish Good Links

Strengthen Your Domain. When other sites link to you it is an indication to the search engines that you have information worth looking at. That is why getting links to your website is a great way to strengthen your domain.

Good Links. Good links come from reputable websites the king of which are .edu or .gov because these are not easy to obtain. That said any already established website that links naturally to your website is a great link. An example would be when CPA Site Solutions links to a CPA website to showcase their great custom design.

When Links Hurt. Many websites have lost the content part and have reduced their existence to pure marketing, links, and advertisements. When you get a link from these, pay for links, or establish link agreements in order to manipulate PageRank then your website violates most search engine guidelines (See Google’s Webmaster Central).

Search engines want to know that people are linking to you because they value your content. They can tell if the links to you are reciprocal links, or worse part of a link scheme such as a link farm. These kind of links will most likely be largely discounted, or worse, actually hurt your rankings. An example of a link farm, is a links page where a bunch of businesses are all linking to each other.

According to Google, a site that participates in a link farm may have its search rankings penalized. If you work with an SEO firm that promises to deliver inbound links to your site, ask them how they will provide those links.

Summary. It is generally believed that SEO efforts are best spent focusing on creating valuable and quality content for your site, and marketing that content. Those who do this best, will naturally get links back to their site and improve their search results because they will be seen as relevant.

It is the sole mission of search engines to show relevant search results. If their search results are not relevant to the search being conducted, then people will stop using that engine. SEO techniques that focus only on improving your search results, often miss the concept of making your site relevant, and the search engines will watch for this.

Having a website for your CPA firm is one of the best ways to have people become aware of your services. There are some previous posts talking about marketing any CPA website.

A Website is Your First Step but Not The Last

The classic word of mouth that you can get from people still goes further than any marketing dollar you can spend. This post is the start of a small series of posts dealing with your online image and how to increase and fine tune what is out there about your firm on the web.

Start with Your CPA Website. If you have a website hosted by CPA Site Solutions then you have tons of great resources and content that both potential and regular clients want to read. Even so it is beneficial as a previous posts touches upon, to make sure you make a number of the pages and ongoing content your own.

Social Platforms. Engage in social platforms like Twitter and Facebook in order to not only increase exposure but to join an ongoing discussion around your profession. The conversation is out there, the more you are not only aware of it but take part, the healthier your CPA firm becomes in terms of being known.

Blogs. Add a blog to your CPA Site Solutions website and update it on a regular basis as a way to provide fresh content for for search engines. There was a previous post on how to start your blog.

Help Others. Answer questions and help others online at certain key websites. There is a previous post that looks at one place to do this. Look for future posts regarding more online avenues to help others.

The key to being online is to engage in multiple sources of media. You can connect with both those that know about you and those that may be interested in your services.

Another year brings another busy tax season full of exchanging documents and obtaining signatures. This process becomes much easier when using the vault that is included with any website hosted by CPA Site Solutions. Here is a breakdown of how to securely and efficiently get documents signed.

Client Set-up. Before you can have a place to upload any documents you need to create user accounts. You can either have the client register themselves or you can add them (see each link with a how-to on each).

Email Notifications

Once a client has been set-up a folder is automatically created for them under the main Client Accounts folder. You may find it easier to create some folders within the clients folder to keep things organized.

Set Email Notifications. After your clients are registered you can have an email sent to specific people in your firm when a file is uploaded. When you set email notifications you can keep an eye on activity within the vault.

Upload Files. You can now upload any files you need the client to fill out or just review and sign. The client can then just fax it back to you and you are done.

Faxing Alternatives. Most documents sent are in the form of a PDF file and these are not editable unless you have the right (read expensive) software. Luckily there is an alternative free PDF editor that you can use instead.

If the client is editing the PDF getting the document signed is a little more involved but not impossible after the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act of 1999. Still you need a signature that works.

You can create a digital signature but you may want to make sure of existing local state laws regarding this before using them. If you don’t have time then printing and faxing the document back works just as well.

The new year brings fresh ideas and new tasks to execute. What if you used a free task manager to help you get organized and stay that way throughout the new year? Toodled is an online task manager tool that helps you follow through on your goals.

Toodled is a Free Online Task Manager

There is a lot to Toodled including Files, Goals, To Do List, Hotlist, Notebook and more. What makes this particular free task manager so handy are the ability to share, mobile features, and scheduling.

Sharing. A lot of  task managers that charge a monthly cost tout the ability to collaborate with others to get projects done. You can do the same for free with Toodled. A group of people can share their list with each other until a project is complete.

Mobility. If you prefer to work on the go chances are your favorite mobile device is supported. In addition to your smart phone if you prefer to have a hard copy you can print out a booklet and keep your to-do list in hand for the day.

Scheduling. One of the limitations of task managers is the ability to have reoccurring tasks. Not only does Toodled have recurring tasks but it also can tell you what to do if you tell it how much time you have available. It does this by analyzing, “your due-dates, priorities, time estimates, last modified dates, and other characteristics to determine the best use of your time.”

The start of year can be busy with a lot of short deadlines. Take a moment to organize the year for free and thank yourself later.

Having an accounting website with CPA Site Solutions means you have the flexibility to incorporate just what you need for your firm’s website. Recently this flexibility has increased with the ability to modify your DNS settings. Here is a breakdown of how that works and why you might want to take advantage of it.

DNS Settings

DNS what? In general if you are unfamiliar with what DNS settings are then you won’t want to change anything. Instead you can give the keys and these instructions over to your IT person or department.

How to get there.

• First follow the instructions on how to get to the webalizer (your website stats).
• Once you sign in scroll down to the bottom of the cPanel to the section titled “Domains.”
• For very simple changes you can use the “Simple DNS Zone Editor” (add new A and CNAME Records).
• For more complicated changes use the “Advanced DNS Zone Editor.” (add or change A, CNAME, and TXT records).

How this helps. Generally this can save you or your IT person a step by not having to contact CPA Site Solutions to get a record changed. For example, this can help speed up the time it takes to have go through a 3rd party verification process if that process requests a CNAME record change. Another great example is if you host your own email on an exchange server and need to update the IP address of that server.

Being able to directly change your DNS settings is just another way you have control over your CPA website.  More flexibility and control are a good thing right?

Changes still done. If none of this makes sense to you or if you don’t have the time to make any record changes then CPA Site Solutions can still do that for you. If you ever have a record change you need made you can email support@cpasitesolutions.com or call 800-896-4500.

One of the benefits of a CPA Site Solutions’ website is that you can add just about any web application to it. There are some previous posts you can see if you click on the website tools category of the blog. Recent examples of those previous posts that talk about web applications you can add include driving directions, free live chat, and adding a comments box to your blog.

There is another web application called Skysa that you can use to add a bar with links to the bottom of any or every page of your website. You should be aware that the application is still being tested so may have some unknown bugs. Deen Saleh, who notified CPA Site Solutions about the application and has a website with CPA Site Solutions, hasn’t had any problems using it.

Interaction 2.0. Skysa is an example of some cool new interactive Web 2.0 functionality that is making it’s way online. As with any online application it is good to use them sparingly so as to avoid overpowering the user.

What is nice about the Skysa bar is that it scrolls with the page while remaining at the bottom. The style is out of the way and yet the links you can add help bring any user into all that you have to offer. The immediate interactivity added via comments can help give you another way to understand your CPA website from a users perspective.

Image of the Toolbar

How it works. After you sign up for the free account you add your website url and start making changes to the settings. You can change the style of the bar and what applications show.

If you look at the bottom of this page you should see the bar created for this posting. This bar has the default colors but the links that show have been customized to display Comments, RSS Feed, Twitter, and Share. There are many more that you can add especially if you get the paid addition.

Adding to Your CPA Website. Once you get the bar set with the colors and applications you want to display,copy and paste the Bar Code to add to your accounting website. You can add that yourself in the HTML code view.

Alternatively you can send an email to support@cpasitesolutions.com. If you send an email be sure to include your domain and if you want the bar to display for every page or, if not, then what page you want it on.

Try the comments. What do you think? Do you want to know about new applications you can add to your accounting website? Send a comment.

There is a lot of outstanding content found on any CPA web site hosted by CPA Site Solutions. Even so it is good to add some personal touches to help you stand out. In order to help personalize your web site, here are a couple ideas for creating some interesting and fun header variations.

Regular Contact Us Image

Although there are many stock photos to use for free in the header of any web page, a personal photo can add a nice touch. Some possibilities include adding a picture of your office to the contact us page header area to a picture of each person in their own firm profile header page. You need to add a custom page header to do any of these.

Custom Page Header Image

Custom Page Header Image. There is a previous post that goes through how to add a custom image to your header area. To cut down on the time it takes for the image to display be sure to re-size your image to about 100 by 100 pixels. See a previous post if you need a quick free photo editor.

Of course adding an image is only part of the process. You can also change the font used. Although you can certainly do this through the regular website editor, you can also take advantage of a custom font.

Your Own Font. You can actually create your own font from your own handwriting for free! Try fontcapture an online web site that requires no software to use. You download a template, fill it out, scan it, upload it and then your font is ready for download. Once downloaded you just need to add the font in Windows.

Create An Image. The only part to recognize about fonts is that every user has to have your font on their computer or it won’t display. You can get around this by writing with your new font with something like Gimp or other program that can output an image file (jpg, png, giff).

Once you have this image of your text you can then upload it to display in the header area. There are all kinds of variations you can create outside of the normal font choices. It can be fun to find something personally appealing or that matches a custom logo to display in the page header area.