Looking for a way to make tax season simpler? Our Tax Organizer just got its annual makeover and is ready for the 2011 tax season.

This next-generation Tax Organizer is a dynamic web application that allows your clients to organize their tax information online, saving you time when preparing their taxes. You and your clients can securely access your client’s tax information anytime from anywhere, eliminating the time and expense involved in mailing paper organizers.

As always, the fully customizable Organizer offers you a secure way to catalogue your clients’ documentation and returns from year-to-year. Encouraging your clients to use the Tax Organizer can save you both the hassle of driving around town to deliver paperwork, and saves you the hassle of having to manually enter their information into your tax software.

Interested in learning more about the Tax Organizer? Click here to watch a video.

Since you’re reading this blog I’m going to make a number of significant assumptions about you.

I’ll just assume you are an accountant, I’m also going to assume that you either have or soon will have a website, and finally I’m going to assume that you have already taken to heart the importance of the internet marketing in getting prospective customers to contact you. I’m assuming you already recognize the web is an enormously competitive market that changes really fast, and that in order to make use of it effectively as a prospecting platform it’s necessary to have optimized content with a very high degree of relevance to user searches.

To be frank I’m presuming a lot, here.

If all this is news to you then I’d suggest getting started immediately on finding a really good accountant website for your practice, and then coming back here to learn more.

You actually need good accountant websites in order to get this to work, but once you have a superior site under your belt, if you know a few simple tricks, you can start the procedure of improving your search engine profile.

This is the key to growing your firm in the information age.

Now we’re not going to tell you everything you need to know about SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, but we are going to get you started.

First, SEO changes fast, so if you haven’t been keeping up forget everything you think you know about it.

There was a time not to long ago when it was easy to get a good ranking in the search engines. All you had to do was “stuff” your pages with keywords, you could even hide them as invisible text or on pages that only the search engines could see, and you’d soon find yourself at the very top of the rankings.

Those days are long gone. Search engines began to recognize that these techniques were not necessarily leading end users to the kind of relevant information they were looking for, so the meta-crawlers were updated and SEO best practices had to change along with them.

Still, the appropriate use of keywords within page content is remains vital to the success of well optimized accountant websites. For example, a web page contains two “meta tags” that are still considered very important.

Meta tags don’t actually appear on the page, but the search engines see them as “titles” and “descriptions”. This is so the meta-crawlers that determine the relevance of websites will look to headlines and titles for the use of keywords. If the content of the page and the meta tags match the search engines will notice this, and this will boost the page’s “relevance” score.

Don’t even bother with cheesy old-school cheats like tiny text, keyword stuffing, gateway pages and mouse-over redirects. These tricks not only won’t work they’ll actually tick off the search engines.

Another type of meta tag, perhaps the most famous, is called the keyword list. Don’t waste your time on it. Most search engines don’t apply any importance to your keyword list, and if any still do they’re not giving it much more than a backwards glance. It can’t hurt to use the tag, but don’t expect any real results from it.

So how does this apply specifically to accountant websites?

Well like all businesses before you can start building links you need to get your tags in order. Use your tags. Make sure your page titles and descriptions are honestly descriptive of your page content and give all your important pages (especially your home page) unique tags.

You can also boost visibility by referencing your local area frequently–this will capture you a larger share of the people who are searching for CPA websites within your city or region.

On it’s own a website only has so much power, and in order to really do well in the search engines you’ll need help from other sites. That’s why more and more accountant websites are using blogs to boost both readership and rankings.

Blogs support effective websites in two vital ways. For one thing it’s a great way to draw readers. Accountant websites are great tools, but blogs are a lot more dynamic and fun. You can also use your blog to link to your main website, and search engines love that. It will be really good for your rankings to have an active blog full of relevant content linking to your your site. This lets you develop calls to action that ask the visitor to click through to your main website. And, obviously… you’ll attract fresh readers to the website. Readers are potential customers, so the more readers you earn the more customers you’ll get in the end.

If you’re trying to grow your CPA firm these days, you need to go online. The business world is now wide open, and you could find yourself bringing in leads from around the planet. However, once you’ve put yourself out there on the world wide web, are you losing potential customers by failing to communicate quickly enough?

Just having good CPA website isn’t in and of itself enough. You need to know how to use it effectively.

Financial professionals run into 5 dangers when first getting into the web space. Crafting a solid online presence requires a number of different tactics: social networking (like Twitter and Facebook), drawing attention to your site via article marketing and other tactics.

But what if you haven’t planned ahead for the increase in communication? But what if you aren’t sure how to find the blog comments and respond to them?

Take the following paragraphs into account as you craft a plan to meet the needs of your customers and deliver outstanding results as you expand into cyberspace.

Got a Comment on Your Blog? You MUST Respond!

Making a blog is an excellent way to attract a customer base and keep the world informed about where your business is heading. It also helps keep your website dynamic and interesting. But don’t just “set it and forget it.” If someone gives you feedback in the form of a blog comment, you have to comment on that comment. It’s just plain polite to respond to people who have made the effort to read your work. When you do, you show your professionalism, and you also keep any negative situation from getting out of control.

If you take the time to respond to each comment, you’ll find your blog receiving greater and greater attention. By the same token, if you ignore your commenters, others who check out your posts won’t be encouraged to leave a response.

Respond in Good Time to Emails

This one’s a big one: if you’re leaving email unanswered for weeks at a time – or even worse, not answering them at all – your customers are not going to be your customers very long. The best course of action is to set up your email client with an auto-response so that your clients know the email has reached you. After that, it’s best to reply as quickly as you can in person, even if it is just an “I will look into that” response in the interim.

Keep Track of Your Forums

Forums are notoriously difficult to make popular, so why would you leave questions unanswered and comments ignored? If you decide to start a forum, it’s absolutely critical that you monitor it regularly (check in every hour or so) and respond to all worthy posts – especially if they’re negative. And it goes without saying that all spam and otherwise inappropriate posts should be promptly removed.

Take Twitter Seriously

The age of Twitter is here. Even if you can’t stand this social networking microblogging phenomenon, your clients might be deeply involved in it. Folks are now using Twitter as a way to reach companies – and, alarmingly, lodge complaints against them. (They also say nice things, too.) Assume that folks ARE reading these comments and make sure you respond to them. It’s certainly important for the person who leaves the message – but it’s even more crucial for anyone “watching” your conversation to see that you haven’t ignored your naysayers and supporters. Respond to negative and positive tweets alike: ask the user to contact your company for a resolution, or thank them for their positive comment. This will engage them in a medium with which they are comfortable and may even get some exposure to your website and firm from your clients friends.

Being actively involved with your customers in this way can be the difference between success and failure in a competitive market.

Take Internet Messages As Seriously As Old-fashioned Letters

The object of both types of communication are the same, after all. But we can’t deny it: almost no one sends letters today. Email has taken their place – and whereas email is used casually in our social lives, in business, it should be treated with as much care as one treats a letter.

If you decide to get online – and I definitely suggest you do – please don’t make the same mistake made by others. Getting a quality CPA website up and running and then going back to business as usual is not going to work.

A well considered CPA website design can successfully bring in potential clients using landing pages that contain these 5 key factors. This article gives you information about what techniques CPA websites ought to employ when establishing a knockout lead capture page.

Accounting & tax prep businesses with a terrific CPA website design will find it is simpler to entice future clients when they utilize a squeeze page or landing page. Studies have shown that this is an effective and proven method of acquiring leads. There are a number of ways you can use to create landing pages if you don’t have time to do it yourself such as employ a copywriter to write for you or utilise a landing page generator like Instant Splash. A lead capture page is essential in obtaining a site visitor’s contact information and is essential for any business operating online today. But any old landing page won’t do. The lead capture page must be formatted in such a way as to capture your visitor’s attention and get them to enter their contact details. With that in mind, here are the five key elements of a killer lead capture page for accounting firms with websites.

1. Headline

Nothing grabs a reader’s attention like a great headline. Write a good headline and you’ll see results right away. Great headlines are usually short. They don’t need to sell anything, they just need to be compelling enough to get a prospect’s attention–fast. If you don’t, chances are your prospect will move on to another CPA’s website.

2. Use Subheadings to Make a Point

Subheads are placed just below the headline. Whereas headlines are short, subheadings provide more detail and are a little longer.

Subheads also break up the sales copy and make it easier for your readers to digest the information that’s presented. There are a couple of ways to use them. For example you can use them as an opportunity to introduce a graphic or a screenshot of your product. It doesn’t really matter how you use them, just that you do use them.

3. List the Benefits

Now that you’ve captured a visitor’s attention, you need to discuss the benefits of what you are offering. Potential clients don’t necessarily want to know why you think your service is great, they’re more interested in knowing how they can benefit from it. That’s just human nature. One way to do this is to give them a sneak peek of a sample newsletter if that’s what they are signing up for. Words like “Discover why… or “Learn the secret to… followed by a short bullet list are highly effective at capturing a potential lead’s interest.

4. Use an Action Button

The call to action is one of the most overlooked elements of a lead capture page. By asking prospects to click on a link or sign up for a newsletter, you’re already ahead of the competition. You don’t want to spend time persuading reader’s about the benefits of your product and forget to ask them to what to next. The most effective CPA websites use a call to action that is short and action oriented, a concise sentence for example, or an action button or link.

5. Opt in Email Forms

The last step is to make sure you provide a clearly visible form for the potential lead (aka site visitor) to fill out. The most effective method is to simply solicit an email address using a simple contact form. Placing a visual element on all sides of the contact request form might increase your conversion rate, that is the number of site visitors who leave their contact details. There’s no absolute proof of that actually happening so it’s up to you to decide if you want to do it or not, but if you’ve taken these ideas to heart and incorporated most of the all-important components, you’ll have yourself a knockout squeeze page and be well on your way to making your accounting & tax prep a successful company both online and off.

Accounting websites are just like any other websites for regional businesses with an on-line presence. One of the best ways to let potential clients know about the services your CPA firm offers is by circulating a press release. You can do this either through a local business magazine, newspaper, or an online business wire. If you’re a local accountant hunting for an inexpensive way to make your advertising budget go further, then you’ll want to take advantage of the seven newswire services listed below.

1. Local News Sources
Local media such as business journals are easily found by searching online. Two of the most effective methods of finding local business journals and magazines are by using Google Maps and doing a simple search online. When using a search engine to find local newspapers, simply type in the word “newspaper” followed by your city and state. If you decide to use Google Maps, then type in your location, say, “Winooski, VT” and enter the term “newspapers” in the “Search Nearby” box. The next step is to create a list of local media contacts and find out how your accounting firm can submit a press release to each one. Some business magazines might have this information on their website, but others might require a phone call or email to get this information.

2. Business Wire
Businesswire is a large global newswire service and like most major newswires they have local news bureaus in Europe, North America and Asia. Many corporations in the financial sector including accounting firms rely on these larger newswires to distribute press releases about noteworthy services such as client portals offering secure exchange of sensitive financial information during tax season.

3. PR Newswire
Another large online newswire service is PRNewswire that distributes press releases to journalists at local media outlets including newspapers, radio, and television. When submitting your press release to this particular service it’s especially important to make sure your story has a local “angle”. As long as there is a local hook, press releases submitted by local CPAs are usually noticed by local news agencies and become local news stories.

4. PRWeb.com
PRWeb is another large press release distribution service, but there’s a difference: PRWeb is one of the best newswires for SEO. Because this site is so search engine friendly it’s a great tool for marketing CPA websites, but the trick is to take advantage of the website’s link function. When you submit a press release to PRWeb, always include a link to your accounting and CPA website because when it is distributed to a news agency the link will remain intact giving your website a valuable backlink. Backlinks are an essential part of search engine optimization.

5. NPR
NPR is a news bureau with member stations throughout the US in both urban and rural locations. What most people don’t know is that NPR accepts press releases through its website. To find out more about submitting a press release to NPR through their website and click on “Contact Us”.

6. Local Press Releaser
Online press release distribution services like LocalPressReleaser.com use a content management system that is based on the Google Maps API that makes it easy for people to find press releases for local accounting firms in their home town.

7. PRLeap.com
PRLeap recently made the shift to a “Social Media Press Release”, which is specially optimized for websites for CPA and accounting firms and other companies that use social media. Although a social media press release doesn’t use the same layout as a normal press release, it’s still efficient in spreading the word about new services and beneficial tools that CPAs offer clients during tax season–and social media followers are always interested in cutting edge information.

Good for you on finally getting your CPA Site up and running. Now you just need to determine how to use your website to earn more clients. You’ve invested money into creating it, so for the investment to pay off, you need your site to accrue at least 5 new clients per month.

That might not seem too difficult at first. However the more you check out the competition, the more you find a lot of nice-looking websites out there. It’s important here not to throw up your hands in defeat, but to look for a tactic that can give your site – and you – an edge.

Having a professional website is sort of like meeting the minimum requirements: without it, a lot of potential clients won’t even consider you; but just having it is not necessarily enough to get you the job.

So, what does make the difference? The trick is, make yourself real.

Luckily, it’s not hard: you just need a short video.

The Reason Video Is a Great Investment

If you want to attract clients with your accounting website – and of course you do – video is just the very best way to do it. The reason for this is that a video helps potential clients feel a personal connection to you – which is an important hurdle.

“Personal connection” doesn’t mean sharing intimate details about your personal life, or even demonstrating shared traits or interests with your prospects. It’s more basic than that. Your leads just need to see that you’re a real person – not a glitzy brand or stuffed shirt.

It may seem that a short video doesn’t give your clients enough time to get a sense of your personality. But humans have the ability to make snap judgments. A few seconds is really all it takes. (This is the premise of the best-selling book by Malcolm Gladwell, Blink.)

Video is so successful that a recent study showed it raises response rates by 4 to 7 times over landing pages with text and images alone (SearchEngineWatch, February 2010).

Taking Them “Behind the Scenes” Is the Key

Video is also effective because it allows your prospects to see what’s going on in your real-life office.

People love having inside knowledge. Prospects like to see the everyday things: talking on the phone, typing on the computer, chatting to your coworkers.

Don’t get me wrong: they don’t want to see you be unprofessional. But they also don’t want to just see you on your best behavior for the camera.

The best way to strike the right balance between professional and down-to-earth is to just talk on camera as you would to an acquaintance you really like. Assume you’ve already made a connection to the person watching the video, and act engaged and friendly. You could even place a picture of a friendly face somewhere off camera that you could look at to remind yourself to relax and be yourself.

Incidentally, this tendency in people is one reason why social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are so successful. These days, we’re oversaturated with advertising and promotional messages. Take advantage of this human need. If you’re not ready to get started with social media, you can still get results by posting a video.

Video Builds Trust from the Outset

If you’re trying to get 5-8 new clients per month to “pay for” your website, video is the best way to do this. It gets the job done quickly and with minimal effort.

Even better, folks who do call you already have a measure of loyalty. They’ve seen your video, they know what your office looks like and who works there – they may even recognize a staff member from around town. Your video has done the hard work (and arguably the hardest job) of convincing folks to trust you.

Squeezing All You Can from Your Accounting Website

You’ve taken the step to create a site for your practice. Now put it to work for you! A short video on your home page is the easiest way to wring every dollar out of your investment. A video enables your leads to trust you – and when they’re choosing between your practice and the accounting firm down the road that doesn’t have a video, this is the winning factor.

You may be aware that there are an infinite number of methods to advertise for your organization using websites for accountants. This report is going to concentrate on a few of the very basics that can sometimes get overlooked in the face of “appearing on the first page of a Google lookup.” You must perform Search Engine Optimization correctly, if you want Bing and Google to grab your website. You’ll come across companies who offer to do the work for you, for a steep price. Hold on though, let’s take this one step at a time. A website without any personal touches isn’t likely to draw in any new customers. Below, you’ll see some tips to consider before starting any Search Engine Optimization campaign.

Reach out to your prospects – we all like to feel a connection with the people we hand our money to. Including a bio as well as a shot of your building and office will show your prospects what to expect when they arrive. Most of us trust our neighbors more than a stranger in another zip code, so help your prospective clients understand that you’re right nearby. Encourage employees to include information about their families in their bios. This helps prospects see more of your personality, which helps to build a connection. These little touches will help your site vary greatly from other templated websites for accountants that your competitors may use.

Content Rules – A website that’s doesn’t have any engaging resources for its prospects to view and read is going to lose visitors fairly quickly. Be aware of how much personalized information your site contains. Include details about what your company provides to its clients and customers, its background, and personnel bios. You want your website to be a place that prospects can turn to for a complete picture of what you offer. The more questions you can answer up-front on your website, the less likely it is that your prospect will need to leave your site to look for answers on a competitor’s site.

The possibilities are endless when you add personal touches to your site. If your organization participates in charity events, such as volunteering time to your local soup kitchen, joining walks for breast cancer, and spending time at senior centers, you should make this information available on your website.Providing this information on a custom page may give you the leg up on your competition. Similarly, including a community calendar page shows that you participate in local events and that you support local farms, businesses and artists. Another option is to provide the general public with a page that allows them to advertise for their events, seminars, concerts, etc. They will appreciate seeing that your business is interested in helping other organizations. This may even increase traffic to your site, by pulling in people who otherwise, may not have visited your site.

Think about the people you do business with in your daily life. What do you appreciate about these people? Are they hospitable, timely or professional? Think of those businessmen/women when building your site, and remember to include your standout qualities. Making a personal connection with the use of good content on your site is undoubtedly going to help you stand out over your competition. Now you possess the knowledge to step into the land of SEO!

Our Design Portfolio for websites for accountants grew by 6 designs this month. The scaled-down, minimalist look of these styles help visitors focus on your content. The vertical navigation on the left allows you the flexibility to add as many (or as few) links to your navigation bar as you’d like, and the top tabbed navigation allow visitors to quickly access the most important areas of your site without having to look around for them.

Remember, you can change your design at no charge. And now is the perfect time to update, before busy season strikes again.

Design 470 Gold	Design 471 Gold
Design 472 Gold	Design 473 Gold
Design 474 Gold	Design 475 Gold

Note: These are Gold-level designs. If you’re a Silver client and would like to upgrade to a design below, consider an upgrade to Gold. Of course, Silver clients can always swap their current design for an updated Silver design at no charge – just check out our Design Portfolio.

Try a new look today. It only takes a few minutes of your time – and it’s fun!

How to Upgrade

If you’d like to swap out your current style for one of these new designs – or any of the options in our portfolio – just give us a call at 1-800-896-4500. Or email one of our webmasters at support@cpasitesolutions.com.

We’ve created two new pages to help you personalize the content of your site. Customizing the content on your site gives your clients the chance to identify with you, and helps improve your page rankings with search engines.

• Our Team (Sample Page): Helping your clients to put a face to a name sets your firm apart from the crowd. Just add the Our Team page to your site, replace the text on page with bios of your firm employees. Replace the pictures by right-clicking on the image in the WYSIWIG editor, selecting Image Properties, and browse or upload your image.
• Pricing Page: We’ve created an easily-customizable Pricing Page to allow you to advertise your services, and their cost. Simply click on the page in your Site Map, and edit the text to reflect the services you offer, and any set fees you have for those services.

Silver clients can to use either of these pages by logging into to your Site Manager, clicking on Add Page and selecting either page. Double click on that page in your Site Map to edit or replace the existing text or pictures with your own. Or, if you’re a Gold or Platinum client, just send us your custom copy and we’ll take care of it for you.

This month we added a new WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor to your Site Manager. The WYSIWYG editor makes it easier to edit, update and tweak the content of your site. That gives you complete control over the content of your site.

Our new WYSIWYG handles Microsoft Word specific characters more effectively, which means strange punctuation and characters won’t appear on your page when you use the Paste from Word button. The new editor also works better with all three major web browsers – Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer, so no matter which browser you choose to use you can quickly and easily have as much control over your site as you’d like. Of course, if you’re a Gold or Platinum client, your dedicated webmaster can take care of those changes for you.