Your CPA website needs to attract new visitors, but that is just step one. The next step is helping to ensure contact with your accounting firm is made. One of the tools freely available is the use of online chat. Another choice for free online chat is available that also allows for keeping track of all your instant messaging networks in one place.

CPA Website with Free Online Chat. Meebo.com offers the chance to add free online chat almost anywhere on your CPA website. Not only is Meebo.com free but you can create any number of different custom windows (widgets).

Free Online Chat from Meebo.com

Online chat allows someone visiting on your CPA website to send your firm an instant message. The message could be a quick question about what your accounting firm offers or where to go on your CPA website. Making communication this easy for any visitor increases the likelihood of future contact.

Create the Chat Window. After signing up, click on accounts, Meebo Me!, and then the “Add a New Widget” button. You name the chat window (widget), choose the size, click save and you are done.

Multiple Widgets. Create different widgets or chat windows to be added to different parts of your website. One could be named “Contact” and placed on your Contact Us or About Us page. Another could be named “Welcome” and be placed on your Welcome page. You then know, based on the widget name, where the visitor is located.

Add to Your CPA Website. Copy and paste the “Widget embed” and email it to support@cpasitesolutions.com. Be sure to mention where you want each widget to be located on your CPA website.

Keep Track on Desktop. An extra bonus can be had by adding the desktop application. You can then have the browser closed and still see when a visitor starts chatting on your CPA website.

IM All in One. You can also use Meebo.com to view all of your IM or social accounts. If you allow your Facebook and Twitter accounts, you can see all your activity in one place.

Do you ever use live chat yourself? Do you like having that feature available on websites? Send a comment and share with other readers.

Juggling Tasks Takes Talent, Helpful Tools, or Both

Reading the CPA Site Solutions blog, you can find many helpful online tools. These tools make juggling a CPA website, accounting firm, and client needs easier. You can leverage your time further just by commenting upon any CPA Site Solutions blog post for SEO benefits.

You Comment, CPA Site Solutions Follows

You Comment We Follow. You may notice to the right this post, a new icon. It says, “You Comment, We Follow.” When you comment on any post, CPA Site Solutions links to your CPA website. This provides your accounting website a little bit of SEO benefit. Over the long run, this can add up.

All Comments Welcome. Your comment can be short, long, asking a question, or making an observation. Any and all comments are welcome. For example, your comment might extend the idea of the post. You could mention specifics you might be doing on your own CPA website.

Subscribe to Any Comment

Subscribe to Comment Updates. You can subscribe to the comments feed automatically. You get an email of any other comments that happen after your own. This is a great way to get engaged with other readers. You also get a chance to learn what other people are doing with their own CPA website.

Share the Post. Right below the Follow icon is now a share button. This allows you to share any post with one click. You can even add this feature to anywhere on your own CPA website as well.

You can find some great tools, tricks, and tips reading the CPA Site Solutions blog. You can leverage that further through comments. Have your own ideas around how comments can be helpful? Send a comment below to share with other readers.

If you have the Workteam Collaboration Suite included with any website hosted by CPA Site Solutions you have the ability to add an appointments page. There is a previous post on this added functionality. Here is an easy way to set up appointments pages with multiple people in your accounting firm.

Firm Calendar

Set-up the calendars. First take a moment to set up each of the member’s calendars to share. There is a calendar help section on this if you need it.

Add the appointment pages. After you set-up the calendars add an appointment page for each person. There is also a appointment help section on how to add and set-up the appointment page if you need it.

Unlike some of the other pages when you add an appointment page it is still available to add again. This means you can add as many as you have people in your firm.

Change the navigation and file name.

Rename the pages. Since all of the appointment pages have the same name when you add them to your website you need to rename each page. In the example here there are three different pages named for the person whose calendar is being displayed. What you name the page is what shows in your navigation.

Be sure to also change the file name. For this example the file names were changed from custom1.php to the first letter of the person’s name and appointments. So Peter’s appointment page became pappointments.php. You can use your own naming convention as long as each page name is unique.

Move each page below the hub page.

Add a hub page. Add a hub page with pictures renaming this with something like “Firm Calendars.” Make sure the name is relatively short as this is what is going to show in your navigation area.

Move all appointment pages. Move all of your appointment pages as a sub-page of the hub page you just created. Now when you mouse over “Firm Appointments” each page in the main navigation area, each person’s calendar page shows as an option.

If you click on the appointment page then each page is listed. When you click on a person’s page you are brought to their calendar.

Special notes. When you get an email from the person requesting an appointment you have to manually update your calendar. Once you update your calendar though the appointments page on your website is also updated.

You cannot change the picture being displayed in the hub page. You can change the header area to a custom header and show a personal picture as what shows in the example.

Use custom images in the header.

It doesn’t take too long to complete and, if you are at the Gold level, you can request that a designer do the work for you. You can do this by calling 800-896-4500 or emailing support@cpasitesolutions.com.

Although the default browser on any PC is Internet Explorer, there are other options that are actually more flexible and offer a lot more functionality. The king of the pack of alternative browsers is hands-down Firefox.

Firefox Add-ons

The power behind Firefox is not only within the security, speed, and ease of use but also the number of add-ons that increase the functionality. Here is a breakdown of some recommended add-ons that make working with a browser actually enjoyable.

Download it. If you don’t already have it you can download Firefox. Once you have taken Firefox for a spin try adding on the following for not only some added fun but a lot more functionality.

Bookmarking back-up and synchronizing. Xmarks is an add-on that, once installed keeps your bookmarks on any computer by syncing up between lets say what you have at home with what you have at work. This can save you a lot of time and provides a great way to keep up with all areas of your life.

Blocking online ads. There are some who say if you download any Firefox add-on it should be Adblock Plus. Adblock Plus works to stop online ads from appearing so you can focus on just the content of any website.

Use Firefox with Twitter

Keeping up with Twitter. You can use Echofon to keep up with Twitter. You can see instant updates and have one-click access to the Twitter window.

Increase your search potential. Using the search in your toolbar is handy enough but you can extend that throuh  Add to Search Bar. It allows you to add any website to the search toolbar.

Use multiple Gmail accounts. You can be logged in and use multiple Gmail accounts through Gmail Manager. If you have multiple email accounts through the Workteam Collaboration Suite it works well with those as well.

Screen shots. FireShot not only allows you to capture screen shots but also manipulate the image as well with arrows and text. This can be especially helpful if your helping a client navigate to an area or give instructions on how to fill out an online form. It can also be fun for playing with images on another firm members birthday.

The list of add-ons. Here is a list of all the add-on’s in full in case you want to explore. It is worth taking a look as there are many categories and great features offered that can make your browser a tool worth using again.

When set-up and used in the right way your accounting firm’s website can be a tool to generate more clients and stand out from the competition. CPA Site Solutions now offers, for a one-time fee, local Search Engine Optimization for your accounting firm. Here is a breakdown of exactly what that means and how it can be used to bring your firm’s website to the next level.

What is SEO? SEO (Search Engine Optimization) consists of a series of steps to make your accounting firm’s website stand out with the Search Engines. Although some may target the Search Engine results at a national level, the majority of clients usually come from the local area.

Get Listed

Get listed with major search engines and local directories. Your accounting firm’s website is immediately listed with all major local search engines and directories, including Google Local (Google Maps), Yahoo Local, Bing Local, Yellowpages.com and over 90 other partner sites. This saves you time in not only knowing which local directories are best to use but also the process of getting listed and validated.

Changes to your website. The new service targets the local area specifically in a number of different ways. There are changes made with your accounting firm’s website and you are coached on what exactly to change.

Google Analytics set-up. Google Analytics is a powerful tool to use with your accounting website as it gives you specific information regarding where users are going and what they are doing while on your site. You can use the data to find out what information is popular for users, how to make that easier to find and presentable. This gives you a high level way to find new ways to bring more potential clients to your firm’s web site.

Google Analytics Interface

Instruction and coaching. Years of expertise is at your fingertips in terms of instruction and coaching.  Everything from how to change your accounting firm’s website to how to read and understand generated reports from Google Analyics is presented to you via one on one contact.

The coaching gives you a chance to ask questions until you understand what is being presented. Once you understand you can then use that to make sure your website stays ahead despite the ongoing changes to everything on the Internet.

This service is at a one time cost and so available at every service level. If your interested give one of our account managers a call at 800-896-4500 to answer any questions. Alternatively you can fill out the sign up form.

If your interested in having a Pay-Per-Click Campaign set up for you try the Platinum level of service for any accounting website hosted by CPA Site Solutions.

An interesting feature to any accounting website hosted by CPA Site Solutions is the ability to have Seminars. Quizzes are often a helpful way to make sure participants understand the information given. Here is a quick breakdown of a free quiz maker that you can use for the next Seminar your accounting firm runs.

Using a quiz not only helps reinforce what participants have learned, but also gives you an indication on what areas they might have missed. You can then adjust your Seminar to strengthen this weak area or take some extra time to review the information.

ProProfs Quiz School is a free service with multiple uses. It is all online, so the participants can do the quiz anywhere and at anytime.

Many question types to choose. You can have multiple choice, multiple response, true/false, short answer, and more. This easily allows you to gear the question and answer to a particular topic.

Instant feedback. Your participants get instant feedback on how they did with every question. You can then go over the questions that a majority missed and reinforce difficult parts of a topic.

Options for online quiz.

You also get complete stats on quiz results. You can use this to see trends even down to individual questions.

Restrict access. By giving your participants the password, you ensure that they are the only ones that are using the online quiz. You can also choose to show or hide results and quiz stats, comments and more.

A nice feature is to have the answers show after the participant answers the question. Although the participant may get an answer wrong, they also get the correct information while you still get the data of which ones were difficult.

Use directly on your website. You can embed any quiz directly on your accounting firm’s website. You can add images and any other media or change the style to blend with your current design.

You can use online quizzes so you and your Seminar participants have another way to interact regarding any topic. The interaction provides instant feedback that can be helpful for both you and your participants. Best of all it is free!