If you’re like me, you think of things you have to do at the least convenient times – in the car, during dinner, in the middle of the night.

Did you know that accounting websites with CPA Site Solutions help you capture those important tasks and add them to your to-do list from anywhere?

Update the list in one place and it updates everywhere, including your iPhone.

As long as you have your iPhone, Blackberry, or any cell phone, you’re plugged in to your to-do list.

No more slips of paper with a messy scrawl that you wrote in the dark at 3:00 in the morning. No more rewriting the same list by hand every few days. No more updating a list in Word on your computer.

This means your to-do list stays up-to-date and is actually useful. And your productivity soars.

Small Improvement, Big Payoff

With our Workteam Collaboration Suite, you have a simple to-do list at your disposal. It’s called Tasks, and it’s right on your email page.

Simply check off items when they're complete.

It seems like a small thing, but having an easy way to keep your to-do list up-to-date makes a big difference – because you actually use it.

And when you use a to-do list on a regular basis, you greatly increase productivity.

Here’s why a to-do list helps you increase efficiency:

• It allows you to prioritize your tasks, so you’re sure to get the most important jobs done.

• When you see the list laid out in your Tasks, you see how some tasks can be done together or back-to-back.

• If an emergency arises – and one always does – a to-do list helps you get back on track once you’ve handled it.

• Finally, it’s a stress reliever. Getting it out of your mind and onto the computer takes a big load off.

Your Task List Is Super Easy to Use

The Task list included with your Workteam Collaboration Suite is totally intuitive. It’s not fancy – but that’s why it gets the job done.

Here’s what it can do:

• Simply start typing to add a new task.

• Reorder tasks by dragging and dropping.

• Check off completed tasks to cross them out; view completed tasks if you want.

• Pop out the list so it sits on your desktop.

• Create multiple lists – perhaps one for each type of client – and easily switch among lists.

• Convert an email into a task with the click of a mouse.

To convert an email to your tasks, choose "Add to Tasks" from the More Actions menu (Click to Enlarge Image).

• Best of all, your Task list is synced with your cell phone – an iPhone, Blackberry, or any mobile phone. Update it from anywhere and keep the list relevant and dynamic.

There’s No Charge for the Task List…

…with accounting websites from CPA Site Solutions.

Use a to-do list to maximize your time – and take advantage of the Task list that comes with your Workteam Collaboration Suite.

To get started with our Workteam Collaboration Suite, call 1-800-896-4500, or email us at support@cpasitesolutions.com.

Do you use a to-do list? Has it increased your efficiency? Let us know with a comment.

Personalizing the pages of your accounting website is one of the first things you should do. It makes you stand out from your competition while making it easier for potential clients to connect with your firm. Here is a live example to get inspiration for personalizing your own accounting website.

The Website. The Summit CPA Group recently got started with their newly migrated website. The firm migrated for increased functionality and to have their website look better within current browsers. (Email support@cpasitesolutions.com if you are interested in migrating your own accounting website)

The Team Page. The Accounting Team page has a picture and bio of each person within the team. Each picture gives a professional look reinforced by the bio that talks about their business backgrounds.

The Individual Pages. When you click on the “View my profile” you are treated to full paged description. What makes this stand out are the caricatures done of each person in the office.

Personality In a Picture. Each picture brings out the office personality of the person. The caricatures’ personalities are reinforced by the picture title. Jody Grunden, for example, has a crystal ball with the title of “Visionary” while Adam Hale is playing with a Rubics Cube and the title of “Problem Solver.”

Bringing It Together. What The Summit CPA Group has done is bring together the usual description of a bio and added some fun with caricatures. Although you wouldn’t want to copy exactly what this firm has done you could do something similar.

Two Sides. Maybe your own accounting website might not have caricatures but you could still have two sides. You could have a page with the usual bio and then click through to a fun page that has your “wild side.” You might have pictures of you skiing, playing sports, or something similar alongside descriptions of some hobbies.

Do you already have some fun bio pages you are proud to share? Send a comment with link to the pages below.

Do you have a firm profile page on your CPA website? What does it consist of? Does it look and read like a resume, just a list of your educational and work background, perhaps with a picture of you in a business suit in front of a shelf of books? If so, you could be missing a vital opportunity to market yourself to potential clients.

Personalize. There are a lot of accountants out there and, as you may guess, there are a lot of accountant websites as well. Standing out from the crowd isn’t easy but personalizing your firm profile goes a long way. Don’t take the person out of personalizing; this is your opportunity to distance yourself from the hundred other accountants in business suits.

A picture where you are smiling and having fun can do more for winning over a client's trust than a list of degrees and awards.

The biggest fear about integrating personality into your site seems to be that it compromises your professionalism. It’s easy to think that if clients sees photos of you on a rock climbing trip or reads that you enjoy watching horror films, that they won’t be able to take you seriously. This fear prevents you from making a genuine human connection with your clients.

Connecting with Clients. It’s important to break out of this mindset. Your accounting website is filled with pages upon pages of articles, guides, and tools dedicated to showing that you know taxes, bookkeeping, and accounting. What potential clients are looking for on your About Us page is what sets you apart from everyone else in your field; a sense of humor, a common interest, or anything that allows them to form a personal bond with you.

Clients will be more trusting of you and feel more comfortable around you when they see you not as just a calculator or a reference book, but as an actual person. That is why making that connection with your clients is so important. If someone has to choose between several accountants, all with similar credentials, to trust with their finances and you are the one they feel most at ease around, who do you think they will go with?

More Than an Accountant. Remember that marketing on your website is more than just keywords and search engine placement; getting a client to come to your site is only half of it. You still have to convince them to choose you. If you can get clients to identify with you and see you as more than just an accountant, you’ve already got a head-start.

Any CPA website hosted by CPA Site Solutions has access to website statistics via the Webalizer. These stats give you reporting on such things as how many visitors you are getting to your CPA website. Google also offers reporting via Google Analytics. You now have access to adding Google Analytics code directly to your CPA website within the Site Manager.

Why Use Stats. Seeing what traffic comes to your CPA website helps you interact more with potential clients. For example, not everyone comes to your accounting website from the homepage. Website stats gives you a chance to see what website pages a visitor came in on, how long they stayed, and where they go next.

Responding to Stats. Having website stats gives your accounting firm a chance to respond to visitor habits. Your have the potential to keep visitors longer by making changes to pages that have a high “bounce rate.” Visitor reports lets you know which pages visitors are leaving right away and which pages retain visitors longer.

Free Analytics. Google Analytics is free, see a previous blog post that gives more details. You also have the website analytics from the CPA Site Solutions Webalizer.

How to Add. There is now a video and screen shot walk through in the help section. Each shows just how to add the code you get from Google directly to your accounting website.

Best Practices. Viewing your accounting website stats is addicting. You get to see exactly what visitors are doing and how many are coming. You really won’t get a good idea of trends until you let the data go for a number of months. After some time passes, get a much better idea of averages and make more complete and informed decisions.

Do you already use accounting website statistics? How has it worked to improve your own website? Send a comment below.

This is the last part of a three part series looking at using PDF files to get new subscribers to your accounting website newsletter. Part one looked at using PDF files and part two creating the PDF. This last part looks at linking to the PDF file in your Email Marketing System welcome message.

Uploading the PDF. There is a great video tutorial on how to upload the PDF document to your website. You need to do this before you are able to link to it from your accounting website newsletter welcome message.

Linking to the PDF. The key to linking to the file you created is to use the full URL. The help directions are for adding a file link to your website page. The newsletter is different so the link needs to be a full link. For example, the tutorial has the path as being “/images/NameOfFile.pdf” and you need to change that to “http://www.yourwebsite.com/images/NameOfFile.pdf”

Changing the Welcome Message. All that remains is to view the help section on changing your newsletter welcome message. You are going to add the link to the PDF file within the message. You also want to add some text that talks a bit about what is included within the PDF. For example, “Thanks for subscribing to our newsletter! Here is the link to the free PDF packed with information on such and such and such and such.”

Future PDF Content. Over time the information you gathered for your free PDF may need to be updated. There are always more articles to pick from making the overall process easy to duplicate. Just keep an eye out on the article websites.

That is the end of this newsletter series. If you have any questions about any part of the series please email support@cpasitesolutions.com or call 800-896-4500.

Do you have other sources of free online content? Share in comments below.

Fresh and unique content on your accounting website is great for your potential clients and search engines. Getting people to your blog though is an ongoing project. One way to make that project a little easier is to work with other people. Start right now by requesting to write a guest blog post on CPA Site Solutions. Send an email to support@cpasitesolutions.com with the subject line of “Blog Post.”

Guest Blogging. When you write a post for another website you increase traffic to your own. Your guest post introduces a new set of readers to your accounting website.

Finding A Blog. Once you know that you want to write a post for another website, the next key is finding a blog. You want to find one that has a similar audience.

Similar means that it is in the same realm or subject. The intent is less about targeted traffic of potential clients and more about overall traffic.

This Blog. Consider writing a blog post for the CPA Site Solutions blog. The blog is read by over 4,000 CPAs and other tax professionals each month. Why would you want to write to be viewed by potential competitors?

Would you present your ideas at a conference of like minded individuals? Of course. It is the same with writing a guest post. There is a benefit to learning and collaborating together. In an ideal sense that is what they Internet is about, making connections and relationships. Send an email to support@cpasitesolutions.com with your request to write a guest post.

Branching Out. Once you have branched out as a guest blogger, invite others to write on your own blog. This not only lends a different voice but again builds an ongoing online collaboration. When your post is good then a lot of people send it around to read.

Think of the root system of a tree. It is stronger and able to gather more resources to survive the more it branches out. Writing a post on another website becomes another small branch of your accounting firm’s root system.

Social Media. Once you write as a guest blogger or have someone write on your own blog, be sure to use your social media channels. Do a short Tweet or post on Facebook about the post. This leverages the millage you get from it.

How has your blog been useful on your own accounting website? Send a comment below.

Any CPA website hosted by CPA Site Solutions automatically has the benefit of email, online documents and more via the Workteam Collaboration Suite. Email integration is easy enough however using online documents, part of a paperless office solution, is sometimes a longer process. The integration of online documents within Microsoft Office through Officesync is easy. It also makes your accounting firm efficient and is one more step towards a paperless office.

Integration. A quick free download gives you access to your Google docs via Microsoft Office 2003 or 2007. The free version gives you the ability to collaborate using Office and Google Docs. There is a premium version that allows collaboration via Google Sites that could be worth it.

How It Works. Officesync shows up directly within your Microsoft Office software. Right below the Save As button you should see an Officesync option. From here everyone in your accounting firm has the option to open, create, or share an online document.

The Benefits. If your accounting firm collaborates on documents between team members, then you have the benefit of instant updates. This shortens the time it takes to work on a project between accounting firm team members. All team members have instant access to any and all updates that have been made to a document, while never leaving Microsoft Office.

Most accounting firm’s are used to using Microsoft Office. Having Officesync means no one in your accounting firm has to learn much more. Accounting members do get the benefits of Google docs within their existing workflow. These benefits include being able to share documents online, access a document from any browser, and team collaboration.

More and more accounting firms are recognizing the benefits of a paperless office in terms of efficiency. Since Officesync integrates with Microsoft Office, there is little or no learning curve.

Do you already use Google Docs within your accounting firm? How has it helped your accounting firm get things done? Comment below.

When a potential client performs a search for a CPA or accounting firm, they are typically looking for a local firm. Searching on “CPA” or “accounting firm” yields mostly irrelevant search results. More likely searches are made with a location and service, such as “Miami Accountant”  or “Fort Worth TX CPA”.

Google, Yahoo and Bing recognize such local searches. When they detect a local search, they will show the local listings above the organic listings. These listings are often significantly more relevant then the organic listings.

Local Directories. There are other local directories such as YellowBook, AT&T Yellowpages, Kudzu, and many others. Many of them may already have a listing for your CPA firm.

The source data for your listings probably originated from a variety of third-party sources. There may very well be variations in your listing name, address and phone number. This potentially creates multiple representations of your business online. This hinders the ability of the various local search engines to know which of your listings is the true identity.

Updating Your Contact Information. Change your address or phone number and update your CPA website? Unless you have control of your local directory listings, your updated data may never be reflected in the directories. The online directories do their best to ensure they have accurate data. However, if you were at your old address for 10 years, then there may be hundreds of sites and directories that show your business at the old address. All that information can influence the major local directories into believing that is the right data.

Going Mobile. In an ever increasing mobile world, people are relying on local data more and more. In fact 45% of local searches are performed by people who know the company they are looking for. These searchers rely on and expect to find your current address, phone number and driving directions. They are relying less and less on finding it via your website.

Taking Control. For these reasons it is important that your business controls and proactively manages your local business identity. This increases the confidence of the local search platforms that they have valid and accurate data. This also increases the local platforms ability to link other unique content such as customer reviews and social media.

CPA Site Solutions has a Local SEO service, that optimizes and manages your CPA firm’s local listing for you. Rest assured that your business identity is submitted to and consistent across over 100 directories, including all the major local search platforms. When you change your address or phone number, CPA Site Solutions makes sure your information is updated in the local directories. That ensures existing and new customers alike are able to find your CPA firm.

Driving traffic to your CPA website is an ongoing project. Engaging people through social media like Twitter helps move that project forward. Here is a tool that makes managing Twitter that much easier.

Organized Viewing. CoTweet is a free application that allows you to easily manage your Tweets and engage your followers. It provides a great way to listen for conversations and monitor your CPA firm’s overall image (which is part of branding).

Multiple Users. CoTweet provides a simple interface that allows for multiple user accounts. Comments and conversations happen fast on social media websites. When more than one person keeps a thumb on activity, it is easy to catch trends.

Most people don’t have trouble coming up with messages. It is easy enough to Tweet about their CPA firm or current events; it’s finding the time for all of this each day that is sometimes a challenge. CoTweet allows more people to manage the account, which means you can each spend 10 minutes a day to leverage all that Twitter offers.

Multiple Search Results. Searching Twitter is even easier with CoTweet. Multiple search results show in different smaller windows. That way, it’s simple to compare results of searches and find trends.

Multiple Accounts. Does your CPA firm have multiple Twitter accounts? CoTweet makes it easy to manage all of these accounts from one location. If you only have one account, consider opening additional accounts. It is often easier to target a particular purpose or audience when you use multiple accounts.

Twitter, Facebook, and other social media websites have the potential to help you market your CPA firm. Keep reading the CPA Site Solutions blog for more helpful tips and ideas on marketing.

Do you use social media on a daily basis? Has it helped your firm? Leave a comment below.

How do you get the most out of your CPA website and your marketing budget in today’s economy? First you need to know your budget and use that amount as a guide. Your target customers need to hear a marketing campaign about 6-9 times to to get them to commit. Using marketing strategies outside your budget, doesn’t allow you to repeat your message often enough to make an impact.

COSTING MORE  DOESN’T ALWAYS MEAN IT ‘S BETTER!

Expensive ad campaigns don’t necessarily translate to increased sales. You need to be able to evaluate what the ROI is going to be on your campaigns to judge whether the money you are spending is going to accomplish your goals by connecting with your target market.

The chances of your marketing campaign success, greatly improve when you can get into more channels. Potential customers will likely become buyers if they: see your add in the newspaper, see you at a conference or local business expo, pick up a brochures, post your business cards on local bulletin boards and visit your CPA website. The more you can stretch you marketing budget to reach your target clients, the better chances of you connecting with potential clients.

DEFINE YOUR TARGET MARKET BEFORE YOU BEGIN THE CAMPAIGN

A critical part of your marketing plan is targeting the right customer. Once you have determined who is you target audience what form of media is going to give you the best chance of reaching that audience. If you are trying to target a younger market then internet advertising is most likely one of the more likely choices. If you are targeting retirees then maybe focusing on local papers would be a better use of you marketing dollars.

Don’t try to market to the whole country unless you have defined that as you target market, go for small niche markets. Focus on the immediate area where you are doing business. With your CPA website make sure that you keywords contain your address at least city and state. When a potential client is looking for a tax planner they are going to look close to home. If you are targeting TV ads then focus on the local channels and not Cspan or CNN because you like them.

BECOME PART OF THE COMMUNITY

Become part of the community get out and support local sporting events and fundraisers. All of these will get your name on flyers, t-shirts and banners. Be cautious not to select events that are controversial with in the community as this can generate a negative . I know that people say there is no such thing as bad publicity but, there is if you are losing business and you are in a small community.

CREATE AFFILIATES

Creating affiliates is a great way for small business to start building a local web of people that trust each other. Developing a relationship with your clients beyond the taxes. This creates a sense of belonging that will ultimately improve retention. Maybe you don’t have a plumber that is a client of yours but, you have a contractor that is a client. Ask that contractor who they would recommend?

The most cost-effective method of reaching new customers is by referrals from satisfied customers. A satisfied customer telling others about your small business is more effective than any fancy ad campaign. Spend time to get customer testimonials on your CPA websites.

You don’t need a large budget to achieve your goals,  you need to stay focused on the target market and give your budget it’s due attention. Be creative and ask other people for testimonials if they indicate that they are happy your service. Give them some of your business cards so that they can’t pass them out to their friends. Remember personal referrals are your best for of marketing.