You can enhance and advertise your CPA seminars with your CPA firm’s website. Here is another way to leverage an audience for what you have to offer. CPA Site Solutions now has an events blog that you can post your CPA seminar on for free.

New CPA Site Solutions Events Blog

CPA Events. Events is a regular updated blog with CPA seminars, events, and webinars that are related to CPAs and other accounting professionals. You can check the events blog on a regular basis or subscribe to the RSS feed and get automatic updates. You can also submit your own CPA seminar or event.

How to Submit. The events blog is soon to have a form to submit your CPA seminar or event. For now just email support@cpasitesolutions.com with your CPA seminar or event details.

What You Can Find. You can find any number of CPA seminars, events, or webinars throughout the country or online all in one location. You can use the search or just look under a category.

iPhone Ready. The events blog and the regular CPA Site Solutions blog can now be viewed on an iPhone or iPod Touch. This makes it that much easier to read about any new tips and tricks for leveraging your CPA website.

Where is your favorite place to go to find CPA seminars, events, or webinars? Send a comment and share with other readers.

Making connections with others helps bring people together while increasing your CPA firms overall influence. An example would be to showcase your clients. In fact, sometimes even the smallest gestures, like buying a random stranger a cup of coffee, can influence in ways you might not imagine.

Giving Is Easy

Give and Grow Rich. That is the recent title of a blog post from Copyblogger. An unlikely place for a CPA and other accounting professional to go on the internet? Maybe, but the clear and touching message behind the post make it an excellent read for anyone.

Generosity Speaks for Itself. When you give without the need for something back, you gain. The generosity speaks for itself so you don’t have to. There may be nothing that comes of it but often you do gain in unexpected ways.

Free Content. There is all kinds of free content, like the Financial Guides, available to any website hosted by CPA Site Solutions. A person could come to any CPA website, grab that free content, and leave. Even so you are better off keeping this type of information available.

Free Tools. Along with the free content are free tools, like in the Tax Center of your CPA website. These again could be used and you could never gain a client from the experience. Again you are better off keeping these openly available.

Free Newsletter. There is also the free newsletter with fresh, useful, information each month. Some try to hide the newsletter, or any of these free items, in password protected pages. Yet that would be a mistake. You want visitors to have access to all this free information.

The Value of Your Expertise. In the end a visitor is not necessarily looking for any of those free things. They are looking for reasons to trust your CPA firm. They find that in the information you give for free.

In the end what they really want is the value of your expertise.

They want to trust the general value of what you have to offer. Once they have this, then they know they can trust you with their specific, and personal, situation. When that happens you have naturally converted a visitor into a client.

What do you think about giving information away for free? Do you have your own experience from something you have done on your CPA website? Send a comment below 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.

You have great content that is also unique. You have leveraged that content with user participation. Now you can help others get to your website even easier. Have anyone share your website with others with just one click of a button.

An Easy Way to Have Others Share Your CPA Website

The Problem. A user comes to your accounting website and finds content they want to share. How can you make it easy to share with just a click of a button?

The Solution. Use AddThis for your CPA website. AddThis is free, customizable, and easy to use. You can even get it as an add-on to your browser if you use Firefox.

How to Get AddThis. Go to the site, choose your customizations and what type of code you want generated. Click on “Get Your Button” and code for your CPA website is generated for you. You don’t even have to register to get the button which is a time saver.

Register for Stats. Register and you can get stats on how your accounting website is being shared. You can then use your traffic stats on your blog, for example,  to understand what your readers enjoy. Then the next post you create can be tailored to fit that and, hopefully, make your blog even more popular.

Website Implementation. Once you have the code, copy and paste it in an email to support@cpasitesolutions.com. Make sure you request where you want the button to appear.

You can add it to your blog from any website hosted by CPA Site Solutions. Just follow the same instructions you would when adding a comments box.

Have your own experience around making it easy for others to share your CPA website? Comment below and share with other readers. There are even SEO benefits to commenting, so go ahead and give it a try!

Just having a CPA website is no longer enough to improve your business. You need to make your website an engaging place for your current, and potential clients, to visit. When you do, you give reasons for others to talk about your firm. This is the best type of advertising out there, that you have to earn, not buy.

Mind Mapping. There is a great article from accountingweb.com that refreshes the use of Mind Mapping. Mind Mapping is a technique used to find solutions to questions by helping to gently guide, but not control, the flow of brainstorming ideas.

Leverage. Any website hosted by CPA Site Solutions has plenty of content, tools, and helpful information that can help your clients. The next step is to to leverage your clients into a community of participants around your CPA website.

You can use Mind Mapping as a step towards finding unique ways to engage your visitors. Engagement is a way of participating with your website rather than just getting content.

Mind Mapping Brainstorm. You can follow the basic premise (see article above for more exact details). Take out a sheet of paper, put your clients at the center, and think, how can I get clients more involved?

For example, do I have a good way to get feedback from them? Do I actively follow-up on that feedback? Are there ways that I could connect client A to client B and have them both benefit?

Write the ideas down and then keep the paper next to you. Make yourself notice the paper throughout the day and more ideas are bound to appear. Below is a primer for how to think about client participation on your website.

Online Community. Here is an example. In general people like to feel special or that they are a part of something, not just a customer. You can do this with your website by using some of the online tools like, for example, adding comments to your blog.

The more people can interact with your accounting website, the more it becomes something they use rather than just visiting. When they engage with you and other users of your website, they are part of an online community.

Online Communities Make People Feel Connected

Your CPA Website. Take a look at your current accounting website. How could you socially engage them more in your firm? By answering these questions, and incorporating them, you make your website more of a destination.

More Ideas. If you have a CPA website hosted by CPA Site Solutions, you could talk to your account manager. If you know what you want, the account manager may be able to inform you on how to do it.

You can create an online community around your CPA website. Your firm can be part of your clients conversations. Those social conversations are worth more for advertising than you can ever get through traditional means.

Have your own experience to share involving Mind Mapping or creating an online community? Send a comment below and share with other readers.

There are over 60 free logos available to any CPA website hosted by CPA Site Solutions. These have recently been changed. In technical terms, they have been vectorized. They can now be used for print without costly recreation costs. Here are newer additions to the logo gallery along with how the graphics have been updated.

Logo #1

No Loss of Quality. Images used on a CPA website are different from those used in print. When you try to use a logo from a website for print you get a lot of fuzziness. That fuzziness is very obvious to anyone, even those not used to looking for the finer details.

There are services available that can recreate a graphic from the web to be used with print. This can be a potentially costly solution that can be avoided.

No Longer Costly. When a logo is vectorized it can change to any size without that same fuzzy quality. That means you can use it for the web or print without having to recreate anything.

Business Cards, Flyers, and More. You can now brand your business for free. You can now use over 60 free logos for your CPA firm’s business cards, flyers, and more.

Logo #19

Find a Free Logo. Take a look at the over 60 free logos available to any website hosted by CPA Site solutions. Once you have found one, send the request via email at support@cpasitesolutions.com or call 800-896-4500 with the logo number.

CPA Site Solutions then incorporates your CPA firm name within the new logo. The new logo is sized appropriately for your particular CPA website design. The graphic is then placed on your CPA website.

Newer Logos. The amount of free logos available are increasing all of the time. Much like the amount of ready-to-go website designs.

Logo Site Viewer

Have your own experience with logos for your CPA website that you want to share? Send a comment below. Remember, when you comment you get a link back to your website which can help your search engine ranking.

Give others reasons to talk about your CPA website and your firm becomes a natural part of conversation. Potential clients come from these impromptu conversations all of the time, it is a true case of social marketing. Here are three ways to keep talk about you and your firm alive.

Helpful Information. Most important, of course, is content full of helpful information that potential clients can use. Any accounting website hosted by CPA Site Solutions has plenty of content available. Including your own fresh and unique content, such as a blog, is an important part of this process.

Fun Widgets. You can add some fun elements such as the Free Debt Clock that you can see at the bottom of this blog post. You can also add a fun online poll or create a unique signature. Keep on the lookout for other fun ways to draw humor or light interest to your accounting website.

Client Spotlights

Showcasing Clients. Another way to have your website, and ultimately your firm, talked about is by showcasing your clients. A great example of this comes from the client spotlight page from Rhodes, Young, Black and Duncan.

Their firm has set up a regularly changing spotlight page and then an archive of previous client spotlights. Doing this is not only helpful for the client, but gets people within different social venues, talking about your firm.

When you can get your clients talking about you and your firm to their friends, then you are advertising. This form of advertising is in a way that is stronger and more effective than any traditional methods available.

Remember the next time you are reading a blog, including this one, you might take some time to offer helpful comments. Not only is it fun to do, but grants some search engine benefits as well.

Have a comment? Fill out the form below.

If you have a CPA website hosted by CPA Site Solutions then you probably have multiple clients to manage. Keeping track of the amount of time spent with each one can be a task in and of itself. Here is a quick and easy solution that works automatically in the background so you don’t have to.

Chrometa. Although Chrometa does cost $99 it is worth the money considering the time saved doing things manually. There is a 30 day free trial that gets most hooked on how easy it is to use.

Automatic Time Tracking

All Automatic. After you download and install it, Chrometa works entirely in the background logging everything that you do and how much time you spend doing it. Although there are previous posts on a free time tracker, the problem still remains in terms of remembering to start and stop the feature.

Going Away. If you step away from your desk you can actually pause Chrometa while you are gone. If you forget then there is a box that automatically pops-up recording the amount of inactive time. You can type in exactly what you were doing, for example talking on the phone with a particular client.

Export Excel Document. You can even export a report to Excel that tells you the activity, what application you were using, and the time using it down to the second. This can give you great historical data that can be printed out if needed.

Training Videos. You can get off and running with Chrometa without doing anything but installing it on your computer. However if you really want to get the most out of what it holds then you might consider the free online training video.

When your CPA firm gets busy, keeping track of how much time you spend on each client can get tricky. Every minute you don’t have to spend logging your actions, you can spend on work that directly generates revenue for your company.

Have a comment? Fill out the form below.

There is a lot of information on what you get with each service level when you look at pricing for a CPA website hosted by CPA Site Solutions. When you consider the amount of time saved through the two hours of updates at the Gold or Platinum level then it becomes a much easier choice. Here are some reasons for new or existing clients to consider the Gold level.

Two Hours of Updates. There are often questions regarding exactly what is meant by two hours of updates for your CPA website per month. There is a previous post on two hours of updates that helps clarify what that means.

Busy Tax Professionals. Certainly your time as a CPA or other tax professional is worth more than $10 an hour. Yet you only pay $20 more to go from the Silver to the Gold level. Plus you not only get two hours of updates but also access to many more ready-to-go website designs.

Have CPA Site Solutions Add Pages For You

Easy To Do. Although it is true that the Site Manager is easy to use, there are many other tasks that call for your attention. When you are not used to using a free online photo editor to resize photos for the web for instance, then that can be time consuming.

When you hand off that task to CPA Site Solutions you can get that done without so much worry and more time to focus on your own clients. Plus at the Gold level you also get access to a great application that allows for automatic backup of critical files.

This application is available not only to you but your clients as well. You can even sell the critical backup file solution to your clients for a minimal fee.

Flexibility. When you have a CPA website with CPA Site Solutions you are under no contracts and pay on a monthly basis. You can use this flexibility to your advantage.

Lets say you know that you are only going to be using the two hours of updates and not any of the other features. You also know you are going to be very busy for the next couple of months but still want to update your CPA web site.

You can move to the Gold level for a couple of months. You can then email CPA Site Solutions with photos and content with directions on where to place them. Usually twenty-four hours later the task is complete.

Think you want to switch to the Gold level? You can email support@cpasitesolutions.com or call 800-896-4500 with your request.

In a previous posting there was an offer for 10% off a February Jennings Seminar. As promised CPA Site Solutions is offering 10% off a Jennings Seminar for March. This time the topic is Lunch with Bob, The BIG 1040 Push, is scheduled for March 16th and is worth 1 hour of CPE credit!

10% off Jennings Seminar in March through CPA Site Solutions

Limited seating! The seating is limited so you will want to sign up early for this event. Be sure to test your system to make sure that you meet all of the system requirements.

1 CPE credit hour! This is a great way to get 1 hour of CPE credit. If you attend this event and answer 75% of the polling questions at the conclusion then you will get 1 credit hour for this event. There are no prerequisites for this seminar.

To get your 10% discount: Be sure to use the code marcpasite during the checkout process to get the 10% discount. Regular price $49. CPAsitesolutions.com customer price: $44.10

Event Description. “The big 1040 push – dealing with the big balance due returns and problem clients.”

Jennings Seminars was founded by Bob Jennings CPA, CFP, CITP, a national and World renowned speaker. Jennings has published articles in such magazines as The Journal of Accountancy and The Practical Accountant along with authoring several accounting and technology seminar manuals.

If you can’t make this event look for another posting in March for a similar offer for a April seminar. Click here to take advantage of 10% off Jennings seminar in March.