Don't waste your money on a CPA website design.

The best way to get a CPA website design is to get one for free.

But how do you get anything for free these days?

I’m not sure about other products, but to get a free web design, go with Ready-To-Go designs from a service like CPA Site Solutions.

Other services charge up to $2,000 just for the design – and using a local designer could cost you up to $7,000.

Ready-To-Go designs with CPA Site Solutions cost you nothing. They’re included with the price of your service.

Save money, save time – and get the same high quality.

A Lot of Work – and Expense

Tons of Decisions. Have you ever had your house renovated? You know how there are tons of decisions to make about every little thing? “What knobs would you like on these drawers?” “Large tiles or small tiles?” “Which shade of off-white?”

Designing a website is a lot like that.

More Than Having a Good Eye. You might have a strong idea about what you like – but do you know how to get what you like? Design is more than just rubber stamping. You need to be able to communicate your likes and dislikes to your designer and guide her along the way.

You’re Locked In. If you pay a web designer or buy a design from a web development company, the design is static. Once it’s done, each and every adjustment costs money. And sometimes, you can’t just tweak the design. You have to pay for a whole new one, a $2,000 cost.

Ready-To-Go Designs Are an Impressive Value

A Ready-To-Go design is just as professional as a custom-built style.

For the same level of professionalism, you get the site for free, you get it fast, and you get the benefit of our frequent updates.

1. Free. At CPA Site Solutions, your monthly fee includes the price of your design – making the design essentially free.

2. Instant. Ready-To-Go designs are named to reflect how ready they are to go! After you pick one you like, you see it up on the Web in 1 business day. Compare that to the weeks or months it takes a web designer to build you a site from the ground up.

3. Constant Improvements. Our team of designers are constantly updating our site styles. Last year alone, we created 107 new designs. That means that when your site starts to feel out of date – or you’re just ready for a change – you get an upgrade to a current look.

To switch designs, just give us a call and let us know which style you like. It costs nothing to switch designs.

Why You Don’t Need to Worry About Uniqueness

You want your design to be unique so it doesn’t look just like Jim CPA or Bob CPA’s site.

But here’s a secret: your design only needs to be unique in your region.

Don’t worry if your site looks like an accountant’s on the other side of the country or 300 miles south. Your competition is the CPAs within 50 miles of you.

If you want to know whether another accountant in your region has the same design, just ask us. We have that information in our database.

Leverage Your Skill Set

The best way to grow your business is to build on your skills. Your education and experience are in accounting – not web design.

Leave the design to the folks who’ve been doing it for years. Save your efforts for the work that brings in revenue: accounting services.

How Do You Get a Ready-To-Go Design?

When you sign up with CPA Site Solutions, you pick a Ready-To-Go design and see it in action within 1 business day. Try us for free for 60 days.

Already have a website with us? Feel free to pick a new design. It costs nothing to switch. Just give us a call at 1-800-896-4500 or email support@cpasitesolutions.com.

And don’t forget about our referral program. When you successfully refer a colleague to CPA Site Solutions, we give you $100.

Have you paid for web designs in the past? Share your story below.

The easier it is to do business with you, the more business you have.

It sounds simple – and it is, with CPA websites from CPA Site Solutions.

When you have a website with our service, you get Online Appointment Scheduling. This feature means prospective and current clients book appointments right on your website. They don’t need to pick up a phone, call you during business hours, or hammer out a time with your receptionist.

This improvement might seem minor – but clients love it.

It makes it easy to do business with you – which means more client work, and higher profits.

Booking Appointments the Easy Way

Online Appointment Scheduling allows people to view your calendar and request an appointment by filling out a simple form.

Here’s how it works:

1. Your clients see when you’re available right from your website.

Your calendar shows your busy times and times you're free.

2. They pick a time that’s most convenient for them and request an appointment online.

Clients explain why they want to meet in the "Comments" section.

3. Your calendar is updated, immediately reserving that time on your calendar.

4. You receive an email about the appointment request.

5. An appointment reminder is emailed to your client.

6. An appointment reminder is emailed and/or SMS texted to you 30 minutes before the meeting.

Giving Clients What They Want

A certain number of clients avoid the phone. If they have to call you to make a time to meet, they put it off – resulting in less work for you.

They are much more likely to set up an appointment if they can do it right on your website, without having to dial you up.

Even if they don’t mind the phone, all your clients love the convenience of booking an appointment whenever they have the time. If they’re up at 2:00 a.m., worrying about their taxes, they go right to your site to set up a meeting.

Let your clients control their appointment scheduling experience. It increases their comfort and satisfaction.

Give clients what they want, so they give you more business.

Included with Your Website

Online Appointment Scheduling is part of your Workteam Collaboration Suite. You don’t need to do anything to activate it or get it going.

Other companies provide this service as a standalone – but they charge you. Web-appointments charges $9.90/month for online booking;  Ebookaplace charges $22.33/month for its standard service and $111.69/month for its advanced service.

To get started with Online Appointment Scheduling, just let your clients know they can book appointments with you without the phone.

And don’t be surprised when you see an increase in business.

Have you been using Online Appointment Scheduling? What’s the response? Let us know with a comment.

You have a blog on your CPA website. You have published a couple of posts. However, your CPA blog just sits there in the back of your mind as something that should be done. What should you write about? How much should you write? Here is a perspective on how to answer both of those questions.

CPA Blog Content. Where is all the content for your new CPA blog going to come from? One place is from your clients and the other is from various online sources of inspiration. The key is to leverage the time you have by getting into the habit of skimming sources.

CPA Sample Blog

Tools. You can use Evernote as a way to keep track of ideas for later. That way you can highlight particular quotes out of an article for use later. Come back to those quotes and expand on the ideas. Do this in small chunks of time and eventually, over the week, you have enough content to write a post.

Come Back Later. Get the notes and ideas down so you have some outline of what you want to write about. Write for a small chunk of time with the mind of coming back later. Only have 10 minutes? Perfect. Set the timer, write until the time is up. Come back later to edit and expand. When you come back later you have a fresh perspective and the timer keeps it short.

Blog Frequency. Web Worker Daily has a great article on how often to blog. The reason you write is often tied into the question. In order to get the most out of the content for your CPA website overall then you should write at least once a week. Whatever the amount you should always be consistent.

When to Stop. Some recommend at least 300 words to be worthwhile for your CPA website and search engines. Is your message clear? Have you said what you wanted? Then you are doing both yourself and reader a favor by stopping. The value isn’t in the length but the message and clarity.

Even if you don’t have a lot of time to write a post for your CPA blog, write something. Be consistent and get in the habit. The source of content over time can be of benefit to not only your CPA website, the readers, but also to yourself in ways you might not recognize at first.

Have a CPA blog? How often do you write? Where do you find your motivation? Comment below and share with other readers.

When you have a CPA website with CPA Site Solutions, you have access to an Email Marketing System. This system automatically sends out your CPA website newsletter to all who subscribe. Up until now, there hasn’t been a way to export the contacts from that list. Now there is and here is how it works.

Popular Requests. All requests for changes to the CPA Site Solutions system are kept and reviewed on a regular basis. Certain improvements have a critical mass behind them. They not only make sense, but there are a number of people requesting the change.

Response. Being able to export the contacts list within the Email Marketing System has been one of those popular requests. That change has now been implemented and is fully functional for use.

Exporting Contacts. Login to your Email Marketing System and click on Contacts. At the bottom of the list shown is now an option to Export. Choose the emails you want or click on select all. You can then save either “all”, “active”, or “inactive” members from the list as a txt file. See our help section on exporting contacts for more details.

Export Contact List

Finish and Save. Another popular request has been for clients to easily save data while in the Tax Organizer. That feature has been implemented as well (see Finish and Save link). So now while a client is using the organizer they can pause at anytime and their work is saved for later.

More Updates. CPA Site Solutions is consistently improving systems. These improvements are based on popular requests, new tools and features that come available, or fixes for problems that may arise.

Stock Ticker

Marketing Watch. Recently the Market Watch feature stopped working properly. The data came from a third party source that ceased to work the same way. Now there is a Stock Ticker instead (see image on left).

Look For More. The future brings ever more functionality including better ways to view visitor stats and more. Have some ideas of your own you would like to see implemented? Send those along to support@cpasitesolutions.com or fill out in comments below.

You get up to two hours of changes per month when you have a CPA website hosted by CPA Site Solutions at the Gold or Platinum level. Explaining what changes you want done on your CPA website just got a whole lot easier using Notable.

Notable. As always with many online applications, there is a free version of Notable available. Signing up is easy and getting started is as simple as uploading an image.

Many Options. There are many easy options for sharing files with other people. However you capture, it is also easy to share and comment upon what others have said. This enables you to combine the power of images along with notes tagged to specific areas of those images.

Fully Supported. Notable supports any browser you want to use with it. Alongside that is an app for the iPhone. That way you can respond to or manage comments from just about anywhere.

Image Specific Feedback

4 Ways to Capture Images. Capture via URL, use a Firefox plugin, upload from your computer, or from an iPhone. Once you have the image you click on specific areas and add a comment. From picking out a new CPA website design to giving feedback on a custom design, there are multiple ways to use the features.

Design Choices. Capture the design choice you want from the over 250 choices. Capture via URL and then add some notes with specific questions in different areas. You can even keep track of multiple design choices and make comments on each until you narrow down the one you or your CPA firm want.

Website Problems. There are times when you find words or images on your CPA website you want to change. Sometimes it can be hard to show exactly where the problem is located. Now you can capture an image with notes that specify what needs to change.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a picture with words is even better. Notable makes it that much easier to communicate exactly what you want for your CPA website.

Have you used Notable or something similar to show different ideas and concepts? Send a comment below and share with other readers.

Marketing your CPA website in the right ways, you get enough traffic to gain new clients consistently. Having a website hosted by CPA Site Solutions allows your marketing time to be leveraged further. Here is how to take advantage of a couple of different marketing solutions offered for free.

Links Via Comments. There are some marketing tips and tricks in the CPA Site Solutions blog. When you comment upon those blog posts, you not only interact with others, but get links back to your CPA website.

Having links from a highly ranked website like CPA Site Solutions boosts your own CPA website. This boost helps you gain in traffic and potential customers.

Marketing Changes with Technology

Links From Testimonials. As the article on marketing from a lemonade stand pointed out, testimonials are great to have on your website. When you submit your own testimonial of CPA Site Solutions, be it positive or negative, you get a link to your website.

(Note: Both positive and negative comments are welcome. There is no trade for your testimonial and a link. However when you give honest feedback a link does follow.)

Referral Program. When you let others know about CPA Site Solutions and they sign up past the trial period, you get $50 cash back. This referral program is a way to say thanks for passing on the word to others that need a CPA website.

New Marketing Blog. Marketing your CPA website is an ongoing learning process. One reason is that some rules change over time as new ways to market come available. Keep up with those changes and read about specific tips by subscribing to the new CPA Site Solutions Marketing Blog.

Are there special marketing tips you want to share? Comment below and engage with other readers.

CPAs and other tax professionals can get CPE credit and 10% off an April Jennings Seminar. The topic is Lunch with Bob-Extensions on April 27th and is worth 1 hour of CPE credit!

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.

Jennings April Seminar at 10% off!

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 aprilcpasite during the checkout process to get the 10% discount. Regular price $49. CPAsitesolutions.com customer price: $44.10

Event Description. “Time to get those extensions done! We will discuss improving efficiency.” This event is worth 1 hour of CPE credit.

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 April for a similar offer for a May seminar. Click here to take advantage of 10% off seminar in April.

You have a CPA website and have signed up for online social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. You have discovered how to use Twitter to market your CPA website in minutes a day. Here is another way to help establish your CPA firm’s online image: screencasting via Twitter.

How Screencasting Works. Screencasting is taking a video of your computer screen. The video is recorded along with sound from an external microphone. You only need the following:

• An external microphone
• An idea or solution that can help others
• An outline of what you want to say
• Screencasting software

Free Screencasting Tool. Good news. Screenr is a free online screencasting tool for anyone to use with a Twitter account. You can start recording without downloading any software. The rendering and output of the video is all done for you online.

Jim's Screencast on Using Multiple Inboxes and Filters

See Screencasting in Action. You can see Jim Tourville do a quick screencast on how to use multiple inboxes and filters to sort your mail. Jim didn’t do an organized outline of his content, he just started recording. Despite this, and that he used the internal microphone from his mac, the final output was good.

Potential Uses. Really Jim was just testing how the application worked with something he knew and used already. The potential uses for screencasting on Twitter are as varied as your own expertise and experience.

The Goal. There are a couple of goals to keep in mind. One  is the goal of helping those understand how to do something. The other is to drive traffic to your CPA website via Twitter.

The first goal helps in making your screencast something that works well. The second goal is why you are doing it despite being busy with other projects. Your taking a moment to market your CPA website and firm via helpful solutions that can benefit anyone.

The end result is that you are producing unique and valuable content for search engines. This content is on Twitter but is connected to your CPA website and firm. You gain by having your firm seen by more people that are potential clients.

Have you used screencasts or video on Twitter or your website? Have your own story to tell? Send a comment below. If you really want to get into screencasting, check out the Mashable article on 12 screencasting tools. You can also take a look at using video on your CPA website.

CPA Site Solutions is fortunate enough to have a guest interview for today’s blog post. Nick Hodges is known online as “The Lazy CPA.” Nick has had a website with CPA Site Solutions since 2007. Although this post is much longer than usual, we are thankful that Nick has taken time out of a busy season to share with our readers. Want to share your own story on the CPA Site Solutions blog? Send an email to blog@cpasitesolutions.com.

Brian: How did you come up with the name The Lazy CPA?

Nick: When my wife became seriously ill in 1998, what I needed most was time to facilitate her recovery.  Part of that care was to move my family from California to Mississippi to be closer to our extended family for support.

I was the managing partner of a thriving tax practice in California, and could not take a sabbatical; I needed to find a way to free up my time while staying involved in the business and continuing to take exceptional care of my clients.

Necessity is truly the mother of invention.  Every activity on my plate was analyzed for value and I discarded many of the old legacy practices associated with our industry.  What I came up with was a new perspective of the value of systems and team-based services that kept me in the role of decision-maker and client manager.  My top clients and partners had direct access to me by cell phone, and all decisions were implemented by my on-site team.

When my wife recovered from her illness, I found I had more free time than ever before and focused on bringing expanded services to my clients. The cycle of free time and new services helped me create a unique and profitable lifestyle within the tax professional community.

I worked with my broker-dealer, Money Concepts Capital Corporation to help develop a series of educational seminars that would help CPAs add financial services to their tax practices the way I had.

Nick Hodges is The Lazy CPA

I spent about five years presenting new methods and concepts to an average of 3,000 tax professionals per year.  At one of the early seminars, I was jokingly introduced by Denis Walsh, the President of Money Concepts, as a lazy CPA – because I lived in Mississippi, worked five weeks a year in my tax practice in California, and took at least three family vacations a year while earning substantial amounts of money throughout the year. As I looked over that group of CPAs sipping their coffee and staring casually out the window, and knowing that CPAs are some of the most over-worked and under-loved professionals, I thought that I needed to catch their attention in a new way.

I responded to Denis’s introduction by saying that I was not just A lazy CPA, but I was THE Lazy CPA! We had such a great reaction to it that we just continued introducing me that way.  Many times an attendee would call my office and ask for “that Lazy CPA guy” because they couldn’t remember my name.

Brian: What sort of responses did you initially get from the name?

Nick: Continuing education courses are typically an opportunity for tax professionals to be out of the office and kick back for the day, detached from the presentation. After being introduced as THE lazy CPA, all eyes would be on me, suspicious and looking for any mistakes I might make in the presentation.

The point is, the moniker worked: everyone in the room was engaged, albeit angry at first.  That involvement created discussions that were lively and honest, with the attendees thinking about how my systems might work for them.

By the end of the presentations, many would come up and ask how we might create some sort of partnership.  This was, of course, impossible due to time constraints, but I felt good about being able to deliver new concepts and systems to them that would help them create better lives.

Brian: How have things changed (in the industry) since you started?

Nick: I’ve been sharing my story nationwide for about 10 years now.  When we first started providing seminars for adding financial services to the tax practice, we used to spend an hour or more on the question of the conflict of interests.

Since the AICPA has clarified this position, there is very little conversation on this topic any more.  Five years ago, the questions were about how to manage a tax practice to create more time; the result was my tax practice manual and training programs. Now, we are hearing directed questions about the practical application of HOW to add financial services to the tax practice.  We are seeing more and more CPAs adding financial services as a way to retain clients and improve their firm’s profitability.

At present, I am spending more of my time mentoring young CPAs in how to seamlessly provide tax, accounting, and financial services to our clients in line with what I’ve learned over the past decade.

Brian: What are some of the best tools you use for your practice?

Nick: Of course, I LOVE the tools provided by CPA Site Solutions!  I am happy with my website options, and have received positive comments of the professional look of the pages.

My clients use the calculators and enjoy reading the professionally prepared articles. We have been delivering our clients’ tax returns electronically through the on-line vault for years.  This means that we no longer print tax returns and we use a fraction of the toner, paper, and labor costs during tax season.

With the newsletter feature, I keep in touch with each and every client monthly. In addition, during the recent economic downturn, I was able to create and send a personal messages to them each week at no extra cost.  My clients loved it.

We also use their online Quickbooks and Payroll for many of my small business clients.  It has substantially streamlined how we deliver our bookkeeping services.

Other tools I use are Emoney Advisor as the platform for my financial planning operation.  I use Jennings Seminars live and streaming continuing education.  Money Concepts is my broker-dealer and delivers key online resources and other training in delivering financial planning to my clients. In addition, I have an internal operations manual that we keep in a constant state of update and revision as we refine our methods and systems.

Brian: Advice you would give a fellow CPA?

Nick: I am reminded of the scene from Alice in Wonderland when she meets the Cheshire Cat at a fork in the road.  She asks, “Which road do I take?”  He responds, “Where do you want to go?” When Alice answers, “I don’t know,” the cat replies, “Then, it doesn’t matter.”

My advice to my fellow CPA is to have a bold vision for not just your practice, but also for your lifestyle.  To challenge you to understand that the only one preventing you from living the lifestyle you truly want is you – trapped in old ways of thinking.  That there is always room for improvement in your systems and methodologies.  I’m hoping that like my moniker, The Lazy CPA, that readers will be upset and engaged enough after reading this to rethink what they’re doing and why.