Using Student Interns Can Be An Excellent Idea for Maintaining CPA Websites

The most effective initial contact with possible prospects for pretty much all small firms are solid CPA websites. Above all else they must make a good picture about you. Although an online presence prospects for you behind the scenes all day and night, it calls for diligence to manage your site content so that it is always up-to-date. This makes sure your site is listed high enough in search engine results pages so that possible leads can find your firm.

This takes a lot of diligence. One excellent method is to work with a student to help you with your online marketing. College students and new webmasters are always looking for opportunities to try out their web marketing skills. Here are some pointers to effectively bring a student into a practice to help create and manage marketing programs and CPA websites.

Fundamental Expectations

You actually don't need an intern with a lot of accounting expertise for this position. Instead the most desirable candidates will already have some experience with online marketing. They need to be skilled in SEO (search engine optimization). They should also have SEM (search engine marketing) skills. It isn't an impossible task to improve your search engine results. However, it takes a lot of effort and you must be patient. You want a steady stream of fresh content. It's a big challenge keeping CPA websites fresh and interesting. Ask your candidates for samples of their writing. The best candidates will have articles written about accounting and the field of financial management, but marketing and writing skills are MUCH more important. You obviously don't have to spend time teaching them the fundamentals of your business, but you'll have much more luck teaching a writer to sell accounting services than you will trying to turn an accounting student into a writer.

As a CPA, you understand the importance of a professional and dependable image for not only your prospects, but for your current clients as well. Your intern does not directly work with your clients. However, their work represents you and your practice directly. You should carefully examine their work and make sure that it is of sufficient quality to represent you online.

Integrating your Intern

Even though the intern role may be a temporary one, it is a good idea to treat your intern as if they are a permanent employee. You want to think about how compatible they will be with your permanent staff. They will all be working together. You want to be sure there is seamless communication between the intern and your staff, so that the site content they produce can properly reflect your firm's image.

Marketing Effectiveness

Because search engine programs can take several months to produce real, visible results, it is a good idea to let the intern make suggestions on SEO and SEM programs. You'll find that dedicating an intern to the job will allow them to make significant contributions to a CPA website's quality and search position. Interns can make substantial contributions to your practice's bottom line, so it is a good idea to keep all options open.

As soon as the first prospecting programs run their course, you might want to continue working with your firm's intern beyond the original scope of the project. College interns and new webmasters can continue to bring value to your online success, particularly in the competitive atmosphere of accounting websites.