Google Search Changes to Affect CPA Firms

Tax season is finally over. For many, now is a time for some relaxation before ramping back up for summer work.

For those that just don’t feel comfortable relaxing and are looking for something new to worry about now, you can start worrying about your website now. According to Google, on April 21, their mobile search platform will start favoring mobile-friendly websites.

What does this mean exactly? It means that websites that are not optimized for mobile and tablet devices will move down in the Google rankings and, by extension, those sites that are mobile optimized will move up...

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Source: Melissa Hennig (www.accountingtoday.com)

Five Things That Repel Candidates

All the data shows that we're about to enter a period of massive talent shortage. The events of the global recession have acted as a bit of a smoke-screen to the underlying facts - more and more businesses are growing, and there is less specialist talent.

As unemployment is falling, so too are there other forces at work. More start-ups than even before. The increase of remote working. And perhaps most influential of all: the effect of social - with the internet, most candidates have made up their minds on a company waaayyy before they turn up to interview (if they decide to attend in the first place).

All this means that hiring managers need to be more careful than ever when interviewing. News travels faster than ever - your reputation is more important than even before.

Here are five things that all hiring managers must avoid:

1) Not following up quickly (or even worse not following up at all)...

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Source: Jas Singh (www.linkedin.com)

How firms can use social media more effectively

CPA firms have a long way to go before they are making effective use of social media, according to a new survey report.

Firms can improve their effectiveness on social media with better training and tools, and by adopting written social media policies and monitoring metrics, says the 2014 Social CPAs Survey, How Accounting Firms Use Social Media Today.

The report, produced by consultancy SocialCPAs, Inovautus Consulting, and the Association for Accounting Marketing, can be downloaded for free...

...Firms seeking to improve their social media effectiveness, according to MacQuarrie and Dobek, can do so by:

Training . Half of the survey respondents said they provide their employees no training in use of social media. “I talked with some CPAs about LinkedIn, and they were asking, ‘Why would you need training on LinkedIn? Everybody knows how to use it,’ ” MacQuarrie said. “And I think the perception is, much like Excel, if I know 10% or 20% of Excel, I feel like a power user. And I have no idea what I don’t know"...

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Source: Ken Tysiac (www.journalofaccountancy.com)