Logically, the first step in becoming a CPA is to have a desire to go into accounting. The next step is to ensure that you have the aptitude to be a CPA; that is, you must have an aptitude for math and numbers, as well as organization. A CPA candidate should also have a good sense of moral values and business ethics.
Once you have determined that you are a good candidate for an accounting career, you need to determine if becoming a CPA is the right accounting career for you. To do this, you must understand what a CPA does. A CPA can be employed individually or within a public accounting firm in tax or audit services. A CPA is, of course, a public accountant. That means that the CPA provides services on a fee basis, basically meaning that the CPA works for the public in general rather than a specific corporation or company. This can translate into variety in your CPA career.
CPAs make an average of $36,625 per year as a starting salary within local firms. Within national firms, a CPA can have a starting salary of around $44,375 per year. These figures may not seem fantastic, but for starting salaries they are very competitive. A CPA can easily start out making enough money to be considered middle-class income level, which is not a bad place to start in today’s society.
Once you have decided that you want to become a CPA, you must attend a college or university to obtain a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting. All states within the United States of America have a Board of Accountancy or similar department or agency that lays down the requirements for an accountant to become a certified CPA. These requirements will tell you how many credit hours of your education must be in accounting related courses in order to become a CPA.
Once you have completed your degree, the Board of Accountancy will want you to undergo testing to see if you can become a certified CPA. This testing may include ethics examinations as well as examinations to test your knowledge of generally accepted accounting principles, accounting laws, and accounting regulations for your state, as well as tax law and principles.
Once you have passed all CPA examinations, some Boards of Accountancy may require you to provide them with references. These references should be people that can attest to your work ethic and moral character. These aspects of a CPA are very important, because CPAs have a lot of opportunity to commit fraud and embezzlement crimes. Therefore, only CPAs who have demonstrated good moral character and a sense of ethics is allowed to receive a CPA license.
Once all requirements are met, your state will issue you a license to practice as a CPA. You can then take this license to any firm and apply for a position as a CPA. If you prefer, you could start your own small firm and practice as a CPA alone. For more information about becoming a CPA, you should contact your Board of Accountancy or local college or university today!
None of us are perfect when it comes down to bad habits, but some are worse than others; not understanding your debt or finances is one of them. Kicking these bad habits into touch means that you can look towards becoming debt free:
1: Too many credit cards – Did you know that there are more credit cards than people in the UK? According to APACs, at the end of 2007 there were 73m credit and charge cards compared with around 60 million people.
Having too many credit cards means that you have the potential to get into too much debt. Although introductory offers many tempt you in, it is important that you take control of your credit card debt. Start by paying off the highest APR cards means that you can look forward to becoming debt free in a much quicker time.
2: Spending more than you earn – Spending more than you earn by living beyond your means is a financial habit which you need to nip in the bud right now. This is the quickest way to get into debt, especially if you regularly have to relay on your credit card the week before pay day.
3: Missing credit card payments – Always make sure that you meet your credit card, store card or catalogue payments as they fall due. Missing these payments not only means that you will have to pay late fees but any missed payments will also show on your credit file, which could make it more difficult to get accepted for credit in the future.
4: Losing touch of your finances – Being unaware of how much cash you have in the bank to how much debt you have outstanding means that you have lost touch with your finances, which will make it harder to become debt free. Checking your credit report is a good way to see your own credit history.
5: Not seeking debt help when you need it – Sadly debt problems will not sort themselves out, and if you are missing credit card, store card or even mortgage payments then you need to seek help as soon as possible.
Debt Free may be able to offer you one of our debt solutions which could help you to control your debts by reducing the amount that you need to pay to your unsecured creditors. Getting help about your debts mean that, if you qualify, you could look forward to becoming debt free in 60 months with an IVA.
I got into SEO back in 1998. And I can tell you from experience, it’s changed a lot over the years. Not long ago you could use tricks like keyword spamming and fill META tags with just about anything even close to what was on your page. Even with the simplest tricks you could place highly on Google, Yahoo, and all the other biggies. That’s no longer the case.
Today SEO is about a 75% / 25% split between links and content, with inbound links being the most important thing. Especially on Google. When all is said and done, you can get to the top of Google in just two simple steps. Seriously. I’ve done it hundreds of times and it’s easier than you’d imagine.
Step 1: Develop Great Content
Writing great SEO content is a snap if you follow this simple 5 step formula…
1.) Write naturally as if speaking with a friend. Record yourself actually speaking to a friend about the topic of your Web page and it will all come together automatically.
2.) Limit each page to 2 to 3 keywords or keyword phrases.
3.) Mention each keyword no more than 4 times per page and split the usage somewhat equally between paragraphs. Two mentions of your major keyword in the 1st paragraph is the only real exception. And be sure you mention each toward the end of the page to show overall consistency and topic authenticity.
4.) Try to incorporate the first mention of each keyword into hyperlink anchor text. The link should lead to another page of your own site. (Note: The keyword would then be the clickable text leading to your other page.)
5.) Have between 150 and 250 words of text per keyword. So if you have 3 keywords on one page, you will have about 600 words on that page, in total.
That’s the quick and dirty SEO content writers course. And believe me, it works!
Step 2: Link Like the Pros (Part 1; Strategize)
Linking is a bit more involved. The main thing to remember is that you want as many high quality, topic relevant links as you can get. And you want them all using the same exact URL since Google sees URLs that begin with “http://www” differently than links that begin with just “www”. In other words, even if you have 200 links to your page, if they are split between URL formats, you are not getting full credit for the links.
And forget all that stuff about links to the homepage being “a must.” Sure, having inbound links go to your homepage is great but Google has smartened up. They figure your site overall is probably not that great if nobody bothers linking to your actual content pages. While it’s true that Google ranks pages rather than sites, they do still base each of your page’s worth on its supporting pages.
I won’t bore you with a bunch of techno babble. In short, if you keep this in mind, you’ll always be ahead of the game:
1.) Inbound links should be from pages containing relevant content of a similar nature.
2.) Links to your web pages from outside pages with high Google PageRank (GPR) are most desirable. (Note: GPR is NOT the page’s position on Google. It is a value, from 1 to 10, that Google assigns to all Webpages.)
3.) Links from (not to) a homepage are typically most valuable, unless they have a higher GPR page to link from. Focus on the GPR. If you use software like that mentioned below, it will do all this automatically. If you do it all manually, get the free Google Toolbar from http://toolbar.google.com. GPR is shown for every page (that has any) on the Internet.
4.) Inbound links to your pages should feature your keyword as the anchor text triggering the hyperlink (keyword is the clickable part leading to your page.)
5.) Do NOT use generic text for your link’s surrounding content. Make the sentence as relevant as possible.
6.) Use as many well written versions of your link’s surrounding content as possible so Google doesn’t view your inbound links as duplicate content.
Step 2: Link Like the Pros (Part 2; Do It)
As far as actually getting great links, avoid the automated script based reciprocal link services. A lot of these services link your pages to “gray barred” pages, which means your site can get kicked off Google as well. And to be honest, reciprocal links are not nearly as valuable to Google as they once were, especially the junk link pages most of these services create.
If you want to “set it and forget it” without the problems mentioned above, you might want to try a service like 3-WayLinks.com (http://www.3-WayLinks.com). Although I’m not a fan of any linking service, this one is the best I’ve come across so far. They set it up so your page links to another, which links to a third, which links to you. There is no direct reciprocal beeline back to your page and each link is counted as a one way inbound link by Google, which is the most valuable type of link.
Of course, natural linking is the way to go whenever possible. Google LOVES links that are part of page content (see the anchor text notes above.) And getting great links like this is easier than ever with the right software so don’t sweat the time or effort. Both are minimal.
The product a lot of SEO pros use (myself included) is SEO Elite, available at http://www.SEOeliteWeb.com. It works great as both a full function link building tool and ranking checker for all major search engines. Even if you don’t need the app, take advantage of the free videos on the site. They explain special linking considerations, like special reserved commands such as “allinanchor” and how to find Google “Authority sites.” You can still benefit from the information, even without the tool.
Big Tip: When approaching other sites for links, try to get your link as anchor text in the actual page content, or a margin. Also do their link that way and explain the benefits and how much Google loves this type of natural content linking.
So there you have it; everything you need to get your pages on top of Google in record time. Best of luck. You’ll do great!
