Business

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a set of techniques and best practices that will help your website appear in the #1 position when people search for keywords related to your products, services, or content. For example, if someone searches for “marketing software” and you offer marketing software, SEO can help make sure people find your business.

The value of being in the #1 spot for common keywords is so strong that SEO has got to be one of the best long-term strategies you can employ for marketing your product or brand online.

There are many other ways to get web traffic, including social media, public relations, ads, blogging, partnerships, etc. But SEO is hands down the most critical form of traffic generation that exists and has a place in different marketing strategies.

Josh Melick, Co-Founder and CEO of Broadly (a mobile messaging and CRM platform for SMBs), knows all about how to market online, particularly with regard to Search Engine Optimization. He gave some ideas on how to bring more traffic to your business, particularly from Google searches.

How Search Engine Optimization Works

SEO is a way for businesses and individuals to get more organic or natural traffic through search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. When people use search engines, they type in words describing their interests. For example, someone who owns a shoe company might search using the term “buy shoes online.”

Google, Yahoo, and Bing are constantly crawling all of the web. They take these “spider feeds” and aggregate them together to search for keywords to rank websites on. Websites are ranked according to how often they are mentioned by other sites which are themselves ranking highly. The spider search feeds then will rank the most relevant websites for a given search.

In this way, companies can pay to advertise their website through Google’s Adwords program or other paid advertising programs, but still get ranked on the first page of Google due to SEO work done by someone else.

So How Should You Do SEO For Your Business?

Some people think you need to hire an SEO agency. Unfortunately, this isn’t always true. If you want to become an SEO expert, it can be very time-consuming and may not even be that effective if you don’t know what you are doing.

That being said, any company which wants to get on the first page of Google (and maintain its rankings) needs to establish its keyword profiles.

Google has tools called the Keyword Planner and the Webmaster Tools, which are helpful for companies looking to grow their traffic through SEO. These tools allow you to track your rankings, discover new keywords, build out what kinds of pages you should be creating on your website, and more.

The first step to SEO is to get on the first page of Google by doing research. Next, you need to find keywords that are related to your business. Josh said his company used these tools to figure out what people were already searching for, and then they worked backward from there to rank at the top when someone did these searches.

“You have to do something notable or unique that helps you stand out from your competitors.”

He concluded by saying that Search Engine Optimization is not a set-and-forget kind of thing. You have to stay on top of it. There are always new tools coming out all the time, so you must be willing to innovate and come up with new strategies to keep ranking well for different keywords.

There is no doubt that the retail industry is facing a challenging time with the ever-increasing shift to online shopping.

Even with an evolving threat to the retail landscape, companies need to ensure they are deploying adequate security measures to protect physical stores from theft and provide solutions that enhance the overall shopping experience.

Below are various tips on how to protect the physical sites from being compromised and what some of the best practices are in terms of physical security.

Install In-store Security Systems

Physical stores suffer from theft. This problem can be tackled by installing in-store surveillance systems, which can identify the culprit by gathering evidence in a series of images and videos.

In-store surveillance systems not only help prevent thefts but also deter them in the first place. Also, it provides assurance to customers that they could leave their baggage without worries while they shop around. It actually works especially well for small businesses where theft is most common.

Prepare Ahead Against Emergencies

Proper planning is essential for any business, and this is especially true for physical stores. The key is to be prepared ahead of time, so you are not putting your customers in danger or disrupting your business during an emergency.

There are many options for retail store owners to protect themselves against different hazards and unforeseen circumstances, including getting public liability cover to protect both themselves and their customers.

To reduce the damage of a disaster or to avoid it, one must prepare ahead not only for oneself but also for the store.

Hire Enough Staff to Adequately Cover the Store

Employing security guards is vital to protecting the safety of shoppers, workers and your physical store property, but you also need enough workers, not just for security reasons but also for an improved shopping experience.

For years, it has been known that having security in stores is a visible deterrent and works more effectively than as opposed to CCTV alone. In fact, hiring enough workers should be the first line of defence to protect your physical store, with CCTV acting as a backup and secondary line of evidence.

Use Security Solutions to Mitigate Health and Safety Risks

The health and safety of employees and shoppers alike should be your top priority. The influx of theft and violence in retail environments has risen to dangerous levels, with 40% of retailers suffering from threats of violence.

Learn the right way to use security solutions to mitigate health and safety risks. From guards to cameras and emergency equipment, there are a lot of options available for protecting your physical stores.

Lock up Valuable Equipment in a Separate Room

Another great way to secure both clients and employees is to lock up valuable equipment in a room that has a separate key. This will decrease the odds of merchandise disappearing due to laziness by employees or even eliminate the risk period.

Further, this will provide additional storage and secluded space for confidential documents or secret designs for new products. It may not be possible to implement this into every retail location.

Conclusion

Protecting physical stores from threats is incredibly complex and expensive. It involves many resources, including people, technology, process enhancements, and tools. Retail shops can use a combination of prevention methods discussed above to create a “defence in depth” approach to protect their store, its employees and its customers.

Whether you have been working at one company for a long time and have yet to move up the ladder, or you just started at a new one and would like to be promoted quickly, there can be many situations where you want to get ahead at work. Even though some may think that climbing the ladder at their job is a lot to take on, the truth is that it can be simple to improve your situation and make the career changes you want to see.

Take Care of Your Health

One of the most important things, and one of the most overlooked things that can help you get ahead at work is making sure that you take care of your health. The more that you can make sure you come in to work rested and energized, the better able you will be to tackle new tasks and to prove yourself worthy of a promotion.

For some, making diet changes helps, while for others getting better sleep can make a bigger difference. Whatever you decide to do to improve your health, it can be a good idea to research your options and read things like powerlife reviews to make sure you are choosing what is best for you.

Put In the Extra Effort

After you have done work to improve your health, it should be easier than ever for you to put in the extra effort at work. Even though it may not always feel like it is getting noticed right away, the reality is that it does get noticed, and can make a big difference. Not only will others notice the work that you are doing, but it will help improve your reputation as a dedicated worker as well. Beyond that, it will show that you care about your job and are willing to do what it takes to make sure that tasks get done the right way.

Be Open To Different Opportunities 

Sometimes, you may be offered opportunities, but you may turn them down because they aren’t exactly what you had in mind. While it may be understandable to not want to take on a job that you aren’t sure is right for you, the reality is that being open minded to different opportunities could lead you into a great career path that you may not have chosen initially.

Learn New Skills

Even if you have been at your job for a long time and feel that you know almost everything there is to know, it never hurts to learn new skills whenever you can. Because the job market is always changing, the kinds of skills that workers need are changing, too. The more that you can adapt and learn new things, the more valuable you will become as an employee and the more that your higher ups will view you as an asset that they need to hold on to.

Don’t Get Involved In Work Drama

Something else that is important to consider when you want to move up at work is how your interpersonal relationships can effect your progress. Even though it may be tempting at times, getting involved in spats and workplace arguments on a frequent basis can have a detrimental impact on you, and can tarnish your reputation. By steering clear of interpersonal issues, you can show your upper management that you know how to rise above petty problems and get your work done.

Some Last Thoughts

There can be many situations where you may want to move ahead at your job. This can be true for someone who has been working at one place for many years and has yet to move up, or for someone who just started at a new company and wants to impress the upper management right away.

Whatever the case, making strides in your career doesn’t have to be difficult. By doing a few simple things like putting in extra effort and being open to new opportunities, you can help increase your odds of moving forward in a meaningful way.

The whole business landscape is changing rapidly and if you are not on board, you’re going to be left far behind and you might not be able to ever catch up again. Everything has gone digital and if you look around you right now, you will see that the vast majority of people have a smart phone in their hand and they are using it to browse the Internet and to find products and services that they want. This is why you need to embrace digital marketing and the many tools that it has at its disposal to really turn your business prospects around. Agencies such as Bulldog Digital Media will create and carry out strategies to get you seen in the digital space. You literally have access to thousands of new customers every single day and the numbers are growing all the time. The Internet is where it is all happening and so your business needs to have a strong presence on there.

People are still shopping on the high street, but a great deal of their business is being completed online and so if it is important for you to get this section of this business pie, then you really do need to get yourself a full service digital marketing agency behind you, to make it all work. If digital marketing is still a very new concept for you then hopefully the following benefits of using it can show you how it can really improve your business outlook.

* There is nothing better – There is not a better way to get your business message out there than digital marketing and that is a fact. It will allow you to actually reach out to people who were genuinely interested in the product or service that you have to offer. All style marketing meant that you just through your message out there and hoped that some of it would stick. This is not the case with digital marketing and you can interact with potential customers using your website, your business blog and on social media as well. If you want to reverse the current downward trend that your business is heading towards, then a digital marketing campaign can provide you with all of the answers.

* It is money very well spent – Many smaller businesses have a limited budget and so this stops them from keeping up with the much larger competitors in the past. This is no longer the case thanks to digital marketing and it has helped to level out the playing field for all. Digital marketing allows you to save time and money because you can actually reach out to a specific demographic in the market that is interested in what you have to offer. Your digital marketing efforts can also be measured in real time, so if one particular marketing campaign is not working, the direction can be changed and something else can be tried in its place. This means if you can keep track success of your digital marketing strategy and a few tweaks have to be made, then that can happen. The digital marketplace is where your business needs to be right now.

These are only two of the many benefits of having a digital marketing agency in your corner and there are numerous more. If you want to have the potential to reach out to literally thousands of new customers, then digital marketing is definitely for you.

There are many different types of videos for various purposes. You can make a video for virtually anything you want, from promotions to entertainment. Video editors are a great tool for any video that you want to make. To know more about how these online video editor tools work, click on this link to view more.

Video content is now more popular than ever. With the rise of technology, anything is possible in terms of video production. What was once a fantasy can now be made into reality with the help of software that is easy to use. Moreover, internet speeds are now faster and more than double than what they used to be a couple of years ago.

That means there are more opportunities for people to spread information and large-high-quality video content. Social media and video search engines make it even easier for a person’s content to be shared with the public.

It also helps people learn new things on the internet. Explainer videos are one of the best ways you can learn a new skill quickly. There are now hundreds of ways you can share your knowledge without having to be physically present with someone. Here’s how to make your explainer videos effective for the viewers.

Speak Clearly and Coherently

An explainer video usually has a host that relays the information to the viewers. The host should be able to express themselves naturally and have a good understanding of what they’re teaching. This is especially true for videos that focus on teaching such as tutorials and how-tos.

As a host, you should know how to control the audience. This part is particularly challenging because you are not physically present with your viewers. So you have to think ahead and visualize how they will react to certain parts of your video. Build a script for the entire video and look at the big picture so you know how to pace yourself.

The understanding of the viewers is very dependent on your clarity as a speaker. If you speak too fast, they definitely won’t understand. Thus, If you speak too slow, they might get bored and look for a different explainer video. Also, if you’re not comfortable as a host then you can use online video editor apps to create text instructions as you’re acting.

Invest in Good Equipment

As for the equipment you don’t need to buy the most expensive ones. Just make sure you have a decent camera and microphone because that is also a factor in keeping viewers engaged. Have you ever watched a video and stopped watching midway because of bad audio quality? The same thing can happen to your videos.

This usually happens to beginners because they record the audio with the same camera they use to record video. To avoid this, simply use a different microphone for the audio so you can edit them separately.

One more tool you need is a competent editor. If you’re on a tight budget try to use free online video editor software. This editing software already has everything you need to edit your explainer videos perfectly. It even has a separate timeline for the audio and video. Furthermore, you can even adjust the volume of the audio without affecting the video.

Use Legible Fonts in Your Videos

Font goes hand in hand with video production. At some point in your video, you’re going to add some text to it to explain and emphasize certain words. But be careful because it could result in the opposite if you choose the wrong font!

If you choose a font style that doesn’t go well with your video then it might be a reason for viewers to get confused. Also, If it looks like it was just placed there randomly, you also risk looking like an amateur. If there’s a need to add text, make sure to steer clear from over-the-top font styles and stick to professional ones.

Additionally, in the same online video editor, there are multiple options for font styles. You can browse the selection to see which one suits your video. If you’re sure about adding text to your explainer video just put in keywords so the audience doesn’t get distracted.

Add Feel-Good Music

Music might be the last thing on your mind when you think about explainer videos but it has a big impact on the viewers. The music from the intro alone can create a mood for whoever is watching. This is because music has the power to set the tone of a video. That is why most if not all explainer videos have background music.

However, there are some scenes where you might want to skip the music. If a host is talking it’s going to be hard to understand him with background music. That’s why you have to be careful where you put it so it doesn’t affect the entire video.

It’s a good idea to put it in a scene where you’re performing a certain action. Though it’s perfectly fine without some background music, expect a little bit of awkward silence. Visit online video editor websites for a wide selection of licensed background music with different genres.

Keep it Short and Simple

To create a high-quality video, do keep it short and simple. While an effective explainer video should be able to explain whatever the topic is, that doesn’t mean that the video has to be hours long. Find a way to provide the information promptly.

It’s a good idea to create a script so you know at a glance what can be in the video and what can be in the description. If you look up tutorial videos on YouTube, you will notice that people want videos to be direct to the point.

Parting Words on Online Video Editor and Explainer Videos

Finally, try to use templates from online video editing tools to keep your work organized from start to finish. This way, you’ll be able to save time and effort that you can focus on other aspects of the video production.

Furthermore, if you implement most of those strategies, your strategy will be a lot sharper.

Explainer videos are a great way to bring in the right audience for your platform. At the end of it they will most likely feel appreciative of your help. So make sure to always put the viewer ahead of everything else.

 

Applying for small business loans is easier when you know what to do and what to include in your application letter. A lot of small business owners do not know the importance of including these things. They apply haphazardly for loans without taking their time to find out what must be included.

You need to think like the lender when filling out your business loan application. Put yourself in the shoes of the company and ask yourself what you’ll like to see from any business that wants to borrow money from you. Do this, and your chances of your loan being approved will skyrocket.

In this article, we’ll show you the most important things to include in your business loan application, so you can have successful loan applications. These documents help to prove to creditors that you are worthy of receiving the loan.

Include these documents when applying for fast, convenient, and accessible small business loans from Camino Financial.

Credit History

Your credit history is arguably the most important information that lenders require for small business loans. Your credit history will be reviewed to test your creditworthiness and your faithfulness in repaying creditors. This will help them determine if your loan will be approved or not.

If your business is new, your personal credit history will be reviewed instead of your business’s personal credit history. Obtain a credit report on both yourself and your business before applying for credit. Doing this ahead of time will allow you to scrutinize the report and detect inaccuracies and errors. If you do, you can obtain the report from the same credit reporting company used by your lender.

Collateral

Collateral is an asset or property that secures small business loans. The collateral will likely be seized if you are unable to repay the loan. The presence of collateral indicates to a lender that you are serious about the loan and you are ready to forfeit the collateral if you continue to default.

The collateral is usually a long-term property with no prior or superior liens so as to ward off other priority claimants. The lender will inspect the collateral documents to ensure that they are secured and okay.

Cash Flow History

Your business cash flow history is a good addition to your business loan application form. The cash flow cycle shows all cash inflow and outflow to the business. It gives a good idea of your sales, demand cycles, and whether your business will generate enough cash to repay a loan.

It also helps to highlight your competence in managing the business and cash that flows through the business.

Cash Flow Projection

Cash flow projection is a futuristic prediction of what your business cash flow will be. It is a realistic calculation that forecasts business transactions using the current outlay and estimated growth projections. Be careful to be as accurate as possible.

Business Plan

If your business is new, a business plan is one of the most valid documents that you can present to a lender. You don’t have any financial statement or creditworthiness for the business. Your business plan is the only thing that can help to argue your case and help you to obtain small business loans.

Accounting Financial Statements

The most important financial statements are the Statement of Financial Position or Balance Sheet and the Statement of Income. Other financial statements include Statement of Equity and others. These documents help lenders to review the financial status of your business.

Insurance Information

Lenders may want to see your insurance information to know if your small business is well secured against some unforeseen circumstances. The insurance statements will also let them know the beneficiaries of such policies, the amount of insurance premium paid, and how it may affect your loan repayment.

Conclusion

These are the important documents that your small business loan applications should have. They increase the chances of your loan being approved. Never forget to include them in your loan application.

 

Working in the oil industry is an extremely risky job. There are a considerable amount of injuries that occur every single year in the US alone—many of them lead to fatalities. For this reason, following oil and gas safety standards are critical. In order to stay safe in such a dangerous industry, it’s critical that every oil worker knows the right tips. Take a look at some of the most important tips to stay safe working in the oil industry.

Stay Aware

Regardless of what industry you work in, one of the most common reasons for unnecessary accidents is a lack of awareness of your surroundings. It’s important that you stay aware of everything that’s happening around you. The more that you can stay familiar with hazards and potentially dangerous situations, the safer you can keep yourself and your coworkers when working in a risky environment.

Keep Pathways Clear

Spills, trips and falls are incredibly common in the oil industry. It’s important that everyone in the workplace does their part in making sure that pathways are clear and there’s no risk of falling over any equipment or spills. Remember, it takes a collective effort to keep the workplace safe, so if you see something that could pose a threat to someone’s safety, remove it and make everyone aware of its presence.

Keep Machines Maintained

One of the most important parts of keeping your workplace safe in the oil and gas industry is maintaining all machinery. Regular checks are a critical part of correct safety management and should be checked regularly to ensure that everything is in working order. If there’s any doubt about whether machinery has been maintained or not, it should be brought to your supervisor’s attention immediately.

Faulty equipment is often to blame for unnecessary accidents in the oil industry. Do your part by ensuring that equipment is safe before putting your own life or others in danger.

Stay Up To Date With Safety Procedures

Safety procedures are constantly evolving and being updated. It’s important that you stay up to date with the latest changes to ensure that you keep yourself and others safe. You should be properly trained on any new procedures that come up and do your part in providing a safe work environment for everyone on the job.

Report Unsafe Conditions

It’s important that if you see anything that could pose a potential health or safety threat that you report it, like a lack of insulated road pins. Awareness is the best way to keep everyone on the team safe. By everyone working together to point out potential hazards, everyone can remain safe in a potentially dangerous environment like the oil and gas industry.

Disposing of waste of any kind is important so when it comes to sharp needle disposal it is vitally important that they are disposed of correctly. Sharp objects cannot be disposed of regularly, sharps or needles carry the highest risk of injury and contamination than any of the other waste disposals. When you consider the use of needles then it is easy to see why extra care is needed to ensure safe disposal.

What Are Sharp Needles Used For?

Needles can be used in the hospital for bloods, injections, drips and many other uses. What is generally involved though is that it is contaminated with bodily fluids and highly at risk of contamination and injury to others. The clinical use of needles means that extra caution is needed when disposing of needles and sharps. Needles are to be disposed of in the same way that all objects are disposed of, they are to be put in a sealed and secure container that can self- lock once the needle is placed inside. The reason for the safe container ensures needles contaminated with bodily fluid are not causing any harm or risk to others. To work in an environment where needles are being used frequently disposal of such sharps is really important. This means that each individual needle or sharp are to swiftly put into the containers and disposed of properly and efficiently.

Needles and sharps are to disposed of individually and not in any old waste bag. To educate employees in waste disposal, especially of sharps will be beneficial. Clinical waste disposal also consists of contaminated items and again it is important that clinical and medical waste is also disposed of correctly. When your employees are aware of which type of waste is disposed in each way the risk of injury and contamination decreases massively. Using bags, containers and bins correctly ultimately adds to the safe and clean workplace environment. The best way to ensure safe disposal is by using a professional waste disposal company and having them work alongside you. By doing this you will be able to use their expertise in the best containers, the safest disposal and removal and also the best way to store discarded items. A professional company will always know the best way to dispose of waste and can offer some of the best containers and bins available to ensure safe disposal. A professional company will do their very best to create new and inventive containers that relieve the risks of contamination even further. No touch and self-clean bins being part of that creation. The less touching that is needed then the lower the risk of contamination and injury and there is not much more you can do than that. A professional company will also help with collection of waste and they will work with you to decide the best way and times to collect waste. This will all be decided by the amount of waste that is being disposed of and the most effective way to keep waste disposal low.

 

As the amount of raw data in our world continues to grow exponentially, companies and organizations are undergoing a digital transformation in order to keep up. Cloud environments just aren’t strong enough to hold back the flood of unstructured data that comes from the many sources of data that companies use such as applications, websites, and physical devices. A data manager might try to solve the problem by moving their databases onto silos, but this can severely corrupt the data integrity and hinder a company’s ability to grant data access to its international branches.

Companies that have decided to move to a data fabric solution are realizing that they gain a competitive advantage from the real-time insights other benefits that data fabric provides. Let’s take a closer look at data fabric, and why it solves some of the most crucial problems facing data scientists and companies today.

Big data is only getting bigger.

It doesn’t matter what products or services a company is selling, an organization’s ability to leverage its data assets has become crucial to its survival. Companies that don’t take advantage of the insights that can be learned from data engineers and passed onto the decision-makers often fall behind the companies do. However, the biggest issue that data analysts face is not performing analytics, but finding places to store and organize the unimaginable amounts of data that flood their databases every day.

Although data may seem small and unobtrusive, it’s currently making a mess for companies that have more data than they know what to do with. Due to storage issues and disorganization, the valuable information that companies could be using to gain a competitive edge is often located in different on-premises servers, as well as hybrid cloud environments. This means that the data is maintained on different file systems and databases, so there is no continuity, creating more and more barriers between companies and their valuable data. Because data is growing rapidly for all companies, these problems will only continue to worsen for organizations that have not implemented data fabric solutions.

No more data silos, lakes, or warehouses.

Many organizations use data lakes, data warehouses, and silos to try and solve this big data problem, but this only acts as a bandaid and does not solve the deeper issue. In fact, silos can often make the problem worse because they limit data access to a select group, meaning that decision-makers are bound to the location of their servers.

As a consequence, useful and important data can stay unused and forgotten in the back of a dusty silo for years. This means that data is not paying rent on the expensive storage it takes to maintain it. Companies are losing money two-fold: by throwing cash away on storage for data they can’t actually use, and by missing out on valuable insights that are lost when data remains unaccessed.

A data fabric, on the other hand, allows the company to extract their data from the source point no matter where they are in the world. This breaks the chains of silos that give decision-makers the ultimatum of staying on-premises or missing out on important information. Data fabric software allows useful information to be processed in real-time, giving organizations more options, more storage space, and more freedom.

Enhanced quality, availability, and insights.

One of the biggest frustrations that data engineers face is the fact that less and less of their jobs have become about data. Due to the device-intensive nature of silos and data lakes, analysts have to deal more and more with hardware issues and spend less than 25% of their time addressing issues that require advanced analytics. This is a waste of the analysts’ time and a huge waste of money. Data is only valuable if companies can use it to learn more about their customers, the market, and themselves.

When data becomes inaccessible and forgotten it becomes highly likely that data integrity will become comprised. This is especially true when different types of data exist in multiple locations on separate file servers. This kind of storage solution was not designed to face the big data problems we face today.

Data fabric solutions have become the future of big data because they are the best way to profit from your data without wasting money on storage space for data that is unusable. Data fabric was built to anticipate the big data problem and give companies the data integration tools they will need to survive in the changing data world by making all data operate in a single environment, providing continuity, organization, and peace of mind.