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Matthew Stone of Teysha Technologies Announces Partnership with the Kind Planet Company

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A new partnership has been entered into between Teysha
Technologies and the Kind Planet Company, empowering women and placing women in
rural Africa at the forefront of ethical and environmentally friendly materials
innovation.

The Kind Planet Company produces a comprehensive range of
skincare products using 100% organic ingredients that are exclusively
cultivated, picked, processed and packaged across 43 farms by women in Ghana in
West Africa. The women are not only provided with everything they require to
cultivate the fruits, but also taught invaluable land management skills that can
help them run profitable businesses.

Teysha has introduced its patented technology to produce
lids for the packaging that are fully biodegradable and created from natural
waste products. Matthew
Stone, Teysha Technologies’
Managing Director, stated that the company was committed
to producing environmentally friendly, ethical products that meet
sustainability demands.

Teysha Technologies patented platform has the potential to
revolutionise the global packaging industry, which currently contributes
towards the 8 million items of plastic that end up in seas and waterways around
the world each day. Matthew Stone commented that Teysha had made the decision
to go right back to the original source not only of the packaging but of the
products inside.

The choice to partner with the Kind Planet Company was made
in support of the empowerment of women in Africa and other communities in
developing nations. Teysha as a company has strong female representation from
the highest level, so the ethos of the Kind Planet Company resonated with its
existing business values.

The partnership was finalised and announced in August 2020.
Teysha is now working on developing a prototype for a full range of
biodegradable packaging lids to be used across the exclusive skincare product
portfolio of the Kind Planet Company. Once a prototype has been approved
product testing will commence, with plans to begin full scale production and
manufacture in 2021. This will happen under the leadership of Duncan
Clark, Teysha Technologies’ Head of Business Operations
.

For Employers: What to do During a Work Injury Claim

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If you’re reading as an employer, we’re glad to have you here. As an employer, you will come across several situations at work when employees will claim the work injury. In such a situation, you will need to make sure that they are paid the wages and medical expenses. Failing to act on the request of an employee might get you in trouble. Here, in this guide, we will help you in sifting through a situation when employees demand work injury claims.

Here are a few steps that you need to
take:

1.      Inform the
Insurer

In the beginning, you need to pay the
daily or monthly wage to the employee. This way, you won’t get in trouble if
the court hounds you. As an employer, it is your responsibility to make sure
that the company isn’t unfair to the victim.

2.      Take Them to
The Hospital

If your employee has experienced a
serious injury, you must rush them to the hospital as soon as possible.
Especially if you live in a locality where the ambulance service isn’t
hands-on, it is imperative that you rush the victim to the medical facility
real quick.

3.      Keep a copy of
the Medical documents

As an employer, you need to have a
stronghold over the medical documents. There have been cases in the past when
employees demanded way more than the actual medical expense.

If your worker has a work permit, you
need to take care of them to the fullest. This is because failing to attend the
victim will give you a bad reputation. However, if the worker doesn’t have a
work permit, you don’t need to be omnipresent for them in the medical facility.
Not to forget, employees can file the compensation within the 1st
year of the accident, so you need to have copies of all important documents.
Don’t forget to sift through the guide to accidents at
work

for more information.

As an employer, you will have to
frequently pay the monthly wage to the employee, even if the insurance money
hasn’t been paid. However, you don’t need to worry because the insurance company
will take care of the money you will pay after the damage has been done.

How to report the Accident?

When an accident happens on the site, most employers begin to panic and know nothing about handling the situation. As an employer, you must know,  it is important to report work-related accidents within the first ten days of the occurrence. Please make a report of whatever happened on the site, send it to the concerned department and the insurance company asap. Don’t panic if the accident was caused because of the company’s fault. If you have a top-notch lawyer by your side, they will make sure the company doesn’t have to pay more than what the employees deserve. Most employees tend to exaggerate the situation, which is why the insurance company has to pay a lot of money. As an employer, you will need to take control of the situation before things get worse.

Picking the Right Online Gaming Slots

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Finding top ranking online slots can be challenging for newbies, given numerous gaming slots provided by various online casinos. Gaming experts recommend playing for free before venturing into waging. Free games allow you to play without making a deposit and earn no payouts. They also provide an opportunity to understand the games provided on a site before depositing your cash.

Spinning at an Online Casino

Online spinning is a simple process that
entails clicking on a tab provided on the screen and allowing the computer to
determine and display the results. This is made possible by a Random Number
Generator that automatically generates unique numbers with every spin.  

You can play online slots at
Loyal Casino
from a massive online slot collection-over 500. This gaming
site is an excellent choice for gamers in search of unique games. Here are a
few guidelines to help you select great online slots.

Identify a Theme

Having a theme
that you can relate to will add to the fun of your gaming experience.  Themes are mainly a useful tool to help you
find similar games on a gaming site. Popular themes include adventure, sports,
comics, magic, mystery, treasure, and zombie.

Consider the Betting Terms

Every gaming site has a minimum bet policy
and a maximum bet policy. If you are working with a limited betting budget,
consider a site with low minimum bet requirements. Liberal wagers prefer to
have maximum bets set to the tune of hundreds of pounds for a greater range of
games.

Determine Payout Goals

Winnings range from a few pounds to
millions of pounds that can be greatly life-altering. Peoples’ preferences vary
greatly, even when it comes to money. While some prefer winning little by
little, others delight in massive payouts.

Establish the RTP

The RTP refers to a percentage of returns, showing the expected payouts from a slot. Higher RTP means better winning chances for you, while the reverse is true for lower percentages. Many slots are available at the same RTP for most casinos.

Check Volatility

Volatility here refers to the degree of
fluctuation of results, which determines how much you can win. High volatility
slots are inherently high risk since they yield high payouts occasionally. Low
volatility slots are low risk and provide frequent winning opportunities with
small payouts.

Practice with Free Slots before Spending Money

Once you register for your gaming account,
practice free mode to identify your preferred slots and help you make
knowledgeable choices when betting or picking games for better playing. Playing
free slots allows you to have fun without any risks attached.

Setting a Slots Budget

Setting an amount for your gaming activities is an essential step for responsible gaming. Gaming requires financial discipline as you can quickly deplete your savings if you are not decided on the amount to spend on your gaming sessions. If you are playing multi-line slots, set a limit for each line and stick to it. Using these guidelines will help you make a seamless entry to the gaming world and set you on a fun path of discoveries and endless possibilities.

The COVID Effect on Global Markets

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Speculative trading during the recent
coronavirus pandemic has been like nothing the markets have experienced in the
past several decades. Not since the late 1980s, in fact, have so many people
made such large profits in short time frames. Why? The primary reason for the
recent volatility is directly related to uncertainty surrounding the virus. In
the early months of 2020, no one could make a guess about whether there would
be a vaccine, cure, or treatment of any kind. Nor did medical experts have a
clue about how long the pandemic would last.

Now that most of the world is slowly
beginning to return to normal, the global economy is inching back to something
like a normal state of affairs, even though there will likely be some deeply
permanent effects on various market sectors. But for investors, there are some
profound lessons. One is that commodities trading has the potential to deliver
quite large profits for those who are willing to learn how to trade real assets
as opposed to corporate shares of stock. The other lesson is that once you find
a CFD trading broker, it’s
possible to participate in the commodity sector with very little red tape, low margins,
and simple ordering methods. CFDs, contracts for difference, represent a
uniquely simple way for ordinary investors to trade just about anything,
including asset-based vehicles like gold, silver, cattle, oil, and wheat.

Wild Price Action

During the COVID viral crisis, which is
ongoing as of late 2020, many investors took advantage of the wild price swings
in all segments of the market, including corporate stock shares, commodities
like gold and oil, international currencies, and forex currency pairs. No part
of the global trading marketplace was untouched by the crisis, which send
industrial production and employment to lows not seen in more than 50 years.
For sharp-eyed investors who refused to lose their composure, this dip in the
price of virtually everything represented a unique
chance to buy
all sorts of securities, assets, commodities, bonds, and real
estate at bargain-basement prices.

And now prices are beginning to swing in
the other direction, upward in most cases, those who bought in at super-low
levels are reaping the rewards. But there are still all sorts of opportunities
for anyone who wants to take part because the crisis isn’t over yet. For
example, the per-barrel price of oil is not yet back to its pre-COVID levels
and still has quite a ways to go. The same can be said for many other
commodities and corporate stock shares.

Gold as an Example

During the pandemic, the most popular precious
metal, gold, reached new heights, notching well past the $2,000 mark for the
first time in history as speculators and long-term investors sought out the
yellow metal as both a safe haven against economic uncertainly and as a way to make
fast profits on the sharp swings
in value. After a pullback from those
historic highs, both gold and silver continue to offer profit potential for
anyone willing to speculate on further rises or drops in the value of those
precious commodities.

Major Opportunities

Why are there opportunities in times of
crisis? COVID might be unique in many ways but it’s certainly not the first
financial or economic crisis to come along. For more than a century, attentive
investors have watched prices surge and dip during uncertain times, which
typically occur during wars, political turmoil, natural disasters, credit
crunches, real estate gluts or scarcity, and other events that have the
potential to deeply affect the international economy. But, as every watchful
trading enthusiast knows, whenever prices drop precipitously or rise
unexpectedly, there’s almost invariably a reaction and eventual return to the
norm. No one can ever predict with absolute certainty how long it will take for
stability to return, but the point is that it almost always does return. Buying
during huge price dips and selling during upward spikes can be a smart path to
profits.

Advantages of Contracts for Difference (CFDs)

One of the ways people can take part in any
of the financial markets is via CFDs, also known as contracts for difference.
These simple to use vehicles allow people of varying experience and background
to buy and sell just about anything you can imagine, from stocks, bonds, and
options to index funds, futures, and commodities. There are many advantages of
using CFDs. They include the ability to make transactions with very low margin.
That means you can leverage a very small amount of funds to control a rather
large investment.

How to do year-end accounts for a limited company

A company Year End is the end of your business’s accounting period. The best way to find out the actual year end for your limited company is by looking it up on your company record at Companies House. Year end accounts is simply a summary of your limited company’s overall performance for an accounting year, which Fusion Accountants can help you prepare.

Year end accounts is a legal (and
often daunting) requirement for limited companies to prepare and file your
accounts and tax returns. Many business owners
worry about the consequences of getting it wrong and the impact it can have.

It was reported that businesses in London were
reported to be the top offenders for filing year end accounts late, with over 220,000
UK companies
facing hefty
fines
for missing the Companies House deadline.

Year end accounts can seem overly complex,
particularly if you are in your early years of trading, or have just shifted
status from sole trader to limited company

This needn’t be a complicated process, and, in this
article, we take a look at the basics of year end tax accounts and what your
limited company needs to do.

End
of year reporting

Every limited company has its own financial year.
This year always starts on the anniversary of the official start-date of the
company. This is specified as when your company was registered with Companies
House. So, the financial year ends the day before the anniversary of the
company start-date. This shouldn’t be confused with the tax year, which runs
from 6th April to the 5th April.

If this is your company’s first accounting period
it may mean you have to submit a few months more than your 12-month
year-end-accounts. In this case, you’ll need to submit an additional tax return
to cover the extra trading time.

Producing these accounts gives the business owner
valuable information about how their business is faring. It can help you
understand day-to-day operational costs, and all the other key costs of your
business finances.

What
need to be filed with the HMRC?

Company
Tax Return

You need to send your Company Tax Return (form
CT600) to HMRC.  This contains details of
your turnover, expenses, tax allowances, profit, and other information. This is
done in the form of the company’s Statutory Accounts.

HMRC will use this information to calculate your
corporation tax liability. If you have an accountant, it’s likely they will
have calculated this figure for you before the forms are submitted.

Annual
Accounts (or Statutory Accounts)

A limited company’s Statutory Accounts or Annual
Accounts are the documents that are required to be sent to Companies House.
These are the documents that will outline and explain a company’s financial
performance throughout the year for both the HMRC and the company’s
shareholders.

Statutory Accounts are a summary rather than an
extensive record. Rather than individual transactions they will instead contain
overall income and outgoing figures for the company for the accounting
period. 

Statutory Accounts are made up of the following:

  • Income Statement – the
    company’s profit and loss for the accounting period.
  • Statement of Financial
    Position
    – this is the overall value of a company and is
    otherwise known as the Balance Sheet. This reports the assets and liabilities,
    and the total of the difference between them as they stand at the end of the
    accounting period.
  • Directors Report – unless
    a company is a micro-entity, it will need to produce a Directors Report. This
    is an annual report on the state of the company by the board of the directors.
  • Footnotes
    – any extra information that helps to clarify what’s contained in the earlier
    sections.

The Statement of Financial Position and the
Footnotes will be published by Companies House. This will be available for general
viewing and can be accessed on the Companies House website.

Keep
track of company accounts filing deadlines

It’s important to keep track of the deadlines for
filing accounts to the two different authorities. Limited companies need to
submit their year-end accounts to HMRC and Companies House.

Companies
House

  • Submit your first accounts – 21
    months after your company’s registration date.
  • File subsequent annual
    accounts
    – 9 months after the end of your company’s
    financial year.

HMRC

  • Pay corporation tax or inform
    them the company doesn’t owe any –
    9 months and 1 day after
    the end of your accounting period.
  • File your company tax return –
    12 months after the end of your accounting period.

The deadline for paying any corporation tax is shorter
than the one for submitting your Company Tax Return. If you have an accountant,
they will be able to calculate how much is owed. Overpayments can be corrected
later.  It’s good practice to submit your
tax return well before the deadline to ensure that you pay the right amount of
tax.

Penalties
for missing a deadline

If you miss the deadline for submitting the
required documents to either Companies House or the HMRC you may be liable for
paying a penalty.  In some cases, your
company will be struck off from Companies House register and you will be fined,
if you don’t send your accounts and/or Confirmation Statement when due.

If you’re late in filing your documents an
automatic penalty notice will be issued.

The late filing penalties issued by Companies
House
are:

  • Up to 1 month – £150
  • 1–3 months – £375
  • 3-6 months – £750
  • Over 6 months – £1,500
  • Over two years in a row –
    penalties will be doubled

What
should I do to get ready for my Limited Company Year End?

When filing your limited company accounts, a good
accountant can help you understand what you need, or you can plough through the
detailed guidelines on the gov.uk website.

Working with an accountant will make the process of
preparing year end accounts less stressful and the best part is that you will
be eliminating the possibility of making costly mistakes, while potentially
saving your time and money.

Before
you prepare for your Company’s Year End Accounts, there are a few steps you
need to take care of:

  • Prepare
    you and your team should ensure you have all the
    necessary information at hand to be able to complete the documentation and
    submit on time.
  • Chase
    overdue payments
    – to ensure your accounts
    are as accurate as they can be it’s time to chase down those unpaid invoices.
  • Sort-out
    your expenses
    – expenses reduce your Corporation Tax liability
    so it’s important to ensure that all allowable expenses are recorded.
  • Make
    sure your figures match
    – all the figures in your
    accounts should tally with the figures in your supporting documents. These
    include receipts, invoices, and bank accounts. Make sure that any unpaid
    invoices are listed as outstanding debts, rather than revenue.
  • Ensure
    your staff payroll data is up to date –
    make
    sure that your staff
    employment data
    such as payroll, benefits
    and expenses are completely up-to-date and have taken account of staff comings
    and goings during the financial year.

Get
professional help from an accountant

The easiest way to remove the stress and headaches
of filing your Limited Company end of year accounts, is to get professional
help.

If you don’t have the resources or the time to
manage this complex task it makes sense to seek the advice of a specialist accountancy
firm who can provide a variety of key services to make the filing process
easier. 

If you need expert assistance with
year-end accounts, contact One Click
Accountant
 today.
Accountants offer bespoke assistance you can opt for support that’s tailored to
your company’s exact requirements.

Mistakes while filing Limited Company accounts can
be costly. Getting tailored professional support can ultimately save you a
great deal of stress, time and money.

Dubai – A place with one of the strongest equestrian traditions

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Horses
represent nobility, inner peace, and strength. For thousands of years, they
have been at the side of human beings, acting as loyal and faithful protectors
and servants, ushering millions of individuals through and into new sights and
territories. Their grace is subtle but yet overpowering, and with it, they’ve
helped inspire various cultures and traditions, particularly in the United Arab
Emirates and Arabian gulf.

Despite
all the technological innovation we’ve seen in transport, humanity will always
have a fondness for horses and what they represent. Today, more and more
individuals are feeling the longing to immerse themselves in the equestrian
traditions of thousands of years past. There are so many horse breeds, and
activities in this arena, that it can be a little challenging when it comes to
knowing where to begin. An online marketplace such
as horsesme.com

can be a great place to start for horse enthusiasts – here you can find
different horse breeds and equipment, as well as horse riding lessons and
activities.

Desert horse riding in
Dubai

If you’re looking for horse riding, then we recommend desert horse riding in Dubai, known for its love for horses and its novel approach to equestrian activities. With countless horseback riding tours, desert horse riding experiences, and places for horse riding lessons – this is the perfect place for you if you’re looking to immerse yourself in a new adventure.

Not
only that, but Dubai is also the perfect way to bask in several different types
of other adventures. These include quad biking, traditional boat racing,
sandboarding, and so much more.

In
the United Arab Emirates, don’t only expect there to be intensive horse
activities that you can partake in. You can also simply watch horse racing
events if you want to take more of a backseat. Horse racing events tend to
attract families, giving them the chance to enjoy something that unites them
together. Meanwhile, these events often have complementary activities for
children to participate in before and after horse racing events.

A unique activity with
countless benefits

If
desert horse riding already sounds tempting, you can book an evening safari and
have an off-road experience on the highest dunes in the UAE that’s
out-of-this-world. Doing so, you’ll be able to bask in the wonder of the
Arabian desert, get to know different horse breeds and gain greater clarity on
what kind will best suit you, should you choose to buy a horse in the future.

Desert
horse riding not only has health benefits, but it can also help you gain
cultural insight into the UAE. Sports in the UAE are usually linked to desert
sands, with many camels and horses flocking these areas – interestingly, camel
racing is also a popular tradition in the UAE. Although Formula 1 and tennis
have grown in popularity over the years, traditional horse riding is still
loved by many citizens of the UAE – and for good reason.

Loving
and loyal, the Arabian horse is the oldest horse breed registry in the world.
Arabian horses can sustain the rough climate conditions of the Gulf region,
making them perfectly suitable for a range of activities in Dubai.

An environment designed
for sport lovers

UAE
is known for its state-of-the-art facilities, designed so that the residents
can enjoy and play their favourite sports with ease. Traditional sports have
been promoted to keep the heritage of horses alive. All with that, the UAE
government has helped nurture a thriving expat and tourist community, with
around 80% of residents in the UAE being expats.

Summary

Whether
you’re a seasoned horse rider or you’re simply interested in the equestrian
tradition, Dubai has lots on offer in
terms of activities
,
tours and beautiful rolling dunes scenery. Choose a tour that suits your needs
if you’re visiting for the first time, or customise your own trip if you’re
decided on trying new adventures. Either way, equestrian activities are
guaranteed to make for a unique experience.

Restructuring and redundancy – why you may need expert help in the wake of Coronavirus

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Redundancy
is a challenging, emotionally-charged process that no business leader or owner
wants to face. However, the Coronavirus pandemic has brought challenges to all organisations
from large corporates to the smallest SMEs, and for many, restructuring and
redundancy may be the only option.

In
times of crisis, businesses go through three phases – Survive, Reset, Thrive.

The
survive phase saw us all getting by day by day to get the job done, in many
cases supported by the Government’s COVID-19 furlough scheme to keep staff in
employment.

Most
businesses will have now moved on to the Reset
phase. This is where plans must be developed, and very difficult decisions
made, to put the organisation in the best possible position to thrive in the
future.

Unfortunately,
there may be a need for fundamental changes to staffing – and support from
expert redundancy HR specialists can be required to achieve this. Even large
companies with their own HR teams may require specialist
restructuring and redundancy HR support
, particularly if they are
preparing to make a large number of redundancies.

Before
taking any action, it is crucial to understand what redundancy means, the legal
process required, and the pitfalls that can be encountered along the way.

What are
restructuring and redundancy?

This
may sound like a straightforward question, but many employers struggle to
understand it. First of all, there is no legal definition of restructuring and
redundancy and the term restructuring may in fact cover a range of options such
as reduced hours, lay-offs and changes to pay and contracts that stop short of
redundancy.

As
many businesses seek to cut staff costs due to the impact of Coronavirus, it’s
important to understand that businesses do not make a ‘person’ redundant
– it is the role they perform that is now no longer required. This means in
order to make a job redundant, there must be a reduction in the requirement for
the work to be carried out, a business closure, or the closure of a workplace.
You should also consider alternatives to restructuring and redundancy before
you begin.

What
are the alternatives to restructuring and redundancy?

Redundancy
should be a last resort, and there are a number of alternatives that should be
considered. Many will require the agreement of employees, but in the difficult
circumstances we all face because of COVID-19 you may find that staff are
agreeable to change if it means they remain in employment.

Not
every solution will be right for every business but you may consider pay
freezes or cuts, a temporary deferral in pay, a cut in hours, and unpaid
sabbaticals. When considering restructuring or redundancy you should also look
at whether it is possible to redeploy one or more employees to another part of
the business. Sometimes an external eye – such as an outsourced HR provider –
can help with identifying these alternatives and spot opportunities you may
have missed.

If
there are no viable alternatives or employees do not accept the offer of a
change to hours, pay or terms, then redundancy may be a fair reason for
dismissal. It is crucial that fair and legally sound processes are followed –
again, an employer or in-house HR team may need support from an external HR
provider to support with this.

A fair
redundancy process – consultation is key

From
the largest corporates to the smallest businesses, the same rules of redundancy
apply. In large companies which may be making a significant number of redundancies,
it is essential that a thorough consultation process – including collective
consultation where relevant – is carried out meticulously and fairly. Getting
this process wrong can be expensive and risks exposure to employment tribunals
and reputational damage.

If you
intend to make 20 or more employees redundant within any 90-day period at a
single place of work, then you must follow collective consultation rules which
require a consultation period of 30 days (45 days if the number of employees being
made redundant is 100 or more). There is no set consultation period for
employers proposing to make fewer than 20 redundancies but it is good practice
to consult, and a tribunal could decide that a member of staff has been
unfairly dismissed if they were not consulted or if the consultation was not
adequate.

When
selecting employees for potential redundancy, you must be scrupulously fair. Of
course, selection must not discriminate on the grounds of any protected
characteristics such as age, race, religion, sex or sexuality.

Usually
candidates are “scored” on performance – their output or quality of work,
attendance, and disciplinary records. This can be a complex process and may be
subject to a challenge by an employee – so often to ensure complete compliance,
objectivity and impartiality, this process is run by an external HR provider
that specialises in restructuring and redundancy.

Restructuring
and redundancy for employees on the Coronavirus furlough scheme

Staff
who are on furlough may
still be dismissed on the grounds of redundancy. However, businesses should be
wary of making redundancies as soon as the furlough period ends as HMRC may interpret
that the intention was to make the redundancies all along.

It’s
important to note that despite the existence of the furlough scheme, all normal
employment rules, including the need for redundancy consultation, are still in
effect.

If
furloughed staff are not at work then meaningful consultation must take place –
either bring them safely into the workplace, or carry it out by phone or video
call.

If you
do make an employee redundant, then you will need to calculate their statutory
redundancy payment. This is based on a number of factors including their pay,
length of service and age. Redundancy payments are based on the employee’s full
salary – not the reduced amount paid through the furlough scheme. An employer
must meet the cost of this payment – it cannot be claimed through the job
retention scheme.

External
HR support for restructuring and redundancy

Restructuring
and redundancy is a complex process, especially taking into account the
additional factors of Coronavirus and the furlough scheme.

Even for
very large companies, it may be that internal HR teams need support from an
external HR team which specialises in redundancy. An external team can view
your workforce with an objective eye, identify alternatives to redundancy,
ensure consultation is carried out legally, fairly and sympathetically, and
advise on any potential issues your business may face as a result of the
process.

This
article was produced in association with Reality HR which
delivers bespoke HR services including restructuring and redundancy support to
a range of organisations through its team of CIPD qualified specialists.

Use the Power of Programmatic Ads to Boost Your Brand’s Sales

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Programmatic Ads
are an advancement in digital advertising that levels the playing field between
small and large competitors by automating the bidding process. It’s a concept
that cuts through and makes obsolete the manual bidding of ad placement. As
well as reducing the amount of time a marketing team spends placing online ads,
it can also target your most likely customers more effectively and provide you
with a better chance of getting ahead of the competition. 

Programmatic ads are an offering from the bright minds at Google.
Collectively, it’s Google DoubleClick Bid Manager, Display and Video 260 all
rolled into a single practice of ads management. 

By using the power of the data available on the internet,
programmatic ads is a way of using algorithms, instead of a manual system to
place ads. While the pay-per-click business model revolutionised online
advertising, it also necessitated the inefficient and time-consuming task of
bidding on where, when and how often a particular ad would appear. 

The new practice streamlines the bidding process by automating a
lot of the decisions and using various data such as interests, region, and
demographics to decide the best particular ad placement target audience. The
practice also uses AI to add additional focus to the process. 

Effective and Efficient Customer Targeting

Market ‘prospecting’ provides a hint to the often mediocre results
that occurred. In traditional marketing, prospecting referred to directly
contacting a demographic or region of potential buyers to gauge their acceptance
of a brand’s products or services. Depending on the level of this acceptance, a
marketing company would decide on whether launching an expensive ad campaign
would be financially worth the expense or effort. It was literally like digging
a hole to find out whether or not you struck gold. 

Although, the results were positive enough to warrant the
laborious effort of market prospecting, the hit or miss aspect of the exercise
was often frustrating, especially when time was often a consideration. Time spent
prospecting while the competition was employing other, more fruitful marketing
strategies, led to prospecting often being avoided if at all possible. 

Digital Assistance

But now, with the assistance of digital algorithms, and AI
enhancements to the process, prospecting is enjoying a resurgence. With the
lightning-quick speed that algorithms provide, prospecting is seen as just
another useful part of the process of finding the right audience appeal
to. 

By using historical data of a brand’s sales, programmatic ads
focus on the most likely buyers and narrows them down to the most likely
candidates out of those buyers to respond to a particular type of ad. It then
assigns a value to the ad. This value is then used in an automated bidding
process that knows whether to exceed or stay below a particular competing bid
in the purchase of ad space. 

Programmatic ads are revitalising the online advertising approach
for millions of advertisers. It helps small brands compete effectively against
larger brands in their industry and speeds up the entire ad bidding process.

5 Unconventional Ways to Boost Your Return on Investment with SEO

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Should you go with organic SEO created by a digital
marketing agency or purchase Google ads? If you’re interested in long-term
success, SEO is always the answer.

Granted, this route can lead to a massive return on your investment, but it’s not always easy to discern what are the best SEO practices to follow. There’s a lot of similar-sounding advice out there.

And while foundations of SEO will eventually
lead to the results you’re looking for – they’re not everything. In this
article, we would like to draw attention to a few ideas that you might not have
thought of yet or have neglected to use.

1. Fight Your Way to Featured Snippets

Sometimes, you need a 3,000-word article on a
topic, and other times you need a short sentence that contains essential
information. That’s why featured snippets are popular.

They’re right under the sponsored posts and
ads, answering the questions you’ve asked. The problem is that it’s not exactly
clear yet what’s the magic formula of getting your website into the featured
snippets ranking. But placing a question in the H1 title is a good practise.

So too is utilising the FAQ schema code that
indicates your post contains a question and answer format. But all of that is
useless without having the best possible content that provides concise answers.

2. Choose More Intuitive Title Tags

Everyone talks about keywords, and of course, this
is something that requires a lot of research and careful implementation in SEO.
But even if your content is premium and keywords are perfectly optimised, users
might skip your page.

This happens if the title tags sound confusing or
merely unappealing. This often happens when we lose sight of the fact that it’s
real people behind the screens.

Simple and straightforward title tags will get
more clicks than those that sound overly complicated and perhaps a bit
intimidating.

The “What Is…?” format is always going work,
even if you’ve used it thousands of times before, because that’s precisely what
people ask.

3. Transcribe Videos

In some instances, well-executed video content
is the absolute best choice to make. And it’s often the preferred choice among
users. However, in terms of boosting the return on your investment with SEO, it’s not the best option.

But it can be if you add a transcript of the
video content. Just because search engines still can’t read and analyse video
data, you need to move away from creating video content.

There are efficient and affordable tools online
that can help you with transcribing the videos. But if you make an extra effort
to edit those transcripts into blog posts, you’ll likely see even better results.

4. Focus on the Images

Images are important. A claim supported by the
fact that Google keeps a separate tab just for image searches. That’s why
taking the time to add descriptive tags and naming the image file might
significantly increase your chances of ranking higher on the SERP.

Another image-related tip would be to think
about the image size. High-quality images seem like an obvious choice, but
lighter image files might mean that the page will load faster.

You might benefit from searching for tools that
can help you preserve the image quality while compressing the file size as much
as possible.

5. If You Still Haven’t – Relocate to WordPress

WordPress might not be the only website
building platform, but when it comes to SEO, it’s the best choice. If you’re
looking to boost the return on your investment with SEO, WordPress has a lot of
useful and practical tools.

One of which is the Yoast plugin that can help
you make your page stand out when the search engine algorithms search for the best
results to present. Even the free Yost plugin version will provide sufficient
information for you to tweak your page to perfection.

Bonus Tip: Quality & Consistency

These two ideas go hand in hand when you want
to bank on your SEO practices. Reliable and long-lasting content is the absolute
key when it comes to choosing the right SEO investment.

Moving towards useful rather than trendy
content is always the right choice. But it’s also vital to point out that
consistency will pay off as well.

Consistency is noted among the algorithms too. Therefore,
if you choose a regular and consistent output of content, you’re likely to be
gain more traffic and start more conversations.

Return on Investment with SEO: Thinking Outside the Box

Whether you choose to hire a digital marketing
agency or another approach, the principles of return on investments are the
same. And yes, it’s a long-term investment, that sometimes seems a little bit
too unpredictable.

But if you try to implement some of these
unconventional ways to boost and expedite the return on your investment, you
could see tremendous growth faster than anticipated. But always keep in mind
that quality content comes before any other tool you can try.

Putting Corporate Social Responsibility at the Heart of Business

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Teenage environmentalist Greta Thunberg has donated her recent one-million-euro prize for winning the inaugural Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity to various environmental groups. The well-known campaigner is staying true to her aims and doing everything she can to help the cause she believes in. 

But, while it might seem like the most natural thing in the world for Thunberg to donate such a considerable sum to the cause she has become so well-known for, it’s not always so easy for businesses to make the right choices in their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) choices.

Help is at hand for CSR policy development

The idea of a social conscience comes across as relatively new in the world of business. Still, it’s been around for longer than you might think. Some few firms took a stance on social responsibility in the 1970s. Then, from the 1990s more firms began to feel the pull of giving back, until the present day where awards are given for well developed and executed CSR policies and global forums discuss how big business can do more.

While Euromoney’s annual awards now commend financial institutions who have worthy CSR’s, Forbes runs philanthropy in business summit every year. Although the 2020 event took place online due to Covid-19 restrictions, it remained a hotbed of ideas on how firms could move ahead with their social responsibilities, including different communities who would benefit from some targeted support.

Аccording to IBTimes, international business investor and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Finstar Financial Group, Oleg Boyko, was among the 200 invited philanthropist attendees of the recent Forbes 400 summit.

Oleg Boyko is well-known for his shrewd investment decisions and also, for his philanthropic tendencies. The investor founded the Parasport Foundation in 2006 and through it, provides financial assistance for the physical rehabilitation, social adaptation and equal opportunities for para-athletes and non-athletes suffering from physical and sensory impairments.

Businessman Boyko’s passion for CSR through his foundation has not faded. In 2020, 14 years after beginning the foundation, he helped provide much-needed support for over 2,000 para-athletes, representing 28 different sports, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Though the Parasport Foundation, Boyko provided medical-grade masks and gloves along with other forms of targeted assistance for those in need across 35 regions of Russia.

“The idea of giving back to communities in need has always appealed to me and as soon as I was in a position to do that I founded the Parasport Foundation and have continued supporting it for over a decade,” Oleg Boyko said. “I am pleased to see more and more companies and business leaders are also taking steps into developing real CSR programs which will bring many benefits to communities around the world.”

Growing appetite for CSR among big businesses

Since 2006, there have been a lot of businesses around the world who have understood the need to give back and acted upon it. In 2015, BNP Paribas rebooted its CSR policy and embedded the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals across its business. That’s something that was recognized in the 2020 Euromoney awards for excellence.

Meanwhile, tech giant Apple has a wide-ranging approach to CSR. It has been supporting education initiatives for almost 20 years while also regularly upgrading its environmental targets including recently working towards becoming a carbon-neutral business by 2023 – and also helping and encouraging its entire supply chain to do the same.

For businesses who often think about developing their CSR policies but don’t feel as though they can do enough to help just yet, stop putting it off. There are so many communities who need help and support and a plethora of ways to give it to them. Seize the day and take that first step. The communities you choose to help will benefit, as will your business.  

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