In the world of SEO or search engine optimization, there are the good guys, the ones who play by the rules, and the bad guys who try to trick Google’s algorithms to increase their site traffic. The term “white hat” represents the good guys and is also known as “ethical SEO”. By optimizing your site according to these procedures, your site will be less likely to be penalized by Google.  

 

We will cover the bad guys or “black hat” SEO in a separate post. For the moment, this article focuses on the importance of white hat optimizations, techniques you can apply, and also its limitations. 

 

Importance of White Hat SEO

 

The goal for all types of SEO is to get web pages to the top of Google search results to drive organic traffic to the optimized websites. Since there are millions of pages on the web, search engines need a way to differentiate and rank these pages in order of the ability to answer the search. 

 

If your page is not on the first page of results and preferably in the top 3 results overall, you won’t get meaningful organic traffic.

 

When someone types in their search query into search engines, a list of sites appears on the search engine results page (SERP). SERPs typically contain two types of content – “organic” results and paid results. 

 

White hat strategies influence the organic results that appear according to the search engine’s algorithms. If you are applying strategies based on giving value to your audience, then you are in the white hat lane. 

 

There are several advantages to getting traffic from white hat approaches. First of all, it is cheaper since you do not need to repair violations that have been penalized by Google for applying black hat tactics. Another advantage is consistency. Rankings that originate from a more stable, legitimate approach are more long-standing than quick tricks that Google eventually catches up to. 

 

Finally, relevancy is probably the biggest advantage of white hat strategies. Because you are targeting and providing value to the individuals who are more likely to be looking for your material, there is a strong possibility they will engage and convert. 

 

White Hat Techniques

 

1. Provide quality content – The phrase “content is king” is more relevant today than ever before. Providing your audience with the materials and knowledge they are seeking is invaluable. Blog posts are used by 86% of marketing teams today.

 

2. Keyword research – Choosing keywords that your audience is currently searching for is nearly a surefire way to get them to click on your content. At the same time, many people struggle with SEO because they choose to rank on keywords that are too competitive. If you research long-tail keywords, which are keyword phrases with three or more words, you can find phrases that are not as competitive and are still a popular search. You can use free sites like Uber Suggest and Answer the Public to locate long-tail keywords.

 

3. Page speed – Does your webpage load in under 3 seconds? If not, it is time to condense videos, reformat images, and install plugins to get your page speed down. Users get frustrated when sites do not load quickly; as such, Google ranks your page lower because it is not fulfilling the user experience.

 

4. Mobile-friendly – Out of the 8.5 billion searches on Google every day, 63% of them originate from a mobile device. Fortunately, it is not difficult to make your website mobile-friendly. There are websites like Experte that allow you to quickly evaluate whether your website is being penalized for mobile users. 

 

5. On-page – This practice refers to the content and HTML source code of a page that can be optimized. Adding things like metadata, alt tags, anchor text, headings, and sub-headings are just a few examples of applying on-page SEO strategies.

 

6. Quality link building – Backlinks gained organically versus paid links have become a hallmark of SEO practices. Most linking will come from content and social media. If you are starting from square one and do not have many backlinks, you will need to do a lot of email outreach to websites that provide similar content for your users. 

 

White Hat Limitations

 

Even though white hat SEO is typically more cost-effective than black hat, the barrier of entry is often too steep for many companies to implement. The recommended optimizations above certainly work, but there is a great deal of complexity and time needed to modify the technical aspects of your website.

 

Another challenge with white hat tactics is the amount of time it takes a website to rank on the first page of Google search results. Many organizations give up before the front page is realized. But if you consistently create strong content that your audience uses over time, you will surpass this barrier eventually.

 

The biggest limitation with white hat optimizations is competition. In certain industries, you are up against many companies that have highly optimized websites ranked purely with white hat techniques. In these aggressive markets, to avoid waiting, sometimes years, to reach the front page, you can either pay for advertising or create more digital strategies that enhance engagement.

 

Overall, white hat SEO strategies focus on providing your users with high-quality and relevant content that optimizes the user experience. By focusing on quality and user experience, it is only a matter of time before your website beats out the competition and is catapulted to the front page.

 

How FINSYNC Can Help

 

FINSYNC allows you to run your business on One Platform. You can send and receive payments, process payroll, automate accounting, and manage cash flow. To learn more about how we can help your business start, scale, and succeed, contact us today.

 

As a business owner, you already know how easy it is to get caught up in the day-to-day management of a particular project. We all get tunnel vision at times and only focus on completing the tasks directly in front of us. 

However, it is important to pull back and get a big picture of how a project is functioning and affecting the organization’s overall profitability. Project margin helps to solve this problem.

Many business owners don’t factor project margin into their project management analysis. However, this statistic affects more than tracking and forecasting a project. While many areas could be affecting an organization’s profitability, this article emphasizes how monitoring on the project level will contribute to your overall success. 

What Is Project Margin?

Like profit margin, project margin is calculated by subtracting the costs from the revenue but on the project level. This deeper dive provides additional insight while concentrating on each project to determine which ones bring in the most revenue.

The costs associated with each project can be broken down into separate components. For example, you can track and observe the time your team devotes to a particular project and additional expenses such as equipment and third-party vendors.

An organization’s margin is divided into two parts: Current and projected. 

• • Current Margin – This value represents a specific point in time and is constantly fluctuating due to expenses going out and revenue coming in. 
  • Projected Margin – This value is the forecasted amount expected once the project is at completion. 

To better understand project margins, you will need to track the current margin and then add in any scheduled cost in the future to predict the projected margin accurately. 

Once you have this information, you can view the P&L of a specific project to discover trends.

P&L for Each Project

Let’s say your company is producing more new sales, and from the outside, your business appears profitable. However, you still aren’t creating consistent cash flow. Where do you look to find the source for where this money is going?

Many profitable organizations manage every project as a separate profit & loss (P&L). This approach reveals each independent project’s ability to generate profit. These metrics make it easy to refine your offerings and double down on the projects bringing in the most capital. 

This level of insight makes it easy to predict outcomes, so you can still make changes in time to meet your project targets. By making these predictions, you can quickly move resources, adjust staff numbers or change your project scope before the deadline approaches. 

Leading & Lagging Indicators

Project margin is a lagging indicator which means this metric evaluates only the current production and performance. Many business owners use leading and lagging indicators to track business trends month over month. Below highlights the main differences between these two statistics.

• • Leading Indicator – these measurable factors define what actions are necessary to achieve your goals. They are considered leading because they point toward the possible future to meet overall business objectives. Examples used in business include a new product pipeline, new market growth, and brand recognition.

Leading indicators make business owners ask questions such as:

  -How can we simplify processes to boost our outcome?

  -Where can the team make improvements to reach our goals?

  -What steps can be taken to speed up production or development?

• • Lagging Indicator – these indicators can only be known after the event completion, and changes in the project landscape can cause companies to alter their course. Even though this factor is not revealed until the end, you can use this information to gain knowledge and prevent future mistakes.  

Lagging Indicator questions could be:

  -How much of the final product did we produce?

  -What were the reasons we missed our deadline or goal?

  -Did any other variables pop up to alter the course?

 

These indicators regularly track performance by creating benchmarks to meet KPIs and overall business objectives. 

Since lagging indicators focus on outputs rather than outcomes, some organizations focus too much on the end results and miss opportunities that would have changed the outcome. 

Project Margin Best Practices 

Below are a few best practice recommendations when tracking and measuring your project margin. 

• • Resource planning: Project resources often change during the creation of a project. It is critical to have a plan to check and review any resource changes every week so the project margin data is accurate. 
  • Timesheets: Your business must have a reliable process for employees to complete timesheets on time every week. Utilizing payroll processing software that automatically checks accuracy and alerts for overages might be a great solution to keep projects in check.
  • Account reviews: Managers should have recurring monthly meetings with staff to review the leading indicators on specific accounts. These forecasts are a great way to head off potential problems to make strategic changes to the project.
  • Benchmarking: As well as measuring and tracking project margin, it is also advantageous to compare your statistics with other organizations. This information can give you a bigger perspective and indicate if you spend too much time and resources in a specific area.

 

 

How FINSYNC Can Help

FINSYNC allows you to run your business on One Platform. You can send and receive payments, process payroll, automate accounting, and manage cash flow. To learn more about how we can help your business start, scale, and succeed, contact us today.

COVID-19 forever changed the way many businesses structure their meetings. What once took place inside a conference room now takes place in virtual meetings that are now backed by easy-to-use software and tailor-made home offices. 

 

Virtual meetings have a lot of advantages: convenience, employees no longer waste time commuting, reduced rent, easier scheduling, etc. These benefits are why many businesses have decided to continue remote meetings even if they require workers on-site part of the time. 

 

On the flip side, virtual meetings come with their own set of challenges. This article will take you through those challenges and a few options to overcome them so that your employees have healthy job satisfaction and feel less drained. 

 

Limited Connections

 

Humans are social creatures. Regardless of being an introvert or extrovert, we are driven to connect, and not being physically around other individuals can cut out potential camaraderie.

 

These connections at work have been shown to reduce stress and fatigue. Confiding with someone experiencing a similar situation validates and normalizes their experience. Essentially, employees feel they aren’t battling alone.

 

Working remotely doesn’t need to put an end to this type of communication.

 

A possible remedy for this would be to encourage cross-talk before or after each meeting. Connecting with others means sharing something about yourself, your family, your pets, and even your dreams. Here are a few exercises you can use to spice it up.  

 

1. Everyone shares a fun fact that no one else knows.

2. Ask all attendees what is the first thing they would buy if they won the lottery. 

3. Show the camera a personal artifact with memory or importance that you can share.

 

There are countless ways to make it personal and be seen. Something as simple as giving everyone time to share instead of allowing one or two people to dominate the entire meeting can help engage the entire staff. This involvement will let everyone’s issues be heard and ultimately decrease employee burnout.

 

Turn Off Cameras to Reduce Fatigue

 

When people are being watched, they act differently. They may react more animatedly when told a surprising fact. Women especially report that they tend to feel pressure to look effortlessly flawless. Some workers may have an intense fear that their children will walk in or cats will jump in front of the screen.  

 

In addition, looking at our own faces can be stressful on its own. Viewing what we look like when exhibiting any emotion can take us away from the meeting, and even just seeing how our resting face looks can be jarring.

 

The solution isn’t to turn everyone’s camera off. Instead, give employees autonomy to choose whether or not to use their cameras. After all, employees who feel autonomous and supported at work are more likely to perform at their best. 

 

Technical Difficulties

 

In real life, a normal conversation has a natural rhythm and flow. It can be difficult to replicate this flow in virtual environments when internet speed lags, the camera freezes, or the audio makes someone sound like a garbled chipmunk.

 

According to the University of Arizona, poor audio or video quality is a significant source of remote meeting stress, sometimes referred to as “Zoom Fatigue.” It can be even more worrisome when the speaker doesn’t realize they are experiencing these issues. An easy way to prevent this is to check your mic and camera before each meeting. 

 

Finally, if you have been experiencing frequent lag or freezing, it is good to check your router and internet connection. 

 

Set an Agenda

 

If people turn up to a meeting with random questions, it could cause the speaker to stray off-topic or go over the meeting time. At the same time, if someone had prepared a long speech when not prompted, it could catch people off guard and unprepared. 

 

A way to avoid this is to have a solid objective. Start with a list of items you want to cover and calculate approximately how long each point will take. For longer meetings, try to break everything down into 10-minute chunks to maintain focus and engagement.

 

When you have an agenda together, share it at least 24 hours before the meeting. You’ll give people the time to do their thinking before the call and maximize the return on your time.

 

Developing an agenda is an excellent opportunity to encourage participation by asking your attendees their thoughts on the topics. One could even ask questions before the meeting to facilitate conversations. 

 

Lastly, a well-planned meeting should avoid going over the allotted time. It is important to respect everyone’s time and workload. Some employees with a tight schedule get derailed when a meeting lasts a lot longer than expected. Setting a time limit will help ease a strained workday and inevitably increase productivity. 

 

Summary

 

Virtual meetings do not appeal to everyone, and despite their upsides, there are also some notable disadvantages that businesses should consider. 

 

Remote work can be difficult; however, it is here to stay. As a business owner, the best steps you can take are to ensure that your meetings are inclusive, effective, and well-organized to reduce fatigue and build team solidarity.

 

How FINSYNC Can Help

 

FINSYNC allows you to run your business on One Platform. You can send and receive payments, process payroll, automate accounting, and manage cash flow. To learn more about how we can help your business start, scale, and succeed, contact us today.

Many analysts report that poor cash flow management is the number one reason businesses fail. Therefore, analysis and having the best tools at your fingertips is essential to safeguarding your business against bankruptcy, and one of the most critical analyses is “Days Sales Outstanding,” or DSO. 

 

DSO is a crucial metric to interpret and manage the cash flow of your business. This article will cover the importance of DSO, how to calculate this, perform analysis, and ways to improve this key number.  

 

Importance of DSO

 

Days sales outstanding (DSO), also referred to as the average collection period (ACP), is how many days it takes to collect money owed to your firm. We want DSO to be as low as possible from a cash flow perspective. If day’s sales outstanding goes down, then cash flow goes up and vice versa. 

 

Collecting revenue later than necessary puts you in a vulnerable position; the organization may need to borrow money or sell assets to cover the cash-flow deficit. If there is a structural problem with collecting these receivables, a company can even experience bankruptcy.

 

Before we move to the calculation, here are a few relevant terms:

 

◦ Cash sale: A sale settled immediately. The payment can be made by a card, actual cash, or check. 

◦ Credit sale: These are purchases made that do not require payment in full at the time of purchase. Payment can be made later or over a period of time. For companies that use invoices, NET 30, NET 60, and NET90 refer to payments done in 30, 60, or 90 days.

◦ Accounts receivable (A/R): The accounting term for all outstanding invoices owed to your company. 

 

DSO Calculation

 

Days sales outstanding can be calculated by dividing the total accounts receivable by the total net credit sales during a certain time frame. This number is multiplied by the number of days in the period of time.

 

The time used to measure days sales outstanding can be monthly, quarterly, or annually. If you calculate monthly, the measured period will be the number of days in that month, likewise for quarterly or yearly.

 

 

You can find the accounts receivable total on the asset side of the balance sheet and the revenue in the income statement.

 

Analysis

 

Now that you have determined your day’s sales outstanding, how do you interpret this data?  

 

A frequent place to start is to figure out if invoices are past due, and this information should be within the terms of a customer contract. Language such as “net amount due in 30 days” is how to determine if invoices are not paid on time. 

 

What are the reasons behind late payments? It is important to research potential issues like shipment problems or late invoice delivery. If a firm is requiring their customers to pay by paper check, offering an electronic option could speed up collections.

 

On the other hand, a low DSO is considered more favorable, and it shows that customers are paying on time or the company is strict on its credit policy. There is a possibility the organization is missing out on sales opportunities that would come from companies requiring more favorable credit terms.

 

Overall, having a low DSO for small to medium-sized businesses generally carries considerable benefits. Fast credit collectability decreases problems related to paying operational expenses, and a company has more cash on hand for other purposes. 

 

It is beneficial to look at this measurement and its change over time. If this number increases, a business may need to tweak its accounts receivable or overall business processes. 

 

Solutions

 

It might be a good time to invest in accounting software that does online and automatic invoicing. These features can shorten the delay in payment. Additionally, platforms like FINSYNC can track payment status, send automated payment reminders, and customize invoices with payment terms included.

 

Another option would be to include more payment options like ACH and online payment alternatives to get paid faster. Additionally, it may be practical for online users to store their credit card information to streamline their payment process.

 

If customers are repeatedly late or unable to pay, it is time to question the effectiveness of the credit review process when enrolling new buyers. Get your sales team on board and determine potential red flags that can occur during the onboarding of new clients.

 

Across the board, DSO is an excellent metric for determining the efficiency and effectiveness of your organization’s collection process for outstanding payments. 

 

Given the significant role of cash flow in an organization, having easy and regular access to your DSO values can help your business discover ways to collect outstanding bills as quickly as possible. 

 

How FINSYNC Can Help

 

FINSYNC allows you to run your business on One Platform. You can send and receive payments, process payroll, automate accounting, and manage cash flow. To learn more about how we can help your business start, scale, and succeed, contact us today.