No matter what kind of business you operate, the bottom line is always going to be the driving force behind each decision. Ensuring the bottom line is healthy is what keeps the business afloat and ultimately successful. With that said, it is a constant struggle for business owners to ensure they are making the best and most cost-effective choices when it comes to operating their business. Nowhere is this more evident than with a manufacturing business that has so many different wheels turning at once.

So, what are the costs worth keeping an eye on?Here’s one you may not have thought of immediately, but it definitely deserves attention -did you know that the energy costs can not only balloon out of control but can also end up taking a serious bite out of profits if you aren’t careful? Here we’ll take a closer look at why exactly business energy costs can prove to be such a drain on a manufacturing business, and what you can do about it.

It’s a Simple Case of Usage

When it comes to why business energy costs can be a drain on your manufacturing business, the answer is as simple as you may have thought – a lot of energy use leads to high bills. And this is exactly where so many businesses stop and don’t question the cost any further. They have a large manufacturing space with plenty of machinery, equipment, and staff, so it seems completely normal that the energy bills should be high.

But here’s the thing, businesses shouldn’t just accept this as fact. It’s time to start looking at your manufacturing business’s energy costs in a new light, and look for ways that you can lower them and make processes more efficient without any sort of sacrifice to the quality and productivity of your company.

Conduct an Energy Audit

So, you can’t just turn off the utilities and operate your business without using energy, so what’s the solution? A great place to start is with an energy audit. It is extremely difficult to know what your costs are, what are the biggest drains and offenders, and which areas are actually doing well if you don’t do an audit. Here in the UK you can bring in professionals to conduct a thorough energy audit of your entire business and operation, highlighting all the details and pointing out potential areas for savings.

Compare Energy Prices

You may also be under the impression that the utility provider you are with is the only option out there, and energy rates are universally set and everyone offers the same pricing. Neither of these assumptions is correct.

Utility Bidder acts as a business energy comparison brokerwhich will take a look at business energy rates from some of the top UK suppliers. It will find you the best price out there, which can result in hundreds if not thousands of pounds worth of savings. This especially important in today’s landscape where energy prices constantly seem to be on the rise. As an energy broker, they can help businesses of all sizes, and in all industries.

Replace Energy Guzzling Equipment

This is also a great time to start replacing all that equipment that is known as an energy guzzler. This can be minor things like computers and printers, all the way up the chain to the actual machinery on the manufacturing floor. Energy star rated appliances and machinery will offer massive savings on your utility bills.

Run Machines in Off-Peak Hours

This particular tip can offer huge savings on energy costs, and can be taken straight from the playbook of homeowners. Whenever possible, try to run machines and production outside of the peak hours of the day. This may mean it makes more sense for you to run production in the overnight hours. It is something to at least consider as you look at way to cut down on costs.

Put an Energy Management Team in Place

And if you want to get really serious about your energy consumption, you can put a permanent energy management team in place. This department will constantly be monitoring the energy usage and finding ways to make improvements. It can help your long-term plans and budgeting where energy is concerned.

Lowering the Costs and Raising Profits

At the end of the day, any time you can lower energy costs, you will effectively be able to raise the profits – which is what any manufacturing company aims to do. It’s a matter of investigating your energy usage, looking for areas of potential savings, and then taking all the necessary steps.

Google didn’t mess around when it came to updating its algorithms this past year. Although the year is almost over, who knows if they’ll sneak in a major update or two before it’s through. We’ll say this much though: if they do slip in further updates, we’ll certainly tell you about them.

At the time of this writing, Google has performed 9 major algorithm updates in 2019, and likely countless minor updates that don’t have such a big impact. We’ll briefly describe each update below to help you better understand exactly what Google is looking for these days.

To not only survive but thrive in SEO, you have to think and act like Thunderhawk SEO company. They recognize the importance of keeping up with Google updates and you should too. It’s the only way to stay ahead of the game. So, without further ado, here are the algorithm updates that took place this year from February to October 2019.

Featured Snippets Freshness Update – Late February 2019

The purpose of this update is quite simple. Google wanted its featured snippets to have the freshest, most relevant content. So they implement a new system designed to ensure these snippets had the most accurate information, whether the content was brand new or older but still valid.

March Broad Core Algorithm Update – The Week of March 13, 2019

To stay up-to-date with the top SEO rules for blogging success, you need to better understand the March 2019 broad core update from Google. This is especially true if you and/or your SEO clients work in the health niche.

The overall reason for this update is simple. Google implemented changes that allowed them to fine-tune the way they rate health sites. During this update, some websites including verywellhealth.com and everydayhealth.com lost major rankings and traffic. On the other hand, sites including draxe.com gained a 300% bump in traffic, which is huge.

June Broad Core Algorithm Update – Announced June 2, 2019

While information about this update isn’t entirely clear, SEO experts predict that this update was in conjunction with the Quality Rater Guidelines. These new guidelines were released not long before this core update, so it makes sense that Google would use these guidelines to broadly implement their QRG.

Site Diversity Update – Announced June 6, 2019

On June 6, 2019, in an unusual turn of events, Google announced its diversity update. It used to be rare for Google to announce and explain their latest update, but it seems to happen more and more lately.

Ultimately, this update was geared toward diversifying the search engine results. Instead of searching for a term or phrase and getting 5 results from the same website, Google will now provide a listing of diverse options from multiple sites because of these changes.

“Lesbienne” Google Algorithm Tweak – Mid-June 2019

This reason for this update was pointed out by the French website Numerama. They told Google that when you search for the term “lesbienne” and similar French words and phrases, the results were pornographic. They also noticed wonky results when searching the word “homosexuelle”. Google took the necessary steps to rectify this situation.

Review Rich Results Update – Announced September 16, 2019

Google decided to limit the types of schema capable of triggering a rich review result. In the past, they believed that some of the schema types weren’t providing really useful information for the user. Hence the need for this update.

Preview Content Control Update – Announced September 24, 2019

With this algorithm update, Google now offers webmasters more freedom to choose the text and images seen in their snippets. In the past, Google chose the relevant text and/or images. Now webmasters can use a robots meta tag or a data- nosnippet HTML attribute to control the info from their site seen in the search engine results.

September Broad Core Algorithm Update – Released September 24, 2020

This update focuses on making a wide range of sweeping changes. It’s designed to improve Google’s overall search results. Some sites that were previously hurt in the June Core Update – like Dailymail.co.uk – are now seeing their rankings and traffic restored. The biggest niche impacted by this update was health and wellness.

B.E.R.T Update – Released October 25, 2020

This is the biggest Google update since 2015 when they released Rankbrain. Pandu Nayak, the vice-head of search at Google, says the update will impact 1 in 10 searches, which is huge.

B.E.R.T stands for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. This complicated-sounding name means that Google has a new technique specifically developed for processing natural language. This means Google will now do a much better job answering searches that currently remain unknown to them, which accounts for 15% of all daily searches.

Bottom Line

Google will continue to update its search engines, so webmasters and SEOs might as well get used to it. Their mission is to provide the best user experience possible. To do so, they have to make updates from time to time.

For some websites, these updates will be a major boon. For others, they will cause more harm than good. Keep on top of these updates if you intend to continue showing up in the SERPs.

Cybersecurity is crucial for any business. These days, both businesses and individuals have a lot of sensitive information online, and not protecting it can lead to much loss. If you own a business, then it is your responsibility to ensure you and your employees aren’t vulnerable to attacks. Thankfully, there are different types of software you can use, but protection first starts with education.

Don’t Assume They Already Know

If you have a team, don’t assume they already know about cybersecurity. Even if they are talented and tech-savvy, that doesn’t mean they fully understand what to look out for and what to do if a hack occurs.

Learn the Common Hacks

Before you can educate your employees, you must first know what to be aware of. Research common hacks, especially the ones that attack businesses. These include:

. Phishing emails

. Malware attacks

. Ransomware

Once you know about often-used hacks, let your team know what to look out for. With phishing emails, senders can be skilled at disguising themselves, but there are ways of identifying a scam. Click here to learn more about identifying phishing. By knowing what you’re up against, you’ll have a better idea of how to protect yourself, your team, and your business overall.

Training

Many services offer cyber-security training, and, unless you are already an expert, this can be very handy for your business. New attacks happen all the time so it’s wise to keep up with regular training so you know of any developments by hackers.

Strong Passwords and 2-Step Authentications

A simple way of protecting from cyber-attacks is to make sure all your passwords are strong and to use 2-step authentications. This way, when hackers run potential passwords through a system, yours will be far less likely to come up. Tell your staff to choose long, hard to guess passwords that include a mixture of numbers and letters. Remember, your dog’s name isn’t a strong password!

Start Education at Onboarding

It’s best to get all the technical stuff out of the way early on, and this includes cybersecurity awareness. Rather than having new employees only learn what they should look out for after it’s too late, push training as soon as they start working for you. By doing this, they will be more likely to understand its importance, and it won’t just be a tagged-on lesson down the road.

Let Them Know They Can Come to You

Cyber-attacks can happen to anyone. Of course, preventative measures can be taken but sometimes someone falls for something without thinking. If a member of your team is a victim of this, don’t be too harsh on them. By allowing your team to make mistakes, they are more likely to be comfortable coming to you with any technical and hacking issues they stumble across. Be open about how you want them to come to you if they experience anything unusual.

Cyber hacking is unfortunately common for businesses, but with an educated team, the chances of having your sensitive information fall into the wrong hands will dramatically decrease.