Actor Michael Imperioli thanked the Supreme Court on Saturday for “allowing” him to discriminate after they held that a graphic designer who creates wedding websites does not have to create them for same-sex marriages.
He also decided to “forbid bigots and homophobes” from watching his work.
“I’ve decided to forbid bigots and homophobes from watching The Sopranos, The White Lotus, Goodfellas or any movie or tv show I’ve been in. Thank you Supreme Court for allowing me to discriminate and exclude those who I don’t agree with and am opposed to. USA ! USA!” he wrote.
“Hate and ignorance is not a legitimate point of view,” he wrote on Instagram. “America is becoming dumber by the minute.”
In a 6-3 decision issued Friday, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of artist Lorie Smith, who sued the state over its anti-discrimination law that prohibited businesses providing sales or other accommodations to the public from denying service based on a customer’s sexual orientation.
Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the majority opinion, which said that, “In this case, Colorado seeks to force an individual to speak in ways that align with its views but defy her conscience about a matter of major significance.”
“But, as this Court has long held, the opportunity to think for ourselves and to express those thoughts freely is among our most cherished liberties and part of what keeps our Republic strong,” he continued.
The Supreme Court handed down several rulings at the end of June, including ruling against President Biden’s student loan handout plan.
“Or a benefit to a student whose heritage or culture motivated him or her to assume a leadership role or attain a particular goal must be tied to that student’s unique ability to contribute to the university. In other words, the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race,” Justice Thomas wrote in the majority opinion.
Imperioli is known for his roles in the “Sopranos,” “The White Lotus” and “Goodfellas.”
Fox News’ Ronn Blitzer and Brianna Herlihy contributed to this report.
NewBanking | Full-time | Denmark | Hybrid/Onsite | Relocation In NewBanking, we’re revolutionizing the way businesses conduct transactions. Our cutting-edge platform delivers verified money – KYC with payments – as a service to our enterprise customers, providing them with the security, transparency, and scalability they need to succeed in today’s fast-paced world. – Staff Software … Continue reading New comment by ProtsenkoAlex in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (May 2023)"
Content marketing is not just the most effective forms of online promotion that you can take part in, it’s the foundation of pretty much any other form of digital marketing. It remains stable over time, …
As smart bloggers and content marketers, we usually start with on-page SEO.
However, one of the most important Google ranking factors isn’t found on your page at all. Rather, it’s backlinks from other websites pointing towards your site. The top results on Google have an average of 3.8x more backlinks than the results that appear in positions 2-10.
It goes deeper than that. For example, brand mentions (your site URL or brand name mentioned on another site without a hyperlink) are an integral aspect of off-page search signals.
Off-page SEO simply tells Google what others think about your site.For example, if you’ve got a lot of valuable links pointing to your pages, search engines will assume that you’ve got great content that provides value for users.
People only cite, reference, and share content they like. Even in a brick-and-mortar business, if your product is helpful and affordable, you’ll get a lot of word-of-mouth referrals from your current customers.
If you’re ready, I’m going to walk you through everything you need to know about off-page search optimization.
What is Off-Page SEO?
“Off-Page SEO” refers to all of the activities that you and others do away from your website to raise the ranking of a page with search engines.
Though many people associate off-page SEO with link building, it goes beyond that. Many activities that don’t result in a standard link on other sites are important for off-page optimization.
On-page search engine optimization happens within the site, while off-page SEO happens outside the site. If you write a guest post for another blog or leave a comment, you’re doing off-page site promotion.
Preparing a Site/Page for Link Building
Links are still very important to Google. In fact, it’s almost impossible for Google to determine the value of any web page if there are no links pointing to it, no matter how useful, fresh, or in-depth the page content might be.
Site owners are often tempted to skip initial preparations for link building. But it’s important that you give this top priority because preparing a site will ensure that you’re mindful of the links you sent to them.
So how do you ensure that your web pages are ready for link building?
1. Lay Out Your Internal Pages
Optimized internal pages can make a huge difference in your overall rankings. This includes interlinking your pages using random keywords (with more emphasis on your brand name).
According to Brian Dean’s famous post “Google’s 200 Ranking Factors,” the number of internal links to a page indicates its importance relative to other pages on the site.
Be careful when you do this, however. In a recent study, Semrush found 42.5 percent of websites have broken internal links.
To optimize internal linking, you should have silo pages that connect to your category pages and supporting pages (posts). That way, when you send a link to the homepage, the juice flows through your category and supporting pages, thus boosting your search performance.
Smart search engine optimization professionals don’t just throw links at a page. Instead, they lay out the pages so that each link will pass SEO juice to other interconnected pages.
None of your internal pages should stand alone. Make each page an integral part of your site and include seamless navigation. This is essential to your site users and your appeal to search engines.
Ideally, pages addressing the same or related topics should be linked together in order to provide a rich experience for the users.
In search engine optimization, internal pages are often overlooked. Most SEOs and site owners don’t realize that much of a site’s “SEO value” flows from how the internal pages are structured.
This is usually made possible when you have links from high-value pages on the same site. Silo your pages properly if you want healthy link equity between your internal pages.
Remember that it’s no longer only about the number of links you have. The quality of links to your internal pages is as important as the structure of the pages themselves.
In fact, sometimes reducing the number of links pointing to your internal pages could help your SEO efforts.
For example, CMS North America, a manufacturer of 5 axis CNC machines, had an established website with 170 indexed pages. Yet, the site wasn’t generating substantial search traffic.
By auditing their site using the Internal Link Juice Tool, they discovered that the site had 168 links pointing to the homepage.
This was more than best practices called for, which is especially a problem when the SEO juice from those links doesn’t flow to internal pages.
They initiated a new navigation structure and removed some of the links pointing to silo pages, while retaining the links that supported usability (such as “contact us” and support pages). In all, 70 links were removed.
After 6 weeks of re-structuring the internal pages’ links and the homepage, most of the fresh pages and links had been re-crawled by Google’s spider.
On-page search engine optimization is important. After all, you don’t want Google to view your site as a neglected portal.
I’m sure you’ve heard enough about meta tags and keyword density. Yet, there are other important on-page SEO factors that matter and that are often overlooked. This on-page SEO infographic from Backlinko lays many of them out for you:
One of the reasons many authority sites no longer dominate the top organic listings is because they’ve neglected basic on-page SEO.
You want to link to your internal pages using the keyword that best defines that page.
When you create a landing page that you would like Google to rank highly, you should pass more SEO juice to that page from your important pages.
If the search engine giant is seeing a lot of pages on your site for a particular search term and is unsure of which one to rank higher than the others, you’ll struggle to increase your search engine rank no matter how much value you provide.
And that’s what the basic on-page search engine optimization process is all about. There’s no magic secret formula. Just ensure that your pages are well structured, your keywords specified, and signals are being sent to Google in the right manner. This will work towards improving your search engine ranking.
Here’s an example: Daily Mail Online, a popular online magazine that ranks highly for several keywords, failed to dominate the top listings during the 2014 World Cup. Other brands took their spots:
The online magazine missed out on this opportunity to attract thousands, if not millions of search users, given the sheer interest in the tournament (with a spike peak around June 18).
With several brands dominating Google’s first page rankings, Daily Mail Online missed out on the term “World Cup.” Each new article published about the World Cup overlapped with Daily Mail’s landing page, which they desperately wanted to rank better than other pages (shown in pink).
What’s happening here is the search engine giant is seeing lots of pages from Daily Mail Online for this search term, and is unsure of which one should be ranked highest.
This has a lot to do with internal page linking—or the lack thereof.
To capitalize on the trending search term at the time, Mail Online could have linked back to the hub page from every internal page (especially those related to ‘Word Cup’).
This would have been a strong signal to Google that this page was significant and perhaps useful to users.
Sadly, Daily Mail had lots of opportunities to link back to the hub from relevant blog posts and pages, but they didn’t do so.
3. Pick Thematic Keywords, Even for Off-page SEO
Although links are still the icing on the cake, the upshot to SEO that controls every other factor is the keywords you choose.
Keywords are the fundamental building blocks for your content campaign. In the diagram below, the more accurate view of on-page SEO shows that use of related keywords and primary keywords account for 7.5% and 40% of on-page SEO, respectively.
But not all keywords are created equal. If you want to improve the odds of driving organic traffic to your site, then you need to pick thematic keywords.
The word “thematic” simply means having or relating to a particular subject.
So when you’re picking keywords, focus on those that are related to a particular subject. You can’t afford to spread your net too wide. Here’s an example:
Let’s assume that your business delivers WordPress theme customization services. It’s important to find the right related keywords that you can create content around.
Simply plug your main keyword (WordPress theme customization) into the Ubersuggest search bar. Click the “Search” button. Simply plug your main keyword (WordPress theme customization) into the Ubersuggest search bar. Click the “Search” button. Here are thematic keyword phrases that populate in the results:
Remember that you’re in business to help others. By knowing the words, phrases, and search terms they use in search, you can more easily tailor your content to meet their needs.
You can supercharge the power of your keywords by switching toward branded keywords. In other words, instead of targeting “SEO tips,” you could niche down and include your brand or domain name (e.g., Moz SEO tips, Neil Patel SEO).
Domain or brand-oriented keywords usually bring up several results from the same site in Google search results.
Of course, you have to create useful, high-quality content. When you see several of your pages ranking in Google search results, it doesn’t matter what positions those pages hold – you can pass more link juice to them through any of the link building strategies below:
Branded thematic keywords will give you an edge over the competition and serves as a leading SEO technique. No matter how many top brands are dominating the top 10 organic listings, you can find yourself driving motivated visitors to your site.
When you’re targeting keywords in on-page optimization, don’t just keep reiterating those primary keywords over and over.
Instead, use synonyms or latent semantic indexing (LSI) terms. LSI keywords have one purpose – to help search engine spiders extract meaning from normal keywords (especially those with more than one meaning). For example, Apple, the computer company vs. apple, the fruit.
Ideally, if you were writing content on a subject related to Apple, the company, Google expects you to mention relevant words and terms that are common to the organization.
Stay away from mentioning your primary keyword (e.g., cheap airline tickets) over and over in your content. Google will view that as over-optimization and may well penalize you.
You might be wondering how you can find these synonymous words. The good news is that there are several tools that you can use to research LSI search terms. Simply follow these steps:
Step #1: Go to Ubersuggest and input your primary keyword (e.g., cheap airline tickets). Click the “Search” button.
Step #2: Click “Keyword Ideas” in the left sidebar.
Step #3: Review the Keyword Ideas
Step #4: Choose Keywords
Choose keyword phrases with high search volume, a low SEO difficulty score, and high CPC.
On-page keyword optimization all boils down to researching, choosing, and integrating keywords that you can easily rank for. You don’t want to compete with top brands with higher and stronger domain authority.
That’s why you should also focus on long-tail keywords. You already know how to find and use them to improve your search rankings.
How to Get Relevant, Authority, and User-Friendly Backlinks
In January of 2022, Google processed 12.1 million search queries. Think of all the potential traffic your website could receive if you could capture just a tiny fraction of those searches. How?
As SEOs, content marketers, and bloggers know, backlinks are currently the most important off-page SEO factor.
That’s because natural links from authoritative and relevant websites act as an independent “vote of confidence,” which helps search engines trust your website more.
When Google’s search spider crawls your site, looking for fresh content (sometimes depending on your sitemap settings), it indexes your new pages and prepares them for search users.
After your pages are added into its vast index to be returned in search results when relevant search queries are triggered, Google uses several algorithm factors to determine where those pages will rank.
In the SEO world, we refer to these as Google’s ranking factors. They’re the determining factors for organic web page rankings. Fortunately, you don’t have to memorize all of the ranking factors. This is great news since there are literally hundreds of them.
But the most important factor as far as SEO is concerned is links. Well, not the links per se, but the impact of such links. Some other off-page factors are:
In the past, if I generated 100 links to my page, and you had only 20 links, Google would view my web page as more authoritative and valuable than yours.
Link quality wasn’t all that important at the time.
But today, links are perceived differently. A lot of questions arise when Google sees a link pointing to your web page. For example:
Where does the link come from?
What prompted the site owner to link to you?
What is the link quality? (I.e., is it from an authority site?)
How fresh is your link?
How natural is your link profile?
And so on…
When building links to your site or internal pages (which is more ideal in today’s SEO), focus on relevant, authority, and SEO-friendly links.
Ways to Get Valuable Linksto Improve Off-page SEO
There are a variety of approaches when it comes to getting backlinks. Here are some of the most common and effective.
1.Broken Link Building
Even though I’ve written tons of posts on broken link building, sadly, not many people do it. Per Semrush, 40.5 percent of websites contain broken links, and you can leverage that by asking websites with broken links to replace the links with valid ones to your site.
Broken link building is easy, faster than guest blogging, and could provide a substantial avenue to earn the right links.
When I launched my nutrition blog, I leveraged broken link building tactics and generated a handful of natural links from trusted sites through that strategy.
The opportunities are just endless when you capitalize on dead links. Because in reality, the internet is broken…literally.
Lots of links that you see on authority blogs are actually dead. As hosting expires, sites are messed up during file transfer or migration or typing mistakes happen and links are bound to break. They lead to 404 error pages, which don’t appeal to users (more on this later).
All these broken links are to your advantage.
There is nothing new or fancy about fixing broken links. This link building tactic will never become outdated or fizzle out, because the internet will always have new broken links that need to be fixed.
If you have too many dead links on your blog, and are wondering whether your search performance will be affected, you don’t have to worry. According to the Official Google Webmaster Central blog, and confirmed by Semrush in 2021, 404 error pages or broken pages won’t affect your site’s ranking.
404s are a perfectly normal part of the web; the Internet is always changing, new content is born, old content dies, and when it dies it (ideally) returns a 404 HTTP response code. Search engines are aware of this; we have 404 errors on our own sites, as you can see above, and we find them all over the web. In fact, we actually prefer that, when you get rid of a page on your site, you make sure that it returns a proper 404 or 410 response code (rather than a “soft 404”).
Although Google likes to see a proper 404 error page, do you think it’s a good experience for the user? Absolutely not.
When people click on your web page from an organic results page, they’re not expecting to see a 404 error page, but rather want to see the exact content they searched for.
Imagine how frustrated people will be when they searched for “best digital wrist watch,” only to click on the first result and see an error page.
A few of these searchers will likely mark the site address and vow never to visit again. Obviously, the user experience was poor. And there’s nothing that drives people away more than a poor user experience, which is a natural indication of your overall customer service to the searcher.
The result of this can be disastrous. According to Sacramento Design Network, “85% of your business could be lost due to poor customer service.”
In a nutshell, broken link building breaks down to four simple steps: conduct a backlink analysis on a relevant website, find a broken link, contact the owner, and let them know about their dead links.
Since you’re helping the site owner locate non-functional links, they might do you the favor of including a link to your website. Ideally, offer a replacement link when appropriate.
If I linked to a particular web page from my Neil Patel blog and found the links to be dead, I could easily replace it with another relevant and high-value resource. If that high-value page belongs to you, that’s both SEO juice and a valuable link.
Trust me, you can get it right the first time, and build the right links to your web pages using this tactic. You’ll find these resources really helpful:
There’s no doubt about it: infographics still work and will likely continue to work in the future.
As of 2020, infographics were the fourth mostcommonly produced form of content marketing media.
While infographics can still yield impressive results, you have to understand that not all infographics will get the job done.
You’ll most likely agree that my infographics are top-notch. In fact, I spend up to $1,000 to have a single infographic designed.
However, if you’re on a tight budget or just starting out, you may not be able to afford $1000 infographics.
Luckily, you can use sites like Dribbble to find professional infographic designers for half the price. If you decide to use Visual.ly, you’ll get a better design – but their service costs more.
A lot of content marketers use infographics to attract the right audience, acquire authority links, and grow their email list.
For instance, Ken Lyons shared a WordStream case study in which they created a useful infographic that helped a lot of people. Interestingly, the infographic earned a link from CNN and drove loads of traffic to its site.
Ann Smarty, a prolific content marketer, created a useful infographic that generated 10 powerful links in just 2 days.
I love creating and distributing compelling infographics. Like any compelling content, when you give it sufficient initial promotion, an infographic has a greater chance of going viral.
In my experience, I’ve found that infographics generate 37.5% more backlinks than a typical blog post. This makes creating infographics an irresistible link building tactic that you should definitely try.
If you’re ready to create and distribute infographics to improve your off-page SEO efforts, the resources below will be helpful:
Of course, there are other ways to build quality links to your web pages. For example, you can leverage blogger outreach to build relationships that will yield better links, and use social media outreach to claim unlinked brand names from relevant blogs.
How to Avoid Google Penalties for Unnatural Links
Backlinks are really important, especially if you want to sustain your site’s ranking position. But we can’t talk about off-page SEO without mentioning Google penalties and unnatural links.
The truth is that links can significantly affect search performance – for better or worse.
If you ask pro bloggers which factor they think has the strongest impact on search rankings, many of them will say “links.”
Top brands, small businesses, and blog owners are also into link building. Data from MarketingSherpa’s 2012 Search Marketing Benchmark Report found that 59% of companies have done external link building.
You want to avoid Google’s penalty as much as possible, because recovering from a penalty can be daunting and very difficult.
Many things that used to interest Google, such as links from high PR sites, no longer have that strong impact.
Google is now more concerned about user optimization, user intent, and valuable content. The focus is no longer on the search phrases people use, but their purpose for using that particular phrase.
The search engine giant hasn’t yet clued the SEO community into any step-by-step process for staying safe. However, there are things you can do to ensure that your site isn’t penalized.
These best practices have helped me generate over 700,000 blog visitors to QuickSprout without experiencing any penalty due to unnatural links and over-optimized anchor text.
1. Create Content and Optimize for the Users First
You probably already know what this means. The question is, are you putting your users first?
To truly put users first, forget about mentioning your keywords several times in the post, especially if it doesn’t flow naturally.
Putting users first goes beyond keyword usage. Sometimes you may not outright target any keyword, yet somehow your content looks too promotional.
If you help them with great content, they’ll want to know more about you.
2. Diversify Anchor Texts
After conducting a full backlink analysis and seeing where your links are coming from, you should next work to diversify your anchor texts.
Diversifying your anchor texts simply means using different keyword phrases, brand names, and generic terms so that Google will view your links as natural and not manipulative.
After all, if you didn’t do anything fishy to get the links, then your links shouldn’t all have exact match keywords in their anchor texts, right?
When diversifying your anchor texts, make relevance your top priority. Google will analyze your link based on the topic of the referring page and how thematically consistent it is with yours.
You know that it’s impossible to control where you get links from. Anyone can share your content and link to it however they please.
Since you can’t control your anchor texts or where the links come from, you should use your brand name as anchor text more often.
If you’re a social media expert and you’re interviewed by a car blog, you should use your brand name as anchor text.
That’s because these topics — cars & social media — aren’t thematic or closely related and Google uses the anchor text of external links to the page to judge the quality, relevance and usefulness of any link gotten from there.
Last, but not least, make sure that you get links from high-quality sites, disavow low-quality links from thin pages, blend nofollow links into your link profile to make it natural, and publish fresh content to increase brand mentions.
Off-Page SEO Conclusion
What is off-page SEO?
Off-page SEO includes any signals that tells Google and other search engines that your site is valuable to your audience. Inbound links are one example.
What are some off-page SEO elements?
Links, reviews, company information, video, social media profiles and audiences
How does on-page SEO relate to off-page SEO?
By optimizing your on-page SEO, you increase the value of the page, thus making it more desirable to link to.
How do keywords affect off-page SEO linking?
There are many attributes that go into the value of keywords in off-page SEO links, including user experience, use of the primary keyword, and value/depth of the content surrounding related keywords and topics.
Off-page SEO includes any signals that tells Google and other search engines that your site is valuable to your audience. Inbound links are one example.
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Off-Page SEO Conclusion
It’s high time to get off your site and to network with other industry bloggers and site owners if you want to increase boost your search engine ranking.
You should always use white-hat link building strategies to improve your off-page optimization.
However, you need to prepare your website to receive authority link juice as you work hard to build and earn links. Make sure your site is easily navigable.
When it comes to creating a better content experience, it all boils down to answering user’s questions. Start by identifying the questions asked by your ideal customers. You can find these questions on Quora, Twitter, and other social networks. Creating high-quality content is a top SEO technique that cannot be overemphasized.
Above all, search engine optimization is not a hit-and-run marketing approach. You should approach it knowing that the efforts you put in today will pay off in the future, ultimately increasing your search engine rank and leading you to the success you desire.
Most of all, be consistent and patient and you’ll gradually climb to the top of Google’s results.
Which other off-page SEO best practices do you think are important for improving organic search rankings? What are your thoughts on the intersection between SEO and your social network presence?
North Korea’s latest weapons launch on Wednesday apparently ended in failure, South Korea’s military said, amid speculation that the North could soon launch its biggest long-range missile in its most significant provocation in years.
Absolutely! Flexible financing exists for virtually any business – even startups! You just need to know your strengths.
The 3 Cs Capital Acquisition Formula
When you think like a lender, you realize they just want to be assured that you’ll pay them back. Lenders look at one of three things for loan approval: cashflow, collateral, and/or credit. The more of these “Cs” you have, the more funding options are available. For the many forms of funding we’re showcasing today, we show you exactly what you need to have for approval.
Flexible financing can absolutely be yours.
Fundability and Flexible Funding Options
Fundability is the ability of a business to get funding. It essentially covers all the points a lender or credit provider will be looking at when they’re trying to figure out if you’ll pay back a loan or credit extended to you. These include factors you probably haven’t thought about or might think aren’t so important. But they are!
The fundability of your business will affect your terms and how much you can get. For flexible financing, you want to be as fundable as possible.
Flexible Funding with Good Personal Credit
When it comes to flexible funding, let’s look at what you can get with good personal credit. Good personal credit is always an asset and will always help you out. If you don’t have good personal credit, you can often use a credit partner or guarantor who does.
Credit Line Hybrid
A credit line hybrid is a form of unsecured funding. Our credit line hybrid has an even better interest rate than a secured loan. Get some of the highest loan amounts and credit lines for businesses. Get 0% business credit cards with stated income. These report to business CRAs. You can build business credit at the same time. This will get you access to even more cash with no personal guarantee.
Credit Line Hybrid: Terms and Qualifying
You need a good credit score or a guarantor with good credit to get an approval (a FICO score of at least 680). No financials required. You can often get a loan of five times the amount of current highest revolving credit limit account. This is up to $150,000.
Traditional Term Loans
Traditional term loans are also looking for good personal credit.
Banks are often the first place we think of when we thinking of financing. But big banks only sign off on about 25% of the small business loan applications that come their way. Term loans often have lower interest rates than many other funding options. They also tend to be for higher loan amounts.
Term Loans: Terms and Qualifying
Generally speaking, the companies banks end up funding have very strong financials and near-perfect credit scores. You will most likely have to undergo a personal credit check. These kinds of loans may require collateral. Term loans tend to not be terribly flexible financing.
Building business credit will always be a good idea. In particular, it can make your funding options far more abundant and flexible.
It should be your goal to build business credit, even if you can get funding elsewhere. Business credit will help your company for years to come. It is credit linked to your EIN and not your SSN.
This credit is available without a personal guarantee. It is available regardless of personal credit. You can get business credit immediately. Business credit is the only way to get money for a business when you don’t have collateral, cash flow, good personal credit, or a guarantor.
Vendor Credit
Starter vendors are open to working with most businesses, even startups. Make sure vendors report to the CRAs – not all do. When they do report, it’s within 60 days. They help you build your business credit profile and score.
Terms vary depending on the vendor, but they tend to be Net 30. And you will not need collateral, good personal credit, or cash flow.
Retail Credit
Retail credit comes from major retailers. Buy everything from office supplies to power tools. Retailers will check if your business information is uniform everywhere. They will also check whether your business is properly licensed.
There can be a minimum time in business requirement. There may even be a minimum number of employees requirement, or a minimum annual sales requirement. Terms can be revolving. You will need at least 3 (5 is better) accounts reporting to the business CRAs.
Fleet Credit
Fleet credit is used to buy fuel, maintain vehicles of all sorts, and repair vehicles. Even businesses which don’t have big fleets can still benefit. These are usually gas credit cards.
There may be a minimal time in business requirement. If your business doesn’t make the time in business requirement, you may be able to, instead offer a personal guarantee or give a deposit to secure the credit.
Cash Credit
Cash credit comes from universal-type credit cards like MasterCard. So they can be used pretty much anywhere. These cards may even have rewards programs.
Terms can be revolving. Usually, you need at least 14 accounts reporting to the business CRAs. There can be longer time in business requirements. And there may also be minimum number of employee requirements.
Flexible Financing with Collateral
Having collateral can help you get many types of financing.
401(k) Financing
This is not a loan. You will not have to pay an early withdrawal fee or a tax penalty. You put the money back by contributing, just like with any 401(k) program. This means you won’t lose your retirement funds. This is a 401(k) Rollover for Working Capital program. The IRS calls it a Rollover for Business Startups (ROBS).
Per the IRS, a ROBS qualified plan is a separate entity with its own set of requirements. The plan, through its company stock investments, rather than the individual owns the trade or business. Therefore, some filing exceptions for individuals may not apply to such a plan. This type of financing isn’t a loan against, your 401(k), so there’s no interest to pay. It does not use the 401(k) or stocks as collateral. Instead, this is simply a movement or change of custodian.
401(k) Financing: Terms and Qualifying
Low rates, often less than 5%. Your 401(k) must have more than $35,000 in it . Can usually get up to 100% of what’s “rollable” within your 401(k). The lender will want to see a copy of your two most recent 401(k) statements.
Get 401(k) financing even with severely challenged personal credit. The 401(k) cannot be from a business where you are currently employed. You cannot be currently contributing to it.
Equipment Financing
Equipment financing is when you use a loan or lease to purchase or borrow hard assets for your business. It is a business financing option you can use to buy any physical asset. Physical assets can include items like a restaurant oven or a company car. You pay predictable amounts every month. You can build business credit on a program such as this.
Equipment Financing: Terms and Qualifying
All terms are for equipment financing through Credit Suite. Companies must have at least one year in business. You can get approved even with challenged credit. You won’t need financials to secure equipment financing. Approvals take as little as 24 hours.
Equipment Sale-Leaseback
If you already own your equipment free and clear you can use that as collateral for financing. Sell equipment to a lender for cash. Then lease it back from them. You can unlock Section 179 tax savings, and depreciate your entire equipment purchase in the first year.
Equipment Sale-Leaseback: Terms and Qualifying
Term lengths and the amount you can finance will vary. You’ll need at least one larger piece of higher value equipment to qualify. Funding can be in as little as 3 weeks. In general, a lender wants to be sure your equipment does not have any liens against it.
Inventory financing is a revolving line of credit or a short-term loan acquired by a company so it can buy products for sale later. The products serve as the collateral for the loan. There may be restrictions on the type of inventory you can use. This can include not allowing cannabis, alcohol, firearms, etc., or perishable goods. There can be revenue requirements. And there may also be minimum FICO score requirements.
Inventory Financing: Terms and Qualifying
Get approved for a line of credit for 50% of inventory value, regardless of personal credit quality. Rates are usually 5 – 15% depending on type of inventory. Get funding within 3 weeks or less. It can’t be lumped together inventory, like office equipment.
Shopify Capital
With Shopify Capital, you can get inventory financing with 12-month terms. Pay back with a percentage of daily sales. Borrow between $200 and $1 million. The total owed and daily repayment rate depend on risk profile.
OnDeck
OnDeck offers inventory loans and business lines of credit. Term loans runs $5,000 to $250,000, with 12-month terms paid back daily or weekly. Lines of credit run from $6,000 to $100,000. Pay back over 12 months, with automatic weekly payments.
If you can prove your business has good cash flow, several options open up to you.
Cash Flow Financing
A loan made to a company is backed by a company’s expected cash flows. A company’s cash flow is the amount of cash that flows in and out of a business, in a specific period. Cash flow financing (or a cash flow loan) uses generated cash flow as a means to pay back the loan.
Often you will need to have a few years in business. You may need to meet a certain minimum credit score requirement. You will need to prove historical cash flow. Present your accounts receivables and accounts payables. This way, the lender can determine how much to loan to your business.
Account Receivables Financing
Use outstanding account receivables as collateral for financing. Receivables should be with the government or another business. If you also have purchase orders, you can get financing to have those filled. You won’t need to use your cash flow to do so. Get an accounts receivable credit line with rates of less than 1% with no consumer credit requirement. Receivables should be with the government or another business.
Use outstanding account receivables for financing. Get as much as 80% of receivables advanced ongoing in less than 24 hours. Remainder of the accounts receivable are released once the invoice is paid in full. Factor rates as low as 1.33%. you can get an accounts receivable credit line with rates of less than 1% with no consumer credit requirement.
Amazon Bank of America
Amazon Lending launched in 2011 and partners with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. This allows Amazon to reduce its risk and access capital specifically to provide credit to more merchants so they can get inventory. Amazon Lending is an invitation-only program. Participants get exclusive price and quantity discounts on over 5 million products. See amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=17906292011.
Eligibility is (in part) tied to cash flow). The program makes loans of $1,000 to $750,000. Its terms are for up to a year. These loans are for companies that may have difficulty landing traditional business loans. Within 5 days of being approved, you can get 20% off your first $500.
Amazon Marcus
Currently, lines of credit are offered by Marcus by Goldman Sachs. Get access to loan funds within 5 days. Goldman Sachs will check your creditworthiness. No prepayment penalty. See sell.amazon.com/programs/amazon-lending.html.
If your business is eligible, you will see funding options when you log into Seller Central. Loans come from Amazon Lending – specific terms are tailored to the business. Amazon may review your business credit history with one or more credit bureaus. Get 3-, 6-, 9-, or 12-month term loans for working capital needs.
Amazon Corporate Card
Got an online business? Then you can get a revolving credit line. Enjoy 24/7 Customer Service. For customers with over $100,000 annual spend on their accounts, they can work with an account specialist assigned specifically to the account. Amazon will proactively help you maximize the value of your line of credit and adopt new product features.
Get 55-day payment terms. Pay 12.99% purchase APR (minimum interest charge is $1). There is an option to apply as a personal guarantor to build business credit. You can make minimum payments or pay in full monthly.
Fundbox
Fundbox will connect directly to your online accounting software. That’s all you need to do. You can get invoice financing or a line of credit. See fundbox.com.
Get a revolving line of credit for up to $150,000. Fundbox will auto debit your weekly payment from your bank account. You don’t need to show a minimum personal credit score, and you don’t need to show a minimum time in business.
Merchant Cash Advances
An MCA technically isn’t a loan. Rather, it is a cash advance based on company credit card sales. A small business can apply for an MCA and have an advance deposited into its account fairly quickly. So you can offer Net 30 terms, but not have to wait a month to get paid.
A merchant financing program is ideal for business owners who accept credit cards and want fast and easy business financing. An MCA program is designed to help you get funding, based strictly on your cash flow as verifiable per business bank statements. Hence lenders in general will not ask for any burdensome document requests.
Merchant Cash Advances: Terms and Qualifying
A lender will review 3 months of bank and merchant account statements. They are looking for consistent deposits. And they want to see deposits showing revenue is $50,000 or higher per year. They will also verify time in business of 6 months or more.
Lenders are also looking to see that you don’t have a lot of Non-Sufficient-Funds (NSFs) showing on your bank statements. They want to see you don’t have a lot of chargebacks on your merchant statements. And they want to see that you have more than 10 deposits in a month going into your bank account.
In essence, they want to see that you manage your bank and merchant accounts responsibly. And they want to see that have a decent number of consistent credit card transaction deposits each month.
PayPal
Get a loan from PayPal. Loan amounts and eligibility depend on your sales via PayPal. You will need to be in business for at least 9 months. See paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/paypal-business-loan.
PayPal Terms and Qualifying
Get from $5,000 to $500,000. The highest loan you can get goes up to 35% of your annual PayPal sales. If you apply for a PayPal loan, credit checks and other public records checks will be performed which may impact your credit score.
Funding from the SBA
The Small Business Administration has several options which could work for you. You usually need to show good cash flow, good personal credit, and have collateral. Having good business credit will also help your cause. But it’s not terribly flexible financing.
SBA 7(a)
This the SBA’s most popular loan. The SBA guarantees 85% for loans up to $150,000, and 75% for loans greater than $150,000. The SBA makes the lending decision, but qualified lenders may be granted delegated authority to make credit decisions without SBA review.
The maximum amount on offer is $5 million. You will have to provide Articles of Organization, business licenses, documentation of lawsuits, judgments and bankruptcy or other pertinent documentation. Lenders are not required to take collateral for loans up to $25,000. For loans over $350,000, the SBA requires that the lender collateralize the loan to the maximum extent possible up to the loan amount.
SBA 504
This is an economic development loan program offering long-term, fixed-rate financing used to acquire fixed assets for expansion or modernization.
For corporations, anyone with a 20% ownership stake (or more) must fill out the application. In general, the SBA provides 40% of the total project costs, a participating lender covers up to 50% of the total project costs, and the borrower contributes 10% of the project costs. Under certain circumstances, borrower may have to contribute up to 20% of total project costs.
SBA CapLines
There are four kinds of CapLines: Contract, Working Capital, Builder’s, and Seasonal. For all of them, you can get a loan up to $5 million. Qualification requirements are same as with other SBA programs. Builder’s loans cannot exceed 5 year terms; the others can go up to 10 years. Holders of at least 20% ownership in the applicant business are required to guarantee these loans. Most loans can be revolving or non-revolving.
SBA Contract Line
This loan finances direct labor and material cost, associated with performing assignable contracts.
SBA Working Capital
Borrowers must use loan proceeds for short term working capital/operating needs.
SBA Builder’s Line
This one is for general contractors or builders who are constructing or renovating commercial or residential buildings. It finances direct labor-and material costs. The building project serves as the collateral.
SBA Seasonal Line
Advances against anticipated inventory and accounts receivables, or in some cases associated increased labor costs. It is meant to help seasonal businesses.
SBA Microloans
SBA microloan lenders are nonprofit community-based organizations with experience in lending as well as management and technical assistance. The SBA provides funds to specially designated intermediary lenders. These intermediaries administer the microloan program. It is to help small businesses and certain not-for-profit childcare centers start up and expand.
Grants are exceptionally competitive but there’s little wonder – you never have to pay them back! But they are also the antithesis of flexible financing – you will need to meet requirements and jump through a number of hoops.
Federal Grants
For urban projects, try HUD (Housing and Urban Development). For rural projects, try the USDA. But federal funding means paperwork. You often must show experience in what you are proposing. See grants.gov.
Grants have varying qualifications. Check information thoroughly, like due dates and any necessary paperwork. Some grants may offer preferences to businesses with minority, female, veteran, or disabled ownership.
Local, City, and State Grants
Your local government also provides grants. See grantwatch.com. Also try city and state websites. These are often less restrictive than federal grants. It helps if you can show you will help the community. Try to partner with a local business.
Just like with federal grants, check all requirements and other information carefully. You may need to be a resident of the state or city or county in question. Or your business may need to be headquartered there.
Funding from Giving Up Part of Your Business
Angel Investing
Angel investors invest in small startups or entrepreneurs. Often, angel investors are among an entrepreneur’s family and friends. The capital they provide may be a one-time investment to help the business get started, or an ongoing injection of money to support and carry the company through its early stages.
Angels are not covered by the Securities Exchange Commission’s (SEC) standards for accredited investors. Angels could be friends or colleagues sitting on home equity, or local professionals who are looking to invest. Consider people you know well and people you don’t know so well.
Angel Investing: Terms and Qualifying
Angels are informal investors so there really aren’t any terms. Technically, there is nothing done for qualifying, although investors may (probably should) insist on a valuation of your business. No matter what, it’s always a good practice to get everything in writing.
Angel investing can practically be the definition of flexible financing, seeing as it’s so informal.
Venture Capital
Venture capitalists give money to help build new startups, if the VCs believe a company has both high-growth and high-risk potential. These tend to be fast-growth companies with an exit strategy already in place. Venture capitalists often look to recover their investment within a 3-5 year time frame.
VCs will also, often, want to own a large piece of a company if not a controlling stake. They want game-changing businesses, so straightforward businesses won’t be on their radar unless it’s shifting the paradigm. VCs often want a larger share of your business than angel investors do.
Venture Capital: Terms and Qualifying
Since venture capitalists are more formal investors than angels, a valuation of your business is likely to be necessary. Specific terms will be spelled out in your agreement with them. The SEC will also have requirements. It is best practices to consult with a lawyer well-versed in business law before you sign anything.
Equity Crowdfunding
Equity crowdfunding is a stock offering from a company that is not listed on stock exchanges. It has been around for less than 10 years. It’s not the same as rewards-based (which comes from places like Kickstarter). Rather, potential investors visit a funding portal website. There, they can explore different equity crowdfunding investment opportunities. But note: there are limits on how much capital an individual can invest based on their income and net worth. Hence equity crowdfunding gives investors a stake in your business.
Federal law can be complex. It is best practices to consult with an attorney well-versed in federal law, specifically, securities and corporations, when it comes to interpreting terms and qualifications (and any changes that may be made to these aspects of the law in the future).
Flexible Financing: Takeaways
This is an enormous buffet of business funding choices! But how do you select the one(s) that’s best for your particular situation? This is where our Advisory Team comes in extremely handy. Or help yourself with our Business Credit Builder. It’s your choice.
There are all sorts of amazing ways to get business funding. You can find the one which fits your circumstances, including your strengths in areas like:
Personal credit
Collateral or
Cash flow
Or build business credit for even more choices. Now that’s flexible financing.
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