10 Best Social Networks for your Business

Social networks for business are now essential for companies to stay competitive. As the use of the mobile Internet grows, people are online more than ever as they can connect from any location with Wi-Fi, or 3G/4G access.

Business social networks can help companies reach out to new customers and to keep in contact with existing ones. Many companies use social media for customer support and for gauging reaction to newly introduced products.

Here is our list of the 10 best social business networks.

1). Facebook

Although not specifically focused on business users, Facebook is the world’s largest social website. Almost all large corporations have a presence on Facebook and many companies have multiple pages on this platform. The idea on Facebook is to interact regularly with your community of friends to include existing customers and people interested in your company.

2). Twitter

Twitter is also not specific for business use, but it is too big for companies to ignore. Twitter differs from Facebook in that the format only allows short status updates similar to those used for texting. For this reason, Twitter is popular with young people that grew up with texting. Many celebrities use Twitter to reach out to fans and companies are increasingly turning to the site for customer and technical support.

3). LinkedIn

This site is specifically for business people and professionals. LinkedIn is a perfect platform for companies looking to hire new employees and contractors or to find partners and investors. The platform is less appropriate for outreach to customers or potential customers unless you have a business-to-business organization.

4). YouTube

The video hosting website offers companies a great vehicle for offering multimedia productions in video format. For example, you could produce videos that highlight products or those demonstrate how to use products. YouTube provides businesses with a free platform for publishing TV-like advertisements. However, for your videos to get watched, you will need to expand your social network so people can find your links.

5). Flickr

Flickr is a photo hosting website that allows you to upload pictures of your products, business property, employees, events, etc. You can best employ this website together with other platforms on your business social network list like Twitter. 

6). Startup Nation

Startups can use this website to connect with other entrepreneurs that are launching new businesses. The site offers many services including seminars, podcasts, blogs, forums and articles focused on the subject of starting up a business. The site also offers competitions that act as incubators for new business ideas.

7). PartnerUp

As the name implies, this platform is for the business social network list of those looking for new partners. Whether you are seeking new investors or contractors to help with specific jobs, this network allows you to specifically ask others for the services or resources that you need. Users can also offer advice on how to find new partners and investors. PartnerUp is more for small and medium-sized businesses and they have a Resource Directory for placing ads and RFPs.

8). Klout

The Klout website is more about measuring your social influence online, but it also has direct social networking functions. As a Klout member, you can discover the reach of your social marketing campaigns along with the influence of your social community. This is a great way to see whether your efforts are working although it does not offer any method for measuring ROI in dollar terms. You can increase your social clout by interacting with other Klout users including providing recommendations for others based on their fields of expertise. The idea is to get friends in your network to reciprocate and recommend you as well.

9). Amazon’s Mechanical Turk

Mechanical Turk is a crowd-sourcing social platform. Many business social networks cater specifically to other businesses and professionals looking for services. At Mechanical Turk, you can find people offering to perform a wide range of tasks for a fee. Amazon takes a 10 percent commission on all transactions.

10). Google+

In the future, Google+ may rank higher on the list of the best social business networks, but for now, people are still watching the new platform. Google has tried many times before to break into social media in a big way, but with limited success. The new site is very much like Facebook, but it offers ways to group friends into different “Circles” for easier management and interaction.

With this list of social networks for business, you will be well on your way to establishing a strong social presence on the Internet. Remember that effective social networking requires that you interact with your online community on a regular basis. Stale social media pages become practically useless. By providing your friends, fans and other community members with regular updates and content they will come to look for news from you consistently.

Learn how to post information on your products or services, or just any news that pertains to your business. For example, a sporting goods store could post interesting news articles from the sports world so that friends come to expect such stories.

5 Reasons for Using Rel=Author on Your Content

Whether you've heard of Google's Authorship program or not, you've likely seen its fruits in the search results. You know those listings that have a photo of the author next to them. Most likely they get that extra cool stuff because they are using Rel=Author correctly and Google has accepted them to participate. Unfortunately, it's been a bit hit-or-miss as to whether your content gets accepted or not. I saw mine accepted for a day or two many months ago, and then it have gone. I reviewed their new guidelines recently, however, made a few changes, and sure enough, within a week or so, my content started showing up.

While you may or may not get your content into the program, the only way to know is to try, and persistence is definitely a key.

If you're thinking it's just not worth the trouble, here are 5 reasons why it's super important:

1). It is Easy to Implement.

While it is a bit confusing to figure out exactly how to enable authorship based on Google's directions (which seem to keep changing), in reality their latest criteria have made it easier than ever to implement.

I'm not going into the specifics on how to do it, because you can follow Google's directions. Suffice it to say that the main things you need are a Google Profile page that links to the website where you have author status, and a link back from your website's home page to your Google Profile page.

You can also have an "author page," such as the About Us page on your website, as long as your Google profile page links to that page.

Once you've got that all implemented, every time you write an article, simply link your name in your byline to either your Google Profile page or your author page with the Rel=Author code, as I have here:

By Dillip_K_Barik

Be sure to add the Rel=Author tag to as many of your old content articles as well, especially ones that you know show up well in the search results.

While Google has moved toward having you link directly to your Google Profile page in your Rel=Author links (as opposed to your author page) to make things less confusing, I still link to my author page, and it works fine.

If you go this route, be sure to follow their older, more confusing instructions as well.

2). It Makes Your Content Stand Out.

Imagine if you could put big stars around your content listings in Google's search results that everyone would see. Rel=Author does exactly that! Only it's not stars, but your name and photo.

Before Rel=Author became widespread, only logged-in users and those who participated in social media might see a little profile photo of you if they happened to search on something that you had tweeted about. But with Rel=Author implemented correctly, even users who aren't logged into their Google accounts or their social media accounts will still see the rich author information and photo .

This is huge, folks, and this reason alone makes it worth figuring out the implementation.

3). Provides Credibility And More Exposure.

Beyond just seeing my smiling face in the listings for my content, as you can see in this screenshot, Google is also showing how many people have circled me on Google+ as well as a "More by Dillip Kumar Barik" link. Clicking that link shows more information about me from my Google Profile, plus posts I've made on Google+ related to the search query, and all the other articles that I've written on the subject.

I've also seen them show articles others have written on the subject that reference me in one way or another.

4). Higher Click Through Rate.

I'd say this one goes without saying, due to all of the above factors. It would be difficult to *not* click on the listing that Google is screaming for you to click on. Time will tell on this one, but so far it appears that since my authorship status started to show up in the Google results (it's less than 2 weeks now), I've been getting more traffic for certain articles.

5). Additional Metrics in Webmaster Tools.

As if all of the above weren't enough, once you have your authorship up and running and showing up in Google results, you'll also see new author stats in your Webmaster Tools account. (Look under "Labs.") The information there shows you approximately how many times each of your content pages showed up in the search results (impressions) and approximately how many times it was clicked on, along with other interesting details that you can't really get elsewhere.

Of course, Google has their own selfish reasons for giving us all of this awesomeness. Their number-one priority this year is Google+ and all that surrounds it. Rel=Author provides anyone who creates online content with a darn good reason (make that 5!) to create a Google Profile. And the more people who do that, the more who might start using Google+, especially if they want to get those circle numbers up as mentioned in #3 above. 

Wish U A Happy and Prosperous New Year 2012 !!!

Now is the time to act, open up this new years eve and tell that every person you come across even if it is a stranger, to spread love, affection and warmth around them.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012 -  DILLIP KUMAR BARIK

Make this new year special by plating a tree, feeding hungry people, adopting a lonesome street dog, helping your house maid by giving some warm clothes for her children, take a vow to never bribe or accept any bribe to get your work done, Make it even more special by telling your beloved that your love for him/her will be like wine, it will get more refined and more precious with time.

And when you are done, welcome the early sun of the new year with open arms and full vigor.So, buckle up and welcome the new year 2012.

Most Popular SEO Myths Explained For SEOs

With so much misinformation about SEO having been dispensed over the years, which always creating confusion among SEOs– making it all the more difficult to separate the proverbial wheat from the chaff, as it were. Concerned about the potential harm misinformation about SEO can ultimately cause. Here is to compile an alphabetical listing of the most popular and persistent SEO myths, to either debunk or confirm their factuality.


1). Adwords:
Since the arrival of Google Adwords, there has been an ongoing debate over whether or not running an Adwords campaign can improve search engine rankings. Ultimately, only Google knows the answer to that question for sure. However, to my knowledge, there is no credible evidence to support the notion that Adwords can improve your search engine ranking. If there were indeed concrete evidence to the contrary, it stands to reason, everyone would just start an Adwords campaign to boost their rankings.


2). Anchor Text
Although it can be other colors, anchor text is typically the blue, hyperlinked text you see on a web page – the words that you click onto take you to another page.
Okay, but is anchor text important? Yes, it is because it’s a crucial element in the search engines complex algorithmic formula that helps determine the rankings of websites.
For example, suppose you have a blog that reviews digital camera’s; the more links you have with the words “digital camera reviews” in your anchor text, the greater your chances of increasing your ranking for the keywords digital camera reviews.


3). Alt Tags
Alt tags are used to display a short text description of an image. It gets displayed when you hover your mouse over the graphic. But are Alt tags an important part of SEO?
It depends on whom you ask. Some experts dismiss the importance of Alt tags altogether, while others tout its importance. Personally, I used to lean in the direction of “not important,” until I read a couple of outstanding articles that made me rethink my position.


SEO expert Bill Hartzer makes a strong argument for the use of Alt tags. In his article, Search Engine Optimization: Why Image Alt Tags are Important.


“There is strong evidence that the search engines are now giving more weight to Alt Tags than they are the Title Tag or even an H1 Tag on the page. What?!? Yes, that’s right. You do need to make sure you use proper Title Tags and H1 Tags, but more SEO value for organic search engine rankings can be gained by using proper Alt Tags than using proper Title Tags or H1 Tags.”
And in his article, Why You Need to Stop Ignoring Image Alt Attributes, AJ Wilcox of OrangeSoda.com makes a compelling common sense argument:


“Keyword usage in image alt text is classified as having minimal importance by a consortium of SEO experts, but that doesn’t mean it’s worthless. It is yet another opportunity to declare your relevance to your given keyword. The little things add up to big things together, so don’t ignore them.”
I agree with AJ. A lot of little things in combination do indeed add up to big things.


4). FFA Pages
FFA is an acronym for “Free-For All.” Here’s an example of an FFA page:
In a nutshell, FFAs are basically web pages of worthless links where anyone can submit their website’s URL for free (hence the term Free-For-All). One of the biggest and oldest SEO myths is, if you post your website’s URL on FFA pages, you will get massive traffic, as well increase your link popularity and search engine ranking. Here’s the truth: People who visit FFA pages do so only to post their own ads – not look at someone else’s. And any traffic you do get will be completely worthless!
In addition, FFA pages are considered both spammy and scammy, and posting on them could adversely affect your website’s reputation with the search engines – which could in fact hurt your ranking – or even get you banned. Why? Because in essence, FFA pages are nothing but link farms – and you know what Google thinks of link farms.
My advice: RUN, DON’T WALK away from FFA pages!


5). Header Tags
Header tags, for example H1, H2 are standard HTML elements used to define headings and subheadings on a web page.
Are they important? To my knowledge, there is no credible evidence to suggest that header tags have an effect on search engine rankings one way or the other. My advice: If you’re currently using header tags, continue using them if you wish. If you’re not using them, don’t worry about it.


6). Keyword Density
Question: What is the correct density of keywords on a web page?
Answer: There isn’t one.
Yes, I know this topic has been debated back and forth, but personally, I don’t think keyword density even exists as a calculable numeric constant. In other words, don’t worry about the correct keyword density. And don’t worry about counting keywords. Just create your web pages naturally, without trying to force or stuff keywords where they don’t belong. Then, let the proverbial chips fall where they may.


7). Keywords in Domain Name
Do keywords in a domain name help your ranking?
Based on my own experience of having your primary keywords in your domain name will help with your ranking. To what degree, however, only Google knows the answer to that. But since Google uses over 200 signals to determine the ranking of websites, I can’t imagine keywords in your domain name not carrying some amount of weight.


8). Meta-Tags
A meta-tag is the HTML coding that describes the contents of a web page.
Opinions vary on the importance of meta-tags, but in my opinion, they’re not nearly as important as they once were. They don’t have a significant impact on your rankings one way or the other. That being said, if you want to use them, it certainly won’t hurt anything – provided you don’t abuse them (i.e., keyword stuffing).


9). No follow Links
As you already know, Google doesn’t count “No follow” links, right? Wrong. Google looks suspiciously at sites that have an unbalanced ratio of Do follow links to No follow. Why? Because it’s an unnatural linking pattern that’s why. It’s also a huge red flag! Google prefers a healthy combination of both Do follow and No follow links. So contrary to popular belief, No follow links do add to a site’s overall link profile, and has the ability to rank for keyword phrases. And while No follow doesn’t influence Page Rank or pass link juice, it does contribute to your overall search engine ranking.


10). Page Rank (PR)
Is Page Rank important? One of the most controversial misunderstood, confusing and debated topics in the SEO universe is the importance of Page Rank.
However, in my not-so-humble opinion, Google’s 0-10 logarithmic toolbar Page Rank is nothing more than a “superficial beauty contest” vanity tool – very much out-of-date, and does NOT have a direct impact on a site’s ranking. That fact was established long ago.
I’m going to say this as succinctly as I possibly can: Toolbar Page rank is Not an Accurate Representation of a Website’s True Reputation with Google. In fact, if you do a little research, you’ll discover lower-PR URL’s consistently rank higher than higher-PR URL’s in Google’s SERPs (search engine results pages). Therefore, the only page rank you should be concerned about that has any significant importance is where your web pages rank in Google’s SERPs.
Does toolbar Page Rank have any importance at all? Yes, it has some…just not as much as many perceive it to have.


11). Reciprocal Links
Yes, reciprocal linking is an important part of SEO, but all links are not created equal. Achieving a high search engine ranking depends not only on the number, but also the quality of inbound links you have pointing to your site. For example, if your website does movie reviews, exchanging links with Betty’s Homemade Fudge won’t do you nearly as much good as exchanging links with a site that is thematically related to yours. So if you exchange links with other sites, be sure to keep relevancy in mind.


12). Site Maps
A sitemap is a collection of hyperlinks that outlines a websites structure. These links make it easier for visitors to navigate their way around your site, as well as make it easier for search engine spiders to crawl your site.
But do they have any SEO importance? Not really. A few years back, I thought they did. But recent experience has taught me sitemaps have no direct impact on search engine rankings.


13). The Open Directory Project (DMOZ)
Is getting a backlink from DMOZ still important? With the arrival of mega-popular social media sites, as well other types of high quality websites and blogs, DMOZ is not nearly as important or respected as it once was. Personally, I think your time would be better served trying to acquire high-quality backlinks from other sources.
Does that mean you shouldn’t waste your time submitting to DMOZ? No, it doesn’t. Since it only takes a few minutes to submit your site, I see no harm in submitting to DMOZ. But be advised, it can take up to a year or more to get your site approved – and it might not get approved at all. So I wouldn’t lose any sleep worrying about getting your site listed in DMOZ.
My advice: Simply submit your site and forget it!


14). Title Tag
The title tag is a critically important factor in achieving high search engine rankings. For those of you who don’t know what a title tag is, it’s the words displayed at the very top of your browser. It is also used as the title of your website in the SERPs. Therefore, you should put plenty of thought into writing your title tag – to make sure it’s as effective as possible. Your title-tag should also contain specific keyword phrases, in addition to the name of your company.

Improve your Website Visits by the Following SEO Techniques

Improving website visits are essential to anyone who owns a website and/or blog. Without traffic we have no customers or sales. Unfortunately traffic does not just come to us, we have to work at it and we have to be consistent and persistent.

Sales conversion rates normally average less than 5%. What this means is that only 5% of the people who visit your site will become a paid customer. So, to grow your sales, you need to boost your traffic and/or your conversion rates. Below are twelve things you can do right now to start increasing your traffic to get those sales. 

1). Launch an Article Marketing Campaign - Writing articles is not as hard as you might think and it can do wonders for your traffic! Write about something you know and just pretend you are telling a friend all about it. There is no need to use big, fancy words because people just want basic, straightforward information. Submit your articles to some of the more prominent article directories such as Ezine Articles.

2). Guest Posting and/or Commenting on Blogs - Do a search to find quality blogs in your niche and ask if they accept guest posts. Write helpful comments on existing posts and leave your link. Get involved and start building your reputation! A good place to find blogs that need guest posts is BloggerLinkUp.

3). Write Website Reviews - Review websites on Alexa and get additional traffic and improve your Alexa rating. Go to Alexa, register an account and start reviewing and getting that traffic.

4). Relevant Keywords - There are a lot of free keyword suggestion tools you can use to find the top keyword searches for your niche. For example: if you own a pet care site, you would enter the words pet care and the tool would find the most relevant keywords for you to use on your site.

5). Yahoo Answers - Visit Yahoo Answers regularly and post as many answers as you can but be sure to follow their policies. You cannot try to directly lead people to your purchasing pages or leave low quality answers with your website link. 

6). Interactive Site - Make your site interactive with forums, polls, surveys, etc. If your visitors feel more involved with your site, you will get repeat visits and longer stays. Add a little fun as well with contests, games, etc. Have a weekly or monthly scavenger hunt, trivia game, etc. Running a contest for a month can boost your traffic by thousands.

7). Business Cards - Produce an effective business card and hand them out wherever you go. Be sure to make it unique. Provide a discount on a first order. Add a personal message. Give a freebie. Make your business card more than just your name and address.

8). Podcasting - A podcast is an audio or video broadcast which people can listen to and/or watch on many devices. Make your podcast informative but interesting. Talk about how your site can help the people listening and let them know about any contests or other interactive activities you provide. All you need to make a podcast is a working microphone and a voice editor such as Audacity. Once you have made your podcast, promote it in podcast forums and podcast directories such as PodcastBlaster.

9). Moving Billboard - Turn your vehicle into a moving billboard to advertise your website wherever you go. Use affordable vinyl coverings such as Car Wraps or magnetic signs from Esigns. A day of fun can bring you a lot of traffic from your mobile billboard!

10). Social Media - These days social media is a must for more traffic. Join Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and more. Visit message boards and forums and really get involved. Answer people's questions, give helpful advice and information. Becoming an active participant in social media can do wonders for your traffic.

11). Offer a Freebie - Write an informative report or eBooks and provide it for free. Put in your website link and other business info. Let people know they can give it away on their sites as well. Add it to your email signature. Post it on your social media pages. Before you know it, your report could be all over the web bringing you new traffic every day.

12). Sitemap - Create an XML sitemap for your site and submit it to Google. A sitemap will allow more accessibility to your pages by the search engines, thus making your pages easier to find by people doing searches. You can easily create up to a 500 page sitemap with XML-Sitemaps. There are other options as well such as XSitemap. Do a search and find alternative options to choose from.

There are numerous ways to get traffic to your site. Some will work for you and some will not. Try the ideas in this article and add to them, or mold them to work even better for you. Traffic does not come easily but by working hard, trying new ideas and finding out what works best for you will be very effective in boosting your traffic.