Monday, March 26, 2012

5 Tips for Avoiding the Social Media Time Suck




This Article is a Guest Post.


Social networking platforms allow for interaction but as it happens in real life, you need to limit the time you give to social media to avoid wasting time by virtually spending your everyday life on one or the other social networking platform. This holds true for marketing professionals undertaking the task of social media marketing for an organization and even people in general who use social networking sites for interacting with people from across the world. It is important for you to bring some method to the madness before your productivity levels at work fall. Here's how you can avoid falling into the trap.

1. Allocate time to your social media activities
Give your undivided attention to your social media marketing or interaction activities while you are at it. Tweet, reply to messages, post on Facebook and other social networking platforms. Just when you are about to go beyond the time allocated, make the switch to take up other activities at hand. Professionals need to realize that work and leisure on social media do not go hand in hand.

2. Understand where to draw the line
It is good to keep the communication channels open but you must not allow these to turn into distractions. Make it a point to not allow your productivity levels to go for a toss just because a friend wanted to talk and you could not say no. Professional marketers too need to know that they have to get better results in limited time rather than spending all their time on social media.

3. Work according to a plan
Apart from the obvious use for interaction, social media is fast emerging as a tool for product promotion and brand building. Bloggers too use social networking platforms to get more traffic for their blogs. It is required then that you set your targets and chalk out the strategies for achieving the same. Analyze the results you get and tweak your implementation methodologies in accordance. Use tools to automate your posts so as to reach out to people when there is maximum activity on social networks.

4. Take note of your limitations
We might want to believe ourselves to be multi-taskers who can handle interaction on social media while attending to our professional commitments. Statistics tell a different story. Distraction due to indulging in social media activities while at work is a common cause of loss of productivity of about 2 hours per day.

5. Know your priorities
Organize your activities to highlight your priorities for each hour. Never allow your priorities to suffer for one reason or the other.
Social media has come as a refreshing change in our busy lives. These portals make it so much easier for people to interact not only with those they happen to know in real life but also people from different walks of life they can relate to or would like to follow for their expertise in certain domains. Marketers too get the convenience of reaching out to a large number of people in their target market segment. Social media interaction is here to stay then. All that is needed is a methodical approach to the process.


About the author: Kelly is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on technology and luxury. Beside this she is fond of gadgets. Recently an article on Maruti Swift attracted her attention. These days she is busy in writing an article on 3D Games.




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Saturday, March 24, 2012

Looking for SEO Trainees / Web Developers for working in our Ottapidaram (Tuticorin District) Office


We are looking for fresh graduates to join our Team as SEO Trainees or Web Developers. The Job location is Ottapidaram, Tuticorin District.

 Qualification

   *Having Good Technical Knowledge and willing to work hard for learning
new technologies.
   *Team work.
   *Sincere
   *First class Degree in B.E/MCA/MS(IT)/BSC-computer science/Diploma(CS/IT)
   *Good communication and documentation skills.
   *Willing to work in any Technology.
   *Experience 0-1 year

Job location :Ottapidaram (Tuticorin District)

Initial Salary/Stipend will be Rs. 3,000 per month.

. We prefer to recruit people who are staying in and around our office area (Ottapidaram, Tuticorin)

If you are interested, Send your resume to qualitypointmail@gmail.com with Subject "JOBCODE-OPM12APR" + Your current location.


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Thursday, March 22, 2012

Business Fax: Why a business needs to convert to V-Fax


This Article is a Guest Post

When trying to compete in business, one must be at the cutting edge of all the latest technology. Any time someone falters and decides to cut corners to save money, they in turn could lose customers and revenue. One example of this is not keeping up with the latest technology, especially if you are in an office setting where sales depend on how fast you interact with clients. For instance, a fax can now be sent online and no longer do you have to be hard lined and dependent on a phone line. There are many fax services out there that rely on email format and you don’t need that second phone line.

There are many differences between a regular fax and a internet fax system.

With the internet fax:

1. No need for hardware or software
2. No extra telephone line required for the fax
3. Paperless communication, integrated with email
4. You can send and receive multiple faxes simultaneously
5. Reduction in phone costs
6. Ability to receive and send faxes from any location that has Internet access

There are multiple online-fax providers who offer this service but some stick out from the rest. Make sure to do the research and choose one based on your needs. You may need a plan just based on a small amount of faxes because your company isn’t that big. You may need to have an unlimited plan with multiple users because the fax would be used all the time. Make sure that you know the overage limits as well so if you go over your page limit per day or per month. Sometimes it’s around 6 cents a page. It’s added to the bill but it might add up.

While you’re saving on costs make sure you always have a backup. You don’t want to completely go digital if you’re unsure about it. It’s best to take baby steps. You also want to ensure that if you transition to Internet fax, you receive 24/7 support from the company that you decide to go with. It is so irritating having no help when you really need it.



So it really depends where your loyalties lie. Do you want to stay with the old technology that hasn’t failed us, or try something new that is the wave of the future? Someday everyone is going to have to invest in something they don’t want to and it will ultimately make their lives much easier. Let me give you a real world unrelated example. When I first got my android phone I thought internet and satellite radio was useless. That is until I came across Pandora. Now, I can’t leave home without it. I would rather use my phone like it’s an mp3 and listen to Pandora than use my mp3. Stop acting like internet fax is like green eggs and ham and take the risk. You find use for it every day. Trust me change is good!

This Article is a Guest Post

Author Bio
Adam Fox is a small business technology and productivity blogger. He writes for companies such as Nextiva and other business service providers. He enjoys seeing small businesses implement new technologies that save costs and improve productivity.


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Tuesday, March 20, 2012

How to Calculate Keyword Density





This Article is a Guest Post.

Keywords are the key to help your website get a better ranking and a stronger chance of getting visible on the search engine results page.

Why use keywords:
The keywords are now what many people in the old west called the gold rush. The reason for saying so is that the person utilizing the right keywords would be able to not only get more traffic but also would get a better ranking in the search engines as search engines like Google or Yahoo use the keywords in your web pages or the title of your web pages to find and tag them. Therefore the right amount of keyword density should be used by the writer of the web page content to increase the web pages’ visibility on search engines.

What is keyword Density?
We know that keywords are the phase that people write in the search fields of all the search engines to get whatever they need on the internet. Some keywords that we write are to find something and tend to be generic and vague which means that upon searching, the users will get millions of websites as the result of their search. This means that if you have used those keywords you will be shown to the user. But what matters is that how much the keyword has been used in your content. If you have used the keyword only once or twice in a 450 word article then you should know that it will be ignored by the search engines as they tend to show only those pages that have high keyword density. Hence keyword density can be defined as the number of times the keyword has been used against the number of word in a given article or content. So to ensure that your page is among the top results of the SERP or the search engines it is of utmost importance that the keyword is used repeatedly.

Calculating the keyword Density:
As it is clear that to write a decent and considerable web content you need to have the right keyword density. But the question arises how to calculate it. To calculate the keyword density you need to find out the number of words you have written. You can see the total word count of your content on the bottom left corner of your screen. Then go to the home tab and at the end of it you will find the find button. By using it you will get your keywords highlighted after you type the keyword. For example if the keyword is “density” typing it will show you the number of times you have used the word “density”. Divide the total number of words of the content with the number of times you have used your keywords and then multiply it with hundred. Following these steps will give you your keyword density.

To promote your website the keyword density is very important and it is for that reason that web page developers must know how to use it in their websites to increase its visibility and ranking.

Author Bio: I am Intkhab from Test4Prep. Looking for Test4Prep exam assistance? Let’s take benefit of Test4Prep self-paced HP Certifications training material and clear your IT certification in first attempt.

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Thursday, March 15, 2012

Some thoughts on outsourcing small Web development tasks...




There are lot of online services/websites (e.g Freelancer.com) available for outsourcing small web development tasks.

If you are not having contact with web developers or web development companies, these freelance websites will be useful to find appropriate developers by going thro' their skill sets, their previous project experiences, and the feedback left for them by their previous project owners.

But these freelance websites have many short comings. First thing is, they collect significant amount as fees, and as I specified earlier few freelance sites such as vWorker give horrible experience. Especially they deal any dispute between the Buyer and Seller in horrible way. It seems few freelance sites charge money for handling any disputes or arbitrations.

So, it is NOT advisable to always use freelance sites for outsouring small web development tasks.

You can find out some web developers or web development companies from internet, and you can start outsourcing the projects to them directly. Even you can get the details of web developers from freelance sites itself. But few freelance sites discourages contacting developers directly. Mostly they won't allow sharing contact details.

This approach may have some shortcomings. The developers will be expecting the money before start doing the project. But the Project provider will be expecting to see his project completion before releasing any money to the Developers. (Because of this reason only many freelance sites earn good income).

There are lot of ways to handle this issue. One way is, the developer can estimate the price for completing the entire task. And, the Project provider can make the payment in multiple phases. But the developers can not estimate the exact time/effort required for completing the project without actually working on the project. So, they may end up with low estimation and therefore the project will end with lot of bugs.

And, another way is paying the developers on hourly rate. In this way, the project provider may not be knowing the amount of money he needed to spend for completing the project. So, normally we try to give approximate estimation for completing the initial version of the project even if the payment is based only hourly work.

I have many customers, and everyone is trying various approaches to outsource their web development and SEO tasks to me.

Based my experience, I understand that Hourly Rate works better in most situations for most of the customers.

But it seems few people confuse the effort estimation done for "hourly rate" with the "fixed price"

I need to give below explanation with this kind of confusion arises.

If I say 5 hours as estimated time for doing something, it is just a rough estimate for completing initial version, it doesn't mean that I need to spend extra hours for fixing any bugs. In that case it won't be a hourly billing but a fixed price.

In case of fixed price we need to do estimation by adding extra hours for testing and bug fixing.




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Wednesday, March 14, 2012

How Search Engine Optimisation Helps Online Entrepreneurs?



Though there are many ways to advertise online but it is essential for the online entrepreneurs to use tactics of search engine optimisation. Search engine optimisation is looked upon by most online business owners as a great way to earn high return on investment. Statistics prove that SEO is the only way to get high traffic to your website and boost sales. Though there are many online advertising tools but these do not guarantee success and they cost a hefty sum too. If you are looking for an Internet marketing technique that will deliver long term results, drive traffic naturally, optimise your website in a manner to give continual online exposure, then there can be nothing better than search engine optimisation.



There are many strategies you can follow to optimise your website. If you have a website which is not fetching the desired business results, then you can adopt certain changes or improvements to the website. Reputed search engine optimisation companies will evaluate your website from the SERP point of view and suggest ways to boost performance of your website. They will pinpoint areas with flaws in your website. Search engine optimisation companies aim to get a site more noticeable to the search engines by developing or bringing changes to the relevant content. Application of right text, videos and images can improve the appearance of your website and attract more targeted traffic. SEO experts also analyse the HTML codes in your site. HTML codes should be clutter free to meet search engine ranking goals.



Another internal site feature which should be checked for is appearance and navigation design of your website. If there is an internal search engine script the users can easily surf through the content in your website. They move from one page to the other effortlessly. Search engine optimisation can also improve the visibility of any website by making sure it does not contain any hidden text or duplicate content. Use of hidden texts is a part of black hat SEO and most reputed SEO experts discourage such a practice. Duplicate pages or duplicate content divert the traffic from your site affecting your exposure and profitability adversely.



It is only after you have applied all the search engine optimisation techniques and fixed the glitches with your website that you can move forward with online advertising. SEO experts can help in this marketing process too. Sponsored search solution or web advertising scheme are excellent ways to improve visibility in search engines and social networks. Many business owners also employ PPC advertising to get steady and targeted traffic. Even for success in PPC campaigns you need an optimised site. It can be said that search engine optimisation is the first choice for web masters looking for profits online. PPC is the second most popular tool in this regard.



As website is your online store it should be effectively optimised to impress both targeted clients and search engines. You can influence the incoming traffic significantly with search engine optimisation techniques. Once you have a steady flow of targeted traffic your profits are bound to increase. So, use the services of a reputed search engine optimisation service provider and fetch rich rewards.


About Author: Search Revolver is a well known UK search engine optimisation company. They have a different approach to work. Their end goal is to meet the client’s expected results.

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Saturday, March 10, 2012

Use jQuery’s serialize method to save code writing time.




Recently I came to know that many people are still manually creating the querystring parameters while creating jquery code for posting the form using ajax method of jquery.

For example, if a form has two input elements with ids username and email the querystring will be prepared as below,
var username=$('#username').attr('value');
var email=$('#email').attr('value');

var dataString = 'username='+ username + '&email=' + email;

$.ajax({
type: "POST",
url: "ajaxprocess.php",
data: dataString


});
We should spend lot of time in creating the dataString value if the form has lot of elements.
But actually we need not prepare this dataString value by typing the names of each and every form elements.

We can just use the serialize method of jquery to collect all the form elements with their name and value and to arrange them in the required format.

var dataString =$("#formid").serialize();

Note that serialize() will codify the special characters. i-e If your email field value is info@qualitypointtech.net, it will convert it into info%40qualitypointtech.net

We need to use the urlDecode method of php to decode these converted characters.

If you are not familiar with jquery, you have to first read this jquery forum.

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Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Planning to focus on Software Testing Projects....



As specified in my previous post, we conducted a Walk-in Interview for recruiting SEO Trainees on March 1st in our Chennai Office.

I visited our chennai office on March 1st for conducting this walk-in interview (Usually I will be in our Ottapidaram (Tuticorin) Office)

I was surprised to see the Good response for our walk-in announcement in DurgaJobs.com. It seems this Job site DurgaJobs.com is growing very fast.

And, this Walk-in Interview helped me to choose appropriate candidates without spending much time and effort.

Previously, I used to spend lot of time in shortlisting the candidates by going thro' each and every resumes received in email.

And, I used to make call to the shortlisted candidates for scheduling interview for them. I had to spend lot of time for this process as some of the candidates may not be available while making call to them. So, I have to either call them again or need to contact them thro' email.

And, I will ask them to come for interview only after explaining them about our company, job location , nature of job and salary details. Almost everyone will be showing interest to attend interview. So, I will stop making calls to further candidates. But on the interview date only very few candidates will come for attending interview. So, I will be having very limited options to choose appropriate candidates. Again, the selected candidates may Not join on the joining date.

So, I had to start the process again to do the recruitment. Ultimately I will be spending lot of time and energy to do the recruitment.

This Walk-in Interview helped me in lot of ways. The first thing is, the walk-in interview attracted only the candidates who are very serious about their job search and serious about their career. So, I need not spend my time unnecessarily with the non-serious candidates.

The next thing is, since the walk-in interview was conducted in our office premises, the candidates who are not comfortable with our Office location and infrastructure didn't wait for attending the interview. So, again it helped me to avoid the unsuitable candidates.

I selected three people and asked them to join on the same day. Two persons called me on the next day and informed me that they were going to take offer from another company. Since I had number of shortlisted candidates during this Walk-in Interview, I was able to ask two other candidates to join immediately.


I would like to thank DurgaJobs.com for their help to make our recruitment task easy and effective.

In the Walk-in announcement, I mentioned that preference will be given to the candidates with Software testing knowledge. Because I thought Software Testing knowledge will help them to do SEO effectively for our Software testing related website and web pages(e.g QTPbook.com)

So, many people with Software Testing knowledge also attended this interview. And, most of them prefer to do software Testing related jobs than doing SEO.

Since personally I have good experience in Software Testing, now I am planning to focus more on Software testing projects as I came to know that it is easy to get Software Testers. (As of now, we focus on doing SEO and PHP/mysql development).

I already had a LinkedIn Discussion about the SEO vs. Software Testing. Almost all of them were suggesting to focus more on Software Testing than doing SEO. So, I think it is the right time to prepare some of our employees to be experts in Software Testing. i-e We will be ready to take Software Testing tasks also in addition to doing SEO work and web development (php/mysql/jquery/ajax/wordpress/)



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Friday, March 2, 2012

The Solar Panel Boom… Is it about to crash? - Guest Post




This Article is a Guest Post.


It’s fair to say that over the past decade solar panels have become more popular then ever before, the introduction of incentives meant that consumers found solar panels irresistible – they provided the perfect solution. Consumers found that solar panels would provide a way to save money, generate income, increase property value and apart from the financial benefits they were a way to do their bit for the environment. At this point there was one question on every consumer’s mind; why wouldn’t I think about having a solar panel installation? I am now worried that this question has reverted to the old question; why should I think about having solar panels installed?
The reason I am worried that consumers are now loosing interest in solar panels is simply down to the reduction of the feed-in-tariff in the UK. This incentive (in my opinion) was the back bone of the solar industry, it gave consumers reason to invest in solar panels and I believe you will agree with me when I say that an investment with a reduced return will be less lucrative to potential buyers and this is the exact case with solar panels.
Although I believe the reduced rates are actually not bad at the moment, its set to change in the next few months as that tariff is set to see another reduction. A reduction that I believe may have catastrophic consequences. As well as the further reduction consumers will require EPC certificates before any installation goes ahead, at a cost to the customer. It seems that the government is continuing to place objects in the way thus making it harder for anyone to even consider having such an installation.
There not a lot that anyone can really do, two appeals and a few court cases later and we (as an industry) are no further forward. I completely understand that with the current economic climate its hard to find the funds the reduction in incentives is only going to be worse. Job losses have already increased since the change and some leading installation companies have reduce their work force by a considerable amount.
There are two simple questions I would like to ask the UK Government. If or when our economic situation is no longer a situation, will the Feed-in-Tariff for Solar Pv be increased? And can we expect the same situation of reductions with the Solar Thermal RHI?


This Article is a Guest Post.


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