If you’re a business owner, have you considered the myriad of ways that social networking sites can help you in your hiring decisions? Given the number of individuals using social networks like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, it’s almost foolish not to do a little digging on such sites when you’re looking for prospective employees. In the past, many employers have entered prospective employees’ names into search engines, but social networking sites are a whole different ballgame. They encourage users to post personal information and have broken down the barrier between what is kept private and what is shared with everyone.

CareerBuilder recently released survey results showing that 22% of the respondents check social networking sites when considering adding a prospective employee to the candidate pool. And almost one-third said that information they had found on social networking sites caused…

SEO experts know that one of the best ways to promote your business is to blog. Unfortunately, many business owners are under the impression that blogging takes a lot of time, or they have seen too many bloggers who start out with gusto only to abandon their blogs two or three months later. While both concerns are legitimate, there’s no reason to let them keep you from starting your own blog. After all, business blogging is a great way to build a following and shorten the sales process.

Rare is the sales blogger who settles in a quiet room with a pencil and a pad of paper to write down his most profound ideas. Instead, most bloggers…

Every small business owner knows the importance of a high search engine ranking. SEO experts and internet marketing professionals have built their careers around figuring out how to help their clients achieve top rankings, and small business owners draw on that expertise every day. But whether you’ve done your own search engine optimization or had a professional do it on your behalf, things sometimes go wrong. If search engines believe that you’re spamming or using any other off-limits methods of optimization, you will be banned, often without even realizing it. Here are 5 sign that you’ve been penalized by Google.

1. You Have a PageRank of 0. PageRank is Google’s method of ranking the popularity and relevance of websites. If Google had previously ranked you, but you noticed that your current PageRank is 0, you can almost guarantee that Google has penalized you. Before you panic, remember that…

One of the great things about internet marketing is that allows you to measure your return on investment fairly simply…if you’re doing it right. The following three mistakes made by many internet marketers, however, make it very difficult to measure your return on investment. If you can correct them, then you can ensure that you’re using your marketing dollars wisely and making the most of your marketing efforts.

1. You’re Not Making the Sale. The whole purpose of a business website is to compel your visitors to purchase your product or service. This means that you have to sell what you’ve got. You can’t just assume that your visitors are going to poke around your site and be so overwhelmed by the magnificence of what you have to…

Given the rise in popularity of internet marketing, wouldn’t it be great to know exactly what it takes to be successful at such an endeavor? Here are 5 traits of successful internet marketers. How do you measure up?

1. Broad Knowledge Base. A successful internet marketer should be, at the very least, a well-rounded person. He should have a wide base of general knowledge and be able to use that knowledge to his advantage by drawing on it to come up with new and innovative ideas. Critical thinking and problem solving skills are a must since…