1. SEO Website Grader (Thank you Dr. Stephen Dann for this amazing tool!)
This site allows you to receive a monthly report providing helpful and useful SEO information on any site of your choice, AND to compare it against competing sites. A great resource for any search engine optimization or interactive marketing plans. Warning: Hours of time will go by before you realize it!
2. Is your website Hott or Not….err, ok or ko?
Ok, we’re not in high school anymore, but don’t act like you’ve never checked out the infamous Hott or Not website or uploaded your friend’s picture to the site as a joke…
Well, now you can rate websites based on the design of their homepage with a 1-10 ranking and see the average rating other websites have received. To become a repeat visitor, register your website into the bank and see what other users rate it!
3. Blogpulse
Blogpulse is a Nielsen Buzzmetrics tool that allows one to create customized graphs based on keyword trends for chosen keywords. Other tools include featured keyword graphs based on popular keywords, conversation tracker which follows trackbacks and permalinks between blogs and blogger profiles that show the most recent posts, the sources used, numbers of times the bloggers is cited by fellow bloggers and a list of 10 related blogs. This is great for monitoring how the blogosphere views your brand, topic or organization and helps identify blog networks.
4. Ice Rocket
Ice Rocket is like a smaller version of Blogpulse and allows you to make keyword trend graphs, but only for the most recent three months, while Blogpulse lets you make a graph for the last 6 months.
5. Popular Viral Video Aggregate
Like PopURLS, only for videos, this site shows the most popular videos for YouTube, Metacafe, MySpace, Yahoo, ifilm, Break.com, Grounder and Google.
6. See Google’s top sites based on non-keyword metrics
This link takes out all the keyword data in Google and shows you what sites Google sees as the best ranked with the most traffic.
Alltop is a blog aggregate that provides the most recent 5 posts from the top 40 blogs, sorted by topic. Topics include social media, nonprofit, moms, life, dads, career, celebrities, games, SEO, Macintosh, Windows, Journalism, world news, photography and more!
8. PopURLs
PopURLS is an aggregate that provides the most popular links across the web including digg, del.icio.us, flickr, reddit, Truemors, YouTube, Google and Yahoo news, AOL Video, Mahalo, Twitter and more!
9. Hits Log
Hits Log is an SEO tool that allows you to discover your site’s Google Pank Rank and search engine rank. Though not as useful as Website grader, it may be easier for some to use.
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Social Networking Sites
Linkedin – Not only does Linkedin allow people to post jobs, but you can also post jobs yourself, or send jobs to your connections. In addition, you can search for jobs at certain firms, see who posted them, and see if you know anyone who works there. Very informative for the investigative types.
Facebook – Certain Facebook group and fan pages are used for recruiting potential job candidates. For example, the U.S. Department of State uses its fan page as a recruiting tool into foreign policy, public affairs, foreign services officer, or even offers to help navigate a career path.
MyWorkster – MyWorkster offers its users a professional presence online. You can create a profile, resume and even a video resume. This network also has a job listing database, blogs, and more.
Twitter Recruiter’s/Job Postings
Many people post job openings they’ve either heard about or are currently trying to fill in a tweet, with a link to the job posting. (One great reason alone to become a Twitter-er!) However, more companies and individuals are creating Twitter-streams to post jobs and recruit talent. Some include:
Jim Stroud over at the Recruiters Lounge has posted about recruiters and Twitter…surprised that he could only find 85 recruiters in a Twitter search! In my opinion, that’s 85 reasons right there to start a twitter feed.
To find information on a particular industry or job field, use Twitter Search to conduct a search query for certain keywords like “job positions,” “recruiter” or “career advice.”
TwitHire is also a Twitter application that lets you bundle your job postings into 140 characters. It’s also a great resource to look at current job openings.
Blogs
Jeremiah Owyang has created a blog series “On the Move,” highlighting individuals moving within the social media profession. The series also lists great resources to getting plugged into a social media job, as well as listing current high-profile movers and shakers in the social media world (those who work at Fortune 5000 firms with 1000 employees or more).
Alltop.com, a blog aggregate service by topic, has a ‘career‘ page, which features numerous blogs about how to get a job, keep a job, recruit for jobs and more.
Search for blogs based in the city you want to work. For example, KCRecruiting is a Kansas city blog that works to connect job seekers with KC opportunities or author Jim Durbin’s other more general blog, Social Media Headhunter.
More
There’s also other, perhaps more traditional, job search and recruiting strategies too:
Basically, my research has shown that social media is revolutionizing now only business – but how to get employees, find employees and to become an employee.
I know this is a huge, developing topic. And, there’s lots to add, so I look forward to hearing from you all and your experiences. =)
*Note: I didn’t make this information industry specific, but I could if you guys would like. It does lean a bit towards those in social media….course, I’ve also noticed that for social media job searchers, in a way, you have the easiest of jobs because those are the jobs people are posting in the social media space. Other fields/industries are a bit slow to catch on…are
am I wrong?
photo credit: rockronie on flickr
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