Maximizing Your SEO on Biznik

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. "Good SEO" means you and your business get found more often in search results on search engines like Google when potential customers search for your name or keywords.

If increasing visibility for your personal or business brand is important, then paying attention to where your own website ranks is only half of the battle. If you're active on social media sites and social networks like Biznik, it's important that your social media profiles rank highly for your name and business name too. If you add the url for your own website to the profile, it will receive lift in the search results from a highly ranked profile. The added benefit, is that when you intentionally optimize profiles that you have control over, you can ensure that content highlighting your business strengths, over shadows any poor online reviews or negative comments about you.

Biznik was one of the first social networking sites in 2005 that put extensive effort into building an online community that optimized its member profiles. The result is that Biznik.com regularly appears in the top 5 results for the term "business networking" and 93% of our member profiles appear on page 1 of Google for the user's name or keywords.

NOTE: Member Profiles are a benefit of Biznik Membership. The Biznik Lite webcard is void of a Title Tag, an H1 tag, a Meta Description and ALT tags. Starting at $79/year, you can claim an optimized Biznik member profile.

How exactly do Biznik member profiles rank so highly?

Through a well-architected profile structured with SEO in mind. All web pages, including profiles on social media sites, contain SEO elements like the Title Tag, Meta Description, header tags (H1, H2, H3), vanity url, image ALT tags and image filenames.

The Biznik profile has these elements too, but you must be sure that you put the right information in the right fields for the results you want.

Title Tag

The title tag appears inside the top of the frame of your internet browser, right above the url. This contains the most important information about you. Biznik automatically pulls the contents of your job title, your business name, your location and your name field into the profile's Title Tag. Perfect for keyword optimization, personal name optimization and local search optimization all rolled into one!

Vanity url

Your vanity url includes the names you enter in the first and last names fields. Choose the name you want to optimize. If you want to optimize the name "Jim Kelly" for search results, you will be doing yourself a disservice if you enter "James Kelly Jones, Jr." in the first and last names fields.

Meta Description

Unlike most social media profiles, we automatically generate a Google Summary for you behind the scenes that becomes your profile's Meta Description. That means you can approach your About descriptions from a marketing perspective and are not limited in length.

Maximize your SEO

H1 tag

On the Biznik profile the Your Job field comprises the H1 tag, and is therefore the most important field on your profile. Choose wisely! Entering "owner" in the Your Job field is a massive waste of a highly optimized H1 tag.

Mugshot Filename & ALT tag

Make use of the image ALT tag, by naming your mugshot photo's filename intentionally. On Biznik we automatically apply ALT tags to image files.

Hyperlink to your website

Basic member profiles include one hyperlink to your own website, Pro member profiles include space for two and ProVIP includes space for three! This is good for the robots that will connect those website urls with all the keywords and SEO on your profile. It's good for the humans too who find your highly optimized Biznik profile in a search for your keywords, and want to hire you! Learn more about Biznik Pro & ProVIP.

Additional locations for targeted keywords

Additional places on the Biznik profile are optimized for both outside search engines, and for Biznik's member search. Pay attention to including your targeted keywords in the following locations:

What you do
What you specialize in
Education
Experience
Tags/keywords field
Current promotion
Post signature (available to ProVIPs)
Bio field (available to ProVIPs)

Pulling in an echo of your blog, and any articles you publish contain keywords too. Also pay attention to your category.

Location. Location. Location.

After you optimize your profile, you must think about where your profile appears. This is why activity and participation are so important. Just as Google loves regularly updated blogs and websites, it equally loves regularly updated social profiles. Biznik profiles list recent activity, but more importantly, every action taken on the site includes a link to your profile.

This is also why choosing your industry category is important.

Category pages are highly ranked on Biznik. Think about the lost opportunity when you select the "entrepreneur" category when you could be better placed on the "graphic design" or "chiropractor" category. Basic Members can select one category page to appear on; Pros can select two; ProVIPs can select four. Go ProVIP.

Learn more about optimizing your other social media profiles... Kristi Hines published an excellent article for the Search Engine Marketing Group blog called How to Optimize 7 Popular Social Media Profiles for SEO. Biznik.com was one of the seven she included in her report.

Learn more about SEO on Biznik

Download a copy of 7 (& a half) Most Common SEO Mistakes (PDF 340k)

But what if you don’t care about SEO on Google?

No problem! But your Biznik member profile appears on searches inside the Biznik community too. So if you came here to network, you'll want to make sure other Bizniks are able to find you too.