BizNicheMedia

Bhubaneswar and Houston Offices Expand

Sagar and I have neglected the company blog over the last few months, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to update everyone on what we've been up to.

Just a quick update...

Having added three new and very talented writers and consolidated the Iowa City branch we're now a whopping seven BNM staff in Houston, Texas. 

At the same time, Sagar is working diligently to grow the Bhubaneswar office to help handle some of the volume that he, Niharika and Mandakini are currently managing.

Over the next three weeks we plan on adding one new member to the Houston office and more than doubling the Bhubaneswar office by adding four new staff members.

All told, that will bring us to 16 full-time BNM staff.

Looking back, the company today looks nothing like the two-man startup we began as college kids just a few years ago.

Delhi SEO Meet 07: The Biggest SEO Event of the Year

We have been talking about the Delhi SEO meet for the past couple of months. Finally, it was held on 31 March at the Hotel Clarks Inn on the outskirts of Delhi. Around 60 webmasters and SEOs across the globe descended on Delhi to attend the conference.

BizNicheMedia had its own representation with Rich McIver, Andy Hagans and Sagar Satapathy speaking at the conference. Some other prominent speakers who made presentations included Vaibhav Kakkar, Ravish Ahuja and Manish Pandey. Not surprisingly, Rich and Andy stole the show by sharing their experience and expertise with others.

SEOs and webmasters from the USA, Dhaka, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Pune came to Delhi to attend the biggest SEO meet of the year. The organizers Pankaj Gupta, Amit Patel and Vaibhav Kakkar did a great job by successfully organizing the meet. The young lady Upasana did her best in anchoring the entire event.

Some of the important topics covered in the meet included Search Engine Basics, Link Building, Link Baiting, Generating Traffic, Search Engine Strategy, Online Forums, Search Engine Optimization and Black Hat SEOs.

After the meet, we had a cocktail party and a music program. Then came the magic moment, when Rich started singing 'Hotel California'. Believe me, It wasn't bad.:) Although there was no DJ, it took little time for our SEOs to convert the place into a dance floor. Andy started dancing on bollywood numbers and was soon joined by Rich and others.

Pankaj deserves special mention for his generosity in hosting the guests at his own residence. Pankaj, his parents, Shruti (pank's wife) and Nidhi (Pank's sister) were very cordial and warm to all of us. Pankaj also took the guests to his farmhouse in Uttar Pradesh where we had a great time.

BizNicheMedia had a staff meet-up on 02 April 2007 at Crowns Plaza. Unfortunately, our staff writer Pushpa Sathish could not make it due to some inevitable reasons. However, Mini Singh and Priya Jestin joined Rich, Andy and Sagar and we all had a great time there. For the first time, we got a chance to meet each other face to face and that was really exciting. The biggest blunder: we forgot to take a group photo of our staff.:(

The Delhi SEO meet provided a great opportunity to learn more about SEO techniques with people sharing their knowledge and experience with each other. It also helped everyone get new friends who stay in different locations, but share same interest. We would be looking forward to organize such events on a regular basis.

BNM Newsletter VI

Greetings! Our apologies for the delay in coming up with the latest edition of the BNM Newsletter. However, we are finally here to let our readers know about the recent happenings at BizNicheMedia. February and March have been hectic for BizNicheMedia. We want to keep all of you abreast of all the changes and major events that have gone on.

New Editors:

BizNicheMedia hired a new editor, Brian Johnson to manage its link bait articles. Brian has been doing a great job with writing/editing both BNM and client link bait articles. He has proved his efficiency in writing, editing and resolving other technical issues.

Later in February, we hired two other editors Eric Wolters and Jessica Hupp who have been doing reasonably well in meeting our target and expectations. Brian, Eric and Jessica have formed a great team and are constantly contributing in improving the quality and productivity of BNM blogs.

Shift in Focus:

There is a shift in our focus over the past one month. Rather than writing regular posts for each BNM Weblogs, we have concentrated on some particular weblogs with 2/3 link bait articles coming out every week. As expected, the result is overwhelming and we are doing very well on the blogosphere.

Besides our new editors, our staff writers Pushpa Sathish and Priya Jestin have done a great job in coming up with link bait articles with high quality and content. They have been really aggressive and focused in their approach and that helped us to move in the right direction towards growth and development.

Currently, we publish regular posts on our most important sites such as Debt Consolidation News, Credit Card Lowdown, Forex Reader, 1031 Exchange Lowdown, Student Loan Consolidation Lowdown, Mortgage Lowdown and Online University Lowdown. Some of these sites got a new professional look and the great link bait specialist Mr. Andy Hagans deserves the credit for that.

New Carnivals:

In addition to our existing carnivals, we launched three new carnivals, Carnival of Forex, Carnival of Home Improvement and Carnival of Student Finance. We also revived the Carnival of Online Education. Besides the above carnivals, BNM will be launching two new carnivals, Carnival of Payday Loan and Carnival of Homeowners Insurance on 05 April, 2007. Watch out our carnivals and feel free to submit your entries.

Delhi SEO Conference:

The countdown has begun for the Delhi SEO Conference and we all are gearing up for the big occasion. As you know, the 2nd Delhi SEO conference will be held at Delhi, the capital city of India on 31 March 2007. A number of SEOs from around the globe will attend the conference. We will keep you updated about the conference.

Final Word:

We are glad to announce that BizNicheMedia is on the path of expansion and high growth. We thank all our readers for their constant support and trust in us. We will always try our best to meet their expectations. Our next Newsletter will cover some of the interesting news/events that are going to happen over the next few weeks. If you have any suggestions related to our website or content, feel free to email me at sagar13d (at) gmail (dot) com.

BizNicheMedia Newsletter V

Hi Everyone! January has been a great month for BizNicheMedia, and we want to keep all of you abreast of all the changes and major events that have gone on.

Delhi SEO Conference:

We have already made an announcement about the SEO India Conference on January 17, 2007. If you haven't read it, let me tell you in brief. The 2nd Delhi SEO conference will be held at Delhi, the capital city of India on 31 March 2007. A number of SEOs from around the globe will attend the conference.

If you want to head up to Delhi for the conference, you can talk to the conference organizers, who have been working for a few months setting things up.  It will be a special event for BizNicheMedia, as our own Rich McIver, Andy Hagans and Sagar Satapathy will be speaking at the conference.

BizNicheMedia Staff Meetup:

BizNicheMedia is using the opportunity of the Delhi SEO Meet to fly the whole BizNicheMedia team out to Delhi for a staff meetup. All our staff members will get a chance to have a face-to-face meeting on 2nd April, 2007. Hopefully, we will have a great time there, and we're all looking forward to the meetup.

Link Building Efforts:

In the first two weeks of January, our writers produced five amazing link bait articles that grabbed the attention of hundreds of thousands of readers (literally) on the blogosphere. Without further ado, let me take you through these great pieces.

1) Article at Material Handling Blog

Our link-bait specialist Mini Singh came up with an interesting article titled "13 Amazing Logistics Stories" at Material Handling Blog. Mini explains how logistics management has become an important part of business strategies in the recent years. The article covers a diverse number of functional areas where logistics is being used and reveals how exactly logistics has evolved over the years.

2) Article at Business Intelligence Lowdown

Our staff writer Pushpa Sathish, who recently completed one successful year with BizNicheMedia, produced a fantastic article entitled, "Lessons from the Lemonade Stand: 101 Common Sense Management Tips" at Business Intelligence Lowdown. The article covers 101 great management tips that are helpful for both the individuals and companies. It was dugg by 1022 users at Digg. The article also brought in 35,000 new visitors.

3) Article at CRM Lowdown

Our Staff Writer Priya Jestin came up with another interesting article titled "The 10 Best (and 10 Worst) Companies for Call Center Service" at CRM Lowdown. Due to its controversial nature, the article received 87 comments, the maximum for any BNM link bait article till date. It also also received 2129 new links (via msn) and 75,000 new visitors.

4) Article at Network Security Journal

Those of you concerned about the security of your small biz or family's computer network will want to check out Pushpa's article "The Fight Against Phishing: 44 Ways to Protect Yourself" at Network Security Journal which will give your some surefire tips to fight such attacks and secure your network.

5) Article at Health Insurance Lowdown

In the US, soaring medical costs are the number one concern for middle class families, and are a certain hot button issue in the 2008 presidential elections.  If you're interested in ways to lower your family's premium, read Priya's article "18 Surefire Tips to Lower Your Health Insurance Premium" at Health Insurance Lowdown.

Pick of the Fortnight:

This time, the competition was very close between the articles at Business Intelligence Lowdown and CRM Lowdown. However, on the basis of the multiple criteria set by us earlier, Pushpa's article Lessons from the Lemonade Stand: 101 Common Sense Management Tips has been selected as the Pick of the Fortnight. Congratulations Pushpa!!!

Carnivals Hosted:

In the recent weeks, we have stepped up the efforts of hosting more carnivals. Here are the list of our carnivals:

Carnival of Credit Card

1) The first edition of the Carnival of Credit Card was hosted at Credit Card Lowdown on 25 December, 2006.

2) The second edition of the Carnival of Credit Card was hosted at Credit Card Lowdown on 15 January, 2007.

Carnival of Online Education

1) The first edition of the Carnival of Online Education was hosted at Online University Lowdown on 25 December, 2006.

2) The second edition of the Carnival of Online Education was hosted at Online University Lowdown on 15 January, 2007.

Carnival of Customer Service

1) The second edition of the Carnival of Customer Service was hosted at CRM Lowdown on 09 January, 2007. 

2) The third edition of the Carnival of customer Service was hosted at CRM Lowdown on 22 January, 2007.

Carnival of Debt Management

In addition, we also hosted the first edition of the Carnival of Debt Management at Debt Consolidation Lowdown on 22 January, 2007. It turned out to be one of the most successful carnivals on the web.

Final Word:

The next edition of our Newsletter will bring even more interesting news for our readers.  We request our readers to participate in our blog carnivals in large numbers and also post their comments on our posts and articles. Keep checking our Debt Consolidation Lowdown weblog, which will feature some interesting, useful articles in the coming weeks. If you have any suggestions related to our website or content, feel free to email me at sagar13d (at) gmail (dot) com.

Until next time,
The BNM Management Staff

BNM heading to the Delhi SEO Conference

The Conference:

If you haven't already heard, the 2nd annual Delhi SEO conference is going to be huge this year.  A number of SEO's from around the globe are descending on Delhi, the capital city of India on 31 March 2007. If you want to head up to Delhi for the conference, you can talk to the conference organizers, who have been working for a few months setting things up. 

In addition, BizNicheMedia's own Rich McIver, Andy Hagans and Sagar Satapathy will each be speaking at the conference, so for those of you that are attending you might want to bring some outside reading material...it's going to be bad. ;)

BNM Staff Meetup:

BizNicheMedia, which takes pride in its unique Indian / American (and occassionally Canadian) staff and management, is using the opportunity of the conference to fly the whole team out to Delhi. 

Although we are working for the same company, most of us have never gotten a chance to meet one another because of our different geographic locations. So everyone at BNM is looking forward to the opportunity to meetup face-to-face for a couple of days after the conference in Delhi.  It should be a great time to eat goodfood, spend time with friends, and finally start to put some faces to names.

See you all in Delhi!

 

BizNicheMedia Newsletter IV

Hi Everyone! Before you all head off the blogosphere for the Holidays, we thought we'd update you briefly on what we've been up to over the past couple of weeks. 

Link-building Efforts:

In the past couple of weeks, our writers' produced four amazing link bait articles that grabbed the attention of hundreds of thousands of readers (literally) on the blogosphere. Without further ado, let me take you through these great pieces.

1) Article at Credit Card Lowdown

Our staff writer Pushpa Sathish came up with another stunning article, Lessons from Mom: 33 Easy Cost-Cutting Tips at Credit Card Lowdown. All the 33 tips provided by Pushpa are very helpful for people who desperately want to cut down their cost. The article was featured on various blog carnivals on the web. In total, it received 1,294 new links (msn) and 7,000 new visitors.

2) Article at Bankruptcy Reader

Our staff writer, Priya Jestin produced 101 Financial Tips you Never Learned in High School (but should have) at Bankruptcy Reader. Priya starts with some shocking statistics: "Nearly 50 percent of college students are in credit card debt. One in every 100 families is today affected by a bankruptcy. And nearly 50 percent Americans are supposed to be living beyond their means". The article was dugg by 1015 users at Digg and brought in approximately 50,000 new visitors.

3) Article at VoIP Lowdown

Pushpa Sathish's article VoIP Security Challenges: 25 Ways to Secure your VoIP Network at VoIP Lowdown gives some useful tips on securing your VoIP network against the security attacks such as viruses, spam, phishing,  hacking attempts, intrusions, mismanaged identities, Denial of Service (DoS), eavesdropping and many more.

4) Article at RFID Lowdown

Pushpa used her tech expertise to produce another interesting stuff at RFID Lowdown. Her article Cool, Surprising and just Plain Scary: 51 Futuristic Uses for RFID. Since there are few writers dealing withe the future of RFID, Pushpa's article has received a huge response from readers across the web. If you decide to take a look, you will be surprised to know how RFID is being used in some really surprising ways. The article was dugg by 762 users at Digg. In total, it received 1,792 new links (msn) and approximately 40,000 new visitors.

Article of the Week:

The competition was close this time. Mini, who was looking to pull out the first hat-trick for a BNM writer, after having winning the contest twice in a row, was bested by Pushpa. Pushpa's article Lessons from Mom: 33 Easy Cost-Cutting Tips has been selected as the best article of the week. Congratulations Pushpa!

Pick of the Fortnight:

In addition to our regular promotional and writing work, we're always trying to tweak things a little bit on the management side to help make BNM a more productive team. In that vein, we have replaced the "Article of the Week" contest with the "Pick of the Fortnight". Now onwards, we will reward one article every fortnight. The best article will be judged on the following parameters:

1) Quality & Content
2) Traffic Generated
3) Comments Received
4) Back Links Gained

Carnivals Hosted:

In the past fortnight, we hosted two carnivals. The first edition of the Carnival of Customer Service was hosted at CRM Lowdown. It received good response from our readers and the bloggers who write on issues related to customer service. The 66th edition of the Carnival of Debt Reduction was hosted at Debt Consolidation Lowdown. Despite the short notice given to us, we left no stone unturned in making this carnival a successful one. And, breaking the convention, we included some cool pics on this carnival which were a big success.

New Carnivals to be Hosted by BizNicheMedia:

After the great success of the "Carnival of Customer Service" and the "Carnival of Debt Reduction", we have decided to host two more carnivals. Like the "Carnival of Customer Service", we got the exclusive rights by Blog Carnival to host and manage the "Carnival of Credit Card" and the "Carnival of Online Education". The first edition of both the carnivals will be hosted on 25 Dec, 2006.

Revival of our Weblog:

As our observant readers will certainly have noticed, a few months ago we dropped some of the lesser trafficked BNM sites off the sidebar with the eventual plan of retiring the sites.  Recently, however, we have recieved a number of requests from regular readers as well as a significant uptick in the level of traffic for our site Business Intelligence Lowdown. So, we've decided to revive the site in order to serve our readerhsip better. Now onwards, you will be able to read regular posts on this site. We recently produced a good article titled 5 Software Programs that work Wonders for Small Business Companies at Business Intelligence Lowdown. Whenever you get time, please stop by and check out the site as well as the new article.

Final Word:

The next edition of our Newsletter will come up after the New Year celebrations. We promise to bring more interesting stuff for our readers in the New Year. We urge our readers to participate in our blog carnivals in large numbers and also post their comments on our posts and articles. If you have any suggestions related to our website or content, feel free to email me at sagar13d (at) gmail (dot) com.

Until next time,
The BNM Management Staff

BizNicheMedia Newsletter - III

Hi Everyone!

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving. The Americans on staff have thankfully returned, through no doubt a bit fatter (we're looking at you Andy).  However, the break did not stop us from coming up with good posts and link bait articles. As usual, we have been busy creating good stuff for our readers.

As many of you know, last week there was a minor tweak in the Google algorithm, and we're happy to say that 5 more of our blogs have finally popped out of the Sandbox and are turning some great traffic numbers. I think this 'pop' was in large part due to our excellent link bait promotions...

Link-building Efforts:

In the past couple of weeks, our writers produced six amazing link bait articles that helped our weblogs to make to the top of the blogosphere. If you read these articles, you will definitely admit that they have done a great job with their research and skill set.

1) Online University Article

Our staff writer, Pushpa Sathish produced an interesting and informative article titled "The 25 Best Colleges for Nerds" at OnlineUniversityLowdown. It received great response from various quarters. The article was dugg by 1147 users at Digg. In total, it received  1,743 links (msn) and 50,000 new visitors. If you are looking for top online universities, then your search may be over here.

2) 1031 Exchange Article

Priya Jestin, staff writer, BizNicheMedia, came up with a tax saving article titled "The n00b's Guide to Tax Avoidance: 37 Surefire Tips" at 1031ExchangeLowdown. Read this article to know about some extremely helpful tips on tax saving.

3) CRM Article

Our Link Bait Specialist Mini Singh produced an amazing article titled "The 10 Best (and 10 Worst) Companies for Customer Service" at CRMLowdown. This is the most successful article we have so far. It was dugg by 1427 users at Digg. This is incredible, but true. In addition, it triggered a hot debate and received 55 comments from our readers. All told, it also received 1,500 (msn) links and 75,000 visitors to our site.

4) Project Management Article

Pushpa produced another great article titled "Memo for Bosses: 101 Ways to Prevent your Office from Hating You" at ProjectManagementSource. Pushpa provided 101 helpful tips to Bosses on how to impress their staff.

5) Credit Card Article

This is the best article produced by Priya so far. Priya's article "The Lazy Man's Guide to Budgeting: 101 Painless Ways to Cut Spending" gives 101 great tips on cutting expenses and saving some money. Priya started with the introduction "The average American today has over $9000 in credit card debt yet spends over $4.00 per day on coffee". That set the right tone for the remaining part of the article.

6) Home Buyer Article

Mini Singh came up with an extremely helpful article for home buyers. Her article "43 Must-Know Tips (and Resources) for Every First-time Home Buyer" at MortgageLowdown talks about the action to be taken by the first-time home buyers. If you are looking for some tips on buying a home, then these 43 amazing tips and resources will come in handy.

Article of the Week Contest:

There is no doubt that all the six articles are well written, well-researched, highly informative and useful for our readers. However, we had to choose only one article as the pick of the week. For the first week of November, Mini's article The 10 Best (and 10 Worst) Companies for Customer Service was a clear winner not just from the quality perspective, but because of the huge popularity it gained over the web.

For the second week of November, Mini again emerged as winner for her article "43 Must-Know Tips (and Resources) for Every First-time Home Buyer". Congratulations Mini for the great work and winning the "Best Article of the Week" contest twice in a row. We'll see if she can pull off the hattrick next week. :)

Carnival of Customer Service:

Last time, we promised to bring some interesting news for our readers. Here we are. BizNicheMedia has decided to host the first edition of the "Carnival of Customer Service" at CRMLowdown. BlogCarnival has given us the exclusive rights to own and host this carnival. We hope that it turns out to be a huge success. To achieve our goal, we need the support of our readers in the form of entry submissions. Please submit your blog posts related to customer service/CRM/call center through the blog carnival submission form.

Final Word:

We always strive hard to meet the expectations of our readers to whom we owe our success. Although we are moving in the right direction, we need comments and suggestions from you to do better and better. You can always post comments on our blog posts. If you have any suggestions related to our website or content, feel free to email me at sagar13d (at) gmail (dot) com.

Until next time,
The BNM Management Staff

BizNicheMedia Newsletter - II

Hi Everyone! It took us a little longer to bring out the second edition of BizNicheMedia Newsletter, but finally we are here. The last few weeks have been hectic for both our writers and management as we have begun to incorporate a new promotional strategy. Our initial statistics and results indicate that with our new strategy, we are continuing to improve the product we offer our readers and our profitability.

Link-building Efforts:

We have decided to come up with three link-baiting articles every week to spotlight our quickly growing weblogs. Our Link Bait specialist Mini Singh and two other staff writers, Pushpa Satish and Priya Jestin, have been assigned the task of writing these long, informative and eye-catching articles. Keep checking our websites lest you will miss out those great articles.

1. VoIP Article

Have you read Mini Singh’s VoIP article titled “33 Reasons why VoIP is Destroying Traditional Telecoms” at VoIPLowdown? It received a huge response from tech readers across the Internet. It has already been dugg by more than 661 readers. All told, the article received 3,655 one-way links (MSN) and 20,000 new visitors.

2. Hedge Fund Article

Our staff writer Pushpa Sathish has come up with an excellent article at HedgeFundReader. The article, entitled 22 Reasons Why Hedge Funds Stink For the Average Investor, received very good responses from the readers on hedge fund and investment industry.

3. Student Debt Article

Priya Jestin, BNM staff writer produced a very good article titled “55 Tips to Help You Zap Your Student Debt” at DebtConsolidationLowdown. The article provides useful tips on students on personal finance.

Article of the Week Contest:

All the above articles are useful and informative, and we are very proud of the work our team has done in each of these spotlight articles. But as we can only select a single article as the winner of our 'Article of the Week Contest', our panel has chosen "22 Reasons Why Hedge Funds Stink For the Average Investor" as the pick of the week and Pushpa will receive a prize for that. Congratulations Pushpa!

Festival Season:

Most of our writers and management staff are based in India. There was festive mood in India in the month of October with festivals like Dassehera and Diwali falling in the same month. Our writers and management staff, who are on the regular payroll of the company, received a rewarding festival bonus from Rich McIver, the head of the company. It was a noble gesture on the part of Rich to recognize his employees who have put their efforts to get BNM on the higher side. Thanks Rich!

Final Word:

BizNicheMedia will have a number of activities in the coming weeks. Our next edition will feature some important initiatives and events that our readers will certainly find interesting.

Until next time,
The BNM Management Staff

BizNicheMedia Newsletter

Hi Everyone! Welcome to the inaugural edition of the BizNicheMedia Newsletter. In recent months, BizNicheMedia has taken a number of new initiatives which we want to share with our readers. Since we have to date largely left our readership in the dark about what the network has been up to, we thought it was time to institute a regular update schedule.

For that reason, we have decided to come up with a semi-monthly newsletter that will provide you information about our new initiatives and events. Now on to the news…

Recruitment & Promotion:

Earlier this month, Sagar Satapathy became the new Manager of the BNM Writing team. Sagar, who has previously been with BizNicheMedia both as a writer and consultant for over a year, took over the management role from Mini Singh who decided to cut back her responsibilities last month to be able devote more time to her family. In addition to his previous experience with BNM, Sagar has over a decade of managerial and journalistic experience with market-leading companies. To the position, Sagar brings a host of fresh ideas and enthusiasm, and all of us at BizNicheMedia wish him all the best in his new position.

Last week, BNM hired a new writer Raj Dash, who has extensive Managerial experience in the technology field and has been a journalist for a number of leading industry periodicals for the last decade. Raj is now writing for our technical weblogs, VoIP Lowdown and RFID Lowdown. We wish Raj all the best in his new endeavor.

Link-building Campaign:

And, last week, BNM carried out a very successful link-building campaign for Debt Consolidation Lowdown weblog. The link building campaign centered on our post entitled "101 Ways to Cut Your Daily Costs", which received huge response from readers across the globe. All told, the article received 24 permanent one-way links and 75,000 new visitors.

Blog Carnival:

In addition to the numerous carnivals in which BNM blogs participated, we got a chance this week to host the "Carnival of Debt Reduction", which received an overwhelming response from our readers. If you missed out visiting that blog carnival, you can check it out at Carnival of Debt Reduction is Up!.

Weekly Contest:

Within our own team, we have also been shaking things up this month. This week we began a new weekly contest among BNM team writers called "The Post of the Week". Every week, we will highlight the best post across the network and reward its writer. We’ll keep you updated as this contest progresses.

What We Have to Say:

Our writing and management staff are working hard to make BizNicheMedia a more complete and reliable source of information for our growing readership. To that end, our goal is to provide high quality timely news and information to our readers. We hope you will continue to enjoy our blogs, and as always, we appreciate your comments and suggestions.

Until next time,
The BNM Management Staff

Mumbai

The thoughts and prayers of the BizNiche staff are with all those affected by today's tragedy in Mumbai, especially the friends and family of all members of our team.

At a time like this there are no words that seem appropriate...