Tag: search engine optimization

SEO Tips: Keywords How to Be on Top of Google Searches

Here we go! SEO training.

One of the most important parts of writing online is SEO, which stands for “Search Engine Optimization” which pretty much means how “searchable” your article is on Google. You can test this out with something as simple as your name, when you type your name on Google, the first page of sites you see are the sites that have good SEO. Now hopefully, the sites with good SEO are also sites that represent you and your name well.

Put in another way, if we both had online cell phone stores, but mine had good SEO, then who do you think is making tons more money? Say for example we both have the same target market, and one of them went to Google and typed “Cheap Cellphones in Manila”…. what happens next? Remember my store has good SEO, so I show up on page 1 of their search, while your store shows up on page 7. Again, who do you think makes more money, or gets more views?

SEO Tips Search Engine Optimization Keywords How to Be on Top of Google Searches

It’s SUPER COMPLICATED to talk about all the strategies and codes for SEO, but as a writer, the most important one is KEYWORDS. A keyword is a word or phrase that people search for online.

If you are not SEO ready, that means your article will probably not be found by anyone other than those who have the direct link, which, at most could be a few hundred, as compared to millions of people searching online.

So, first you need to think of a keyword or keyword phrase.

I want to use the example of one of our writers recently on my site WhenInManila.com. She wrote about a late night delivery service in Manila called Kitchen Knight. Now here’s what she could have improved:

For her keyword, she selected “Kitchen Knight” which is the name of the service. Now, that would be great if it was a giant brand name that people always search for like Nike or Jollibee, or if their service was mentioned in their name like if it was Joe’s Laundry Services. Now although this would be good for people searching for “Kitchen Knight,” the whole point is that not a lot of people know Kitchen Knight.

So instead, how this can be improved is that you need to think of the most common terms that people search for but create a unique phrase that might not be used by other sites yet. Think of what people might be searching for when you want them to find your article.

Say for example, you think of “LATE NIGHT DELIVERY” – Well, that’s almost ok. Problem with that is there are probably already millions of sites out there who have thought of that and have used that keyword phrase. Now imagine if I was from Los Angeles California, I type LATE NIGHT DELIVERY, and then i somehow find the Kitchen Knight Article on WhenInManila.com… it’d be pretty useless. But also, again, they probably won’t find it as there will be a million other better SEO and older sites that have used that phrase already.

Instead, I would have gone for something like “LATE NIGHT DELIVERY MANILA” or “24 HOUR DELIVERY MANILA” or “LATE NIGHT FOOD MANILA” or something like that. It’s really up to you.

That way, it’s a unique term that not a lot of sites may have gotten yet but is exactly what the people might be searching for. So lesson learned is that you need to think of what people might be searching for.

Anyway, hope that helps so that your websites can get more views.

Connect with me on Twitter if you have any follow up questions – @VinceGolangco

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SEO Tips: Keywords How to Be on Top of Google Searches


Importance of New Media Marketing TODAY

If’ you’re not starting your online marketing then you are seriously hurting yourself. It doesn’t have to be anything too complicated or strategic, but simply maintaining a Facebook or Twitter account may be enough to keep you in the loop.

Have a blog? Even better! The digital age is upon us and getting familiar with it is a necessity for you and your business to survive.

It’s quite a different market here in the Philippines where the internet is just now emerging as a platform for advertising and marketing. Even now, in 2010, it still has yet to reach it’s full potential. It may actually be a few more years before we actually see what the internet is fully capable of doing. That’s why the internet bloggers, marketers, twitters and SEOers of TODAY will be the sought after leaders and experts when that time comes for Asia, and the Philippines in particular, to use the full potential of the internet.

Want to learn more about the net? Well I recommend starting a blog, getting a Twitter account and maintaining your Facebook account on a regular basis. Just start with that. On Twitter, follow the experts I mentioned in an earlier post (Top Twitters to Follow on Twitter) and you should start getting info on how to go about with online marketing and branding.

Some interesting facts and statistics from the video:

  • 1.7 billion internet users worldwide
  • Philippines ranks #18 in top users
  • 14 million Filipinos online in 2008
  • 28 million Filipinos online in 2010 (equal to entire population of Malaysia)
  • 83% are on social networking sites
  • 90% read blogs (of over 300,000 Pinoy bloggers)
  • 6 out of 10 Filipino kids are online
  • Asked if you were stuck on an island, “What would you bring?”
    • 4% TV
    • 20% cellphone
    • 32% laptop computer
  • 25,200,000 Filipinos watch videos online
  • 5.5 million Pinoys browse the web on their mobile phones
  • In 2014 there will be 41 million Filipinos online (if the world doesn’t end in 2012)

Very interesting numbers to think about. So, how are you going to communicate to your audience TODAY????

Thanks to my friend, and new media marketing guru, Carlo Ople of CarloOple.com and NewMedia.ph for sharing this very insightful video with me.

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So what do you think is the Importance of New Media Marketing TODAY?

PageRank Explained (What is PR?)

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If you get caught between a geeked out crossfire of tech words, or a blogger gathering of epic proportions, then you may have heard the geekish holy grail known as a high “PageRank.” Being a new web citizen or new blogger, you’ve probably heard this term get thrown out by your internet consultant who continually brags about how his PageRank 5 (PR5) site had gotten a link from some other famous PR7 site… This of course, means as much to you as the meows your cat gives you as he stares at you from his little kitty corner known as your sink.

So to break down the importance and meaning of a “Google PageRank” let’s start off by imagining you have a website that sells cellphones. Now, as you may or may not know, there are a hundred thousand kazillion other sites that sells cellphones online. Which is where our problem arises. Either way, YOU set up an online cellphone store which we will now call “CellPhone Store X

Cell-Phone-CellPhone-PageRank-Page-Rank-Google-ExplainedNow imagine that I’m a consumer, willing and ready to buy a cellphone online. Problem is, I have no clue where to go online to buy a cellphone. So I do what any other average consumer does, I search for it, and as most people do, I would probably use Google as my search engine. Now I type in something like “buy cellphone online” and I will probably get millions (27,300,000 to be exact) of web pages back from good ol’ Google.

Question is, where does YOUR “CellPhone Store X” fall in with the other 27,300,000 sites? Well probably somewhere between 12,563,905 and who-gives-a- f$#%*.

Since you didn’t really do much Search Engine Optimization (SEO) then your webpage just comes out somewhere lost in the kazillions of other pages. On the other hand, those people who did optimize their websites most likely are on the top of this Google search query. Meaning they are the first sites listed after you search for the words “buycellphone online.”

Google-Page-Rank-Thermometer-RankingHow much more money do you think these people at the top of the search page is making than your site lost in the millions? Well, A LOT MORE.

Thus lies the importance of Google’s PageRank. It is a page ranking system that rates how important your page is. A web page can be ranked from 1 -10 with 10 being the highest. The higher your rank = a higher position when people search for terms related to your content.

CNN.com is an example of a very important site that Google ranked with a 1o. My sites, VinceGolangco.com and WhenInManila.com each have a PageRank of 3. Which is decently good.

To check your PageRank, you can check out this PageRank checker site.

Most people will never see a pagerank of 1. In fact, just getting to a PageRank of 1 is pretty impressive since it already entails lots of work and time invested.

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How do you get your ranking higher include multiple facets but most importantly are LINKS and KEYWORDS.

Google ranks pages higher if lots of other pages LINK to it. Obviously, a site like CNN.com has countless other sites referencing and linking to it. While KEYWORDS are the number of times the searched terms are mentioned within your site. Be careful with this though as there is an overkill where using the words too much actually hurts your PageRank score.

Anyway, that’s pretty much the importance of PageRank in a nutshell. Will get more into details of how to raise your PageRank in future articles.