I must be losing my touch! Although I’ve been #10 for SEO Goddess the day after I tried to reclaim the title but still #10 after 6 days?! Anyways, I should at least make it worth your while to visit and read this post. Facebook as we all know is the foremost social network as of today, do you still know anybody who doesn’t have a facebook account? I know a few, but that is besides the point. The new generation is so addicted with facebook that marketers are actually considering and using them for marketing their products.

Before I dissect facebook, are you really sure you know what social media is? I know for a fact that social media blurs the line between personal and business realms, do you know why? Its because the main importance of Social media is to establish and build relationships, a few years ago it only means building and rekindling friendship but the advent of facebook has changed the outlook and the actual infrastructure of social media. Now social media is used by companies to introduce their products, advertise their business etc. Social media is not longer just personal, it has become a world of its own. So how do you as a marketer use Facebook to get into this so-called world and harness its power? Let me give you a few secrets:

1. If you are looking to portray a professional image with your Facebook Marketing then a professional photograph to your profile is the best way to do it. It is not recommended to put an image or logo as your profile picture, this is seen as less personal and many people will not accept you as a friend. Depending on your type of business, product or service you need to tailor your profile picture to suit. Remember first impressions count so make it a good one!
2. Add valuable content on a consistent basis (relating to your niche market). Every time you update your status, write a note, add a link, photo, video or any other content it will not only appear on your profile, but on the wall of your friends as well. If you are adding quality content you will find people wanting to know more about you and what you do.
3. Building a strong list of friends from your target market is extremely important. These friends are going to be sharing your content and bringing you into connection with their friends as well. If you have a certain target market that you are trying to connect with, building a strong network is an ideal start.
4. The fastest way to scare someone away is to start talking about your business as soon as you meet them. Don’t start pitching your business or opportunity to them. Instead enquire about them, their interests and what they do. They will naturally go to your profile to find out more about you as you are taking an interest in them…
5. Do not make baseless claims. If you post some topics or information, do not make promises you cannot keep. It’s never a good idea to sound like a salesman or make pitches for things people may not want. Instead, entice them to your site to make a purchase with relevant content.
6. Remember to have fun, this is a social network, engage with your Fans, provide massive value and they will share your Page. As your Fan base grows you will notice a lot more business coming your way.
7. Post Interesting Content. Try to appeal to the curiosity, interests and emotions of your fans and target market.
8. Be Responsive. You don’t want your page to become stagnant and empty. Always respond to fans who bother to write to you on the Page Wall. Join in the conversations and interact. Every time they post, it is displayed on their friends news feed, so be responsive and you will avoid a dead page.
9. Avoid spamming. Many marketers make far too many posts and don’t realise that they are clogging up their Fans News Feed. This is a sure fire way to lose fans and attract negative comments on your page.
10. Remember the power in Facebook is in its leverage, so if you are running an event be sure to ask other friends to share the event. The more people you can invite, the better your results will be. You can even offer incentives for people to share the event. Again, it’s all about being creative.

That’s it for now from the SEO Goddess. Check back more often for more tips.

Can you think of more ways to use Social Media for marketing?

Its been too long and I have been too busy with website development and optimizing other sites that I have neglected my own sites. Its a sad case but not a rare case, a lot of developers I’m sure are in the exact same predicament. We just don’t have enough time to do work for ourselves. But I am slowly going to change that, starting with BeThumbed. I know I have my work cut out for me but I have to at least try and reclaim the title that I once had before – SEO Goddess.

Its a personal thing, but its something that makes me happy and I really have to do it. I love mythology and I just finished reading Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, its a fantastical tale with an elaborate network of little tales that ties the whole story up nicely together. Its a story about Shadow – an ex-con with an unexplained background who does coin tricks, his dead lively wife Laura, his employer Wednesday and a whole lot of characters – real, imagined, gods, humans and unexplainable beings. I’ve always made sure to finish a book in a day but American Gods made me change my mind – it is a strange, psychotropic mind drug best taken in small doses and never in one sitting. But nonetheless a mind drug that you could never get enough of until there’s nothing left. But I digress…

Having read the book, I came to realize that I had something that I really needed to do before I can move forward  (much like Shadow felt when he went back to see Czernobog) and that is to get my title back. I really am the SEO Goddess, whether people believe it or not. I may not get to prove it but I might as well try.

I started doing SEO for BeThumbed.com and have had no problems with getting my blog ranking high in search engines and getting a PR 4 in a few month’s time. But venturing into web design and development started the downfall of BeThumbed, from PR 4 high to a PR 0. I design and develop websites now but I don’t even have the time to design my own blog and finish my portfolio site!

So, learn from my mistakes.

Blogging 101:

1. Write about topics you are compelled to write about. It does not have to be a single topic, it just needs to be interesting enough for you to write which translates to being interesting to read as well. Believe me it shows.
2. Make friends. Be social. Social network does work regardless of what you may hear or read.
3. Women as a rule are curious creatures, I’m a testament to that, but some men may fit the description as well. So cater to this curiosity, write about the latest, write about the unheard of, write about anything and everything. Remember, curiosity always kill the cat.
4. Earning a little on the side will never hurt. Be Thumbed has been earning its hosting fee and more and I don’t even write that much anymore. When I was really blogging on a daily basis I was able to earn quite a bit using PayPerPost and TextLinkAds. Writing a little bit of advertising is never wrong especially if you get paid. I do write about sites I really like without them paying me a cent, sometimes…
5. Do not recycle or duplicate contents from other blogs, if you must then do so with dignity. Rewrite it a bit and give credit where it is due. You wouldn’t like people to steal what’s rightfully yours, right?
6. Mind your grammar. I am not really a stickler for grammar, I do get blunders every now and then. But I don’t really like reading something that I have to rack my brains until they pop out of my head before I can get the gist of the post. A little error is understandable but writing an article straight from a first grader’s assignment is like committing murder on paper for everyone to see. But then again, to each his own.

Well, this is not really the blogging 101 that most people will write but the pointers I wrote above will help you with your blogging. Good luck to me in getting back my PR, I know its not that important but its quite a blow to my self-esteem.

Well, from PR4 to PR2… Its a rather drastic change but I’ve been expecting it. With the amount of time I spend working on my client’s projects I could barely get the time to write and/or do my own projects. But you gotta do what you gotta do seeing that we have three mouths to feed, the first two are milk junkies chugging milk like there’s no tomorrow while the other one is a hog!

Eighteen hours of work a day is quite a feat but who can say no to work? Especially work that pays the bills? Surely, not I. The page rank although important to me is not my priority right now, finishing my projects is. So I’ll just have to lay low for a few more weeks just until I can get enough leeway and start working on my personal projects again.

So until then, for now I have to go. Que Sera Sera

I just checked my ranking for “SEO Goddess” and I have somehow slipped a few notches although still in the first page for SEO Goddess searches. I have been lying low in SEO for now because I am concentrating more in designing and developing websites although of course I still have to make sure that every website I do have the onpage SEO well placed.

I do love my work and it gets challenging as more and more work request comes in. I also have to keep up with the SEO stuff and make sure that I am still in the game. What with the SEO Goddess placing down and Google taking a point out of my page rank, I do have to brush up on my SEO skills. So, lets see if I get the first place again in the SEO Goddess play or rather how long would it take me to go up to one… One day? hmmm… Anyway, I just want to say that The SEO Goddess is back on track and is here to take back the ball game.

I have been on an ongoing secret quest since I started this blog and that is to be number 1 for the keyphrase “Philippine Blogs” but with 48,700,000 competitors in Google Philippines and 5,340,000 in Google Main I did not think I would be able to gain a ranking in the top 50 much less to be number 1.

But my persistence actually paid off, the last time I checked I am #11 Google Philippines and #15 in Google Main. Will I actually make #1?

There’s been a buzz in the online world about the dethroning of Content. As much as I do not want to believe it, the evidences are there. If truth be told, I have been postponing this post for a long while thinking that by doing so would make me believe that content is still the be all and end all of the online world. Content was king but like all kings, they must eventually bow down to their predecessors. Content reigned for a long while and it is now time to give in to the new king – Community.

Together with the influx of social networking sites and its users it is but a short time before we, in the SEO community, bow down to the new king. Yes, content is still important but it is no longer as important as we once thought, content does not give you everything you want to achieve, SEO wise. The new king – Community – has the sole role of saying who’s hot and who’s not. It does not matter if you have slaved for a week, for a month, to write that killer campaign, that killer content, if you do not appeal to the Community, if you do not give them the experience that they are looking for, then all your endeavors are all for naught.

Here are some guidelines that will help you in the new King’s reign:

1. Do not underestimate nor overestimate your users. They know what they want and they want to get what they want. You do not want an Idiot’s Guide nor a Geek’s Guide content, what you need is content that is easy to understand, all you have to do is provide just the right amount of information to first time and returning users and you’re all set.
2. Love your users. A website that is very technical in nature is very daunting to a newbie, who would want to go into an impersonal website with little or no direction? I know I wouldn’t unless I really have to, but then again, once I’ve done what I need to do I will quickly close that website and forget about it. Providing your users a great user experience will make them stay and will keep them going back for more.
3. Provide easy access to information, how-to’s and guides. Users are generally hungry for information and if you can provide those information in easy to swallow, bite-size pieces, then you can expect more users to come knocking. The community has its way of disseminating information and creating a buzz for a particular website that they like.
4. Build your own community. Create a space for your users to interact with each other, share thoughts and air out grievances. Take Ebay for example, they did not build their content around their products, instead, they built a community around the product interest – just look how successful they have become.
5. Be There. Be there to answer any question or complaints. Make your users feel special and well taken care of by providing a customer support that really supports and does not just leave users hanging clueless.

Community is now king and Content has to step down. Although content has been dethroned, it will never lose its importance. But we must all bow down and pay homage to the new king.

I told you I could do it and in 4 days time! #1 in Google and #2 in AOL for the “SEO Goddess” key phrase. Well, folks, there you have it, the SEO Goddess in action.

Now, to think of another quest… Nah, I would like to bask in the glory of it all for a week or so before I go on another quest.

And would you believe it, just a few hours ago, I was talking to a hostmonster representative because Be Thumbed was down for more than an hour. I got really scared because try as I might, I could not think of anything that I have done to mess up the codes.

Anyway, I was talking to this representative who goes by the name Majic (I don’t even know if s/he’s a he or a she). I’m going to assume he’s a he though. Well then, Majic really helped me and stayed with me for over 20minutes (not really sure how long as I was not keeping tabs, but around that time). He was really attentive and was able to solve my problem in such a short time. It turned out it was a cron issue, because of the various cms that I have tried before wordpress I forgot that I have set a cron job scheduled five days ago and was eating up system resources. I’m not yet sure what cron job but I’m going to find out. Anyway, I just want to give a BIG Thank you to HostMonster for their great Customer service. I am one very happy customer and would recommend HostMonster everytime.

There are various ways to kill a website just like there are various ways to skin a cat. It is basically easy, the first thing you need to do is get up enough courage to do it, which, I believe is not very easy. The faint of heart could never do such a thing that is why they end up in the gutter. They do not know enough. Nah, more likely, they do not have enough courage.

Your first kill is exhilarating, it would be like an addiction, you will always be craving for more. Sack the morality issue, the name of the game is SURVIVAL. The online world is cruel, its a jungle out there! All kinds of crime abound in the online world, from simple theft, to house breaks, and ultimately murder. Nobody gets caught because the culprits know how to cover their tracks, they are experts and proud of it.

Here are some of the things that you can do to kill YOUR website:

1. Subscribe to Link Farms and web rings, submit your site to free for all websites, link to banned websites. A decent SEO Analyst knows that linking to bad sites like link farms, web rings and free for all website is very bad and could literally mean death for your website. So there you have it, one very easy way to kill a website.

2. Give away one-way outward links. You are feeling generous, with a PageRank of 8 why wouldn’t you be? So you shout out to the whole online world that you are giving free for all one-way outward links with no “nofollow”. As the news leaks out, hundreds and maybe thousands will go to you asking for links, go on give them links, show them how generous you are. Death by hemorrhage, sure death. Before you know it, you will be needing a transfusion with all the PageRank hemorrhaging you’re doing. Will you go with a transfusion? Nope, just give it all away and before you know it, another website dead.

3. Do not update, do not submit, do nothing. Let your website be, let it be a sitting duck, just another website. It is a slow process, the first thing that you’ll lose is your visitors, next your ranking, before you know it, you will be no one, a non-entity. It might not be death but its a fate worst than death itself.

There you go, folks, three certified ways of killing your website. It does not matter if you have spent countless sleepless nights thinking about what to write nor spent hundreds and even thousands of dollars in hosting and advertising, its your money to burn. If you want to go on a killing spree, go on make more websites, optimize them, spend money on them and then kill them.

For those who love their websites, take care of them and never do any of the above.

Check this out peeps:

It might not be much, but its a start. It might even pass for the real thing if you don’t get up close and personal with the link at the bottom. But Be Thumbed is right over there on the number one spot, the link is from BloggingFusion though.

Who cares? I’m on a roll and Day 3 is dawning fast. The outcome is getting prettier by the day. When oh when will I finally get the number one spot with the right link?

You paid over a $100 for a domain and host and are ready and eager to join the online world. You write day in and day out telling others who you are, baring your soul to them, asking people to read what you wrote, begging them to stay and come back for more. You are eager and ready, the question is, are the search engines ready and eager for you?

You’re website has been up for a week, you checked if your site has finally been indexed. You do the “site:mysite.com” trick and what do Google tell you? (I am going to use Google as my search engine base for the purpose of familiarity and popularity.)

Sad. After all those hours you spent thinking up topics and writing articles that you think might be of consequence, even after inviting all your friends to take a look at your website, Google just did not think your website is good enough to be visited by one of its crawlies. Do not lose hope, do not bow down to the hold the search engines have on you. You have the power to get them to notice you, to tear down the walls that they have built. You have what it takes to succeed, make them notice you, make them bow down to you and not you to them. They are not real, they do not breathe, they do not eat, they are nothing but figments of a developer’s imagination. They do not exist. Why should you, a real, breathing and living person bow down to something intangible? Follow my advise and I assure you, you will get them to crawl your site whether they want to or not. Its just a matter of manipulation and crossing of fingers.

The SEO Goddess (just practicing) has scoured the web and compiled tips and techniques on how to get indexed the fast and legitimate way.

1. Make your “Title Tags” human-friendly. Title tags can bring you targeted traffic if used the right way. Put your keywords and key phrases in your Title tag, make it read like a headline and not some garbled message from outer space. First impression is what Title tags are for.

2. The keywords/phrases that you have used in your Title tag must be used in the body of your page. It is particularly good if you use the same keyword in your h1 tag. Readers and crawlies have to be herded to the right pages, if the title is the same as your headline (a.k.a. h1 tag) it will give them the assurance that the link they clicked sent them to the right place.

3. Try to insert your keyword and key phrases throughout the body of your page. But do not overdo it. It is very annoying to read a particular word or phrase every other sentence or so. You can emphasize them, make them stand out. A good place to do this is within the first two or three paragraphs of your content, or you can put them in the sub heading of your article. Remember, do not overdo.

4. Using the same title tag for all your pages is a big no no. Doing so might give the crawlies the impression that all your pages are the same and would not index those pages. Manipulate your title tags, make use of them, be creative.

5. Suppress the urge to put all your keywords and repeat them in your Meta keyword and description. That is all the rage before but doing that now could get you banned for keyword stuffing. Use caution when choosing keywords/phrases for your meta, again, do not overdo.

6. Be wary of your neighbors. Link farms may seem inviting and may be an easy way to get links. They might lure you with promises of thousands of visitors and links, but these are empty promises. They do give you links, but these will not be counted. Google has a way of knowing if you are subscribed to link farms and other spam sites and will ban you. Number One rule for link building: “If you do not share any keyword/phrase with a particular site you are linking to, let go and forget.”

7. Make use of the “alt” tag for your images, they are there for a reason. They help crawlies find your site when they index images and is a great help for those people using text-only browsers. Title tags is to text links as alt tags is to images. Make use of them, they will add more weight to the link and to the page where it is linked to.

8. No doorway pages please. They are designed for crawlies only, thus, not suitable for human consumption. Search engines do not like them as well, as they only index pages that are human readable and contains relevant keywords to a particular search.

9. If possible, do not give in to the temptation of using free submission software or service. Manual is the way to go. You can never be too careful as some so-called “free” software and service might get you penalize or even banned.

10. Make your articles search engine friendly and keyword-rich but do not over stuff. Be conservative yet bold.

Whew! The SEO Goddess is done for the day. Think you can add more?

I’ve checked and so far – NONE. Impatient? I think I am. When will I see my name in the SEO Goddess game? What did I do wrong?

Nothing actually, one single day and my impatient nature is getting ahead of me. For now, because of my nil ranking in Google my status is:

I wonder how long it would take me to reach the first page of Google for the keyphrase “SEO Goddess”…

I would like to test my prowess and take on SEO Goddess in Google. Would I make it? Will I be hailed as “The SEO Goddess”? I wish. But with only 638,000 competitions, I might have a little chance. I wouldn’t take on SEO Maven which has over a million competitors nor SEO Guru with over two million. I want to start small and take it up from there.

So, what exactly does it mean to be an SEO Goddess? To be an SEO Goddess, you must be aware of the rules so that when you break it, you will be ready for the consequences. An SEO Goddess makes the rules, making her immune to it. But, she does not break them unnecessarily.

An SEO Goddess is the epitome of beauty. She is beautiful in the way she handles everything, manipulates everything. She knows her limitations and she knows how to manipulate them to her favor. An SEO Goddess can and will make search engines bow to her will, she is beyond their control – She is a Goddess.

I wonder if everything I’ve written is true. I will find out for sure when and if I reach number one for SEO Goddess. Will I make it? Am I deserving to be an SEO Goddess? I don’t know, but I will find out.

Google, here I come!

You are now a well-revered SEO guru, you know the ins and outs of SEO and could manipulate it with your eyes closed. A lot of people are going to you asking you for advices, paying you to help them, begging you to be their mentor. Lucky you. At the rate your going, you must be earning tens of thousands of dollars. True – if you are from the US.

After reading this article by Rand from SEOMoz, I could not help but feel sorry for myself. Sorry because I am not earning half as much as they do, because of the simple fact that I am from the Philippines and salary is, let’s just say, so-so. Not that I am complaining (deep inside I do )… I could live with the salary that I am getting although I envy those who are in the US, they are living “The Great American Dream”.

Exactly how much money are you going to get with SEO? The answer depends on the the amount of time you are willing to spend with SEO. Experience helps but it is not the “Be All” of SEO, newbies could be as successful as their “more experienced” counterparts if they have the passion and the patience to do everything properly. But ultimately, it will all go down to where you are right now. It sucks, I know. Why do people in the US get higher pay than us here in the Philippines or in India? We do the same work they do and we give as much effort to the work if not more. There must be a conspiracy here! Sad as it may be, your salary would always be dependent on the economy of the country you are living in as of the moment. If you want to earn more, go abroad.

But, there will always be a diamond in a truckload of coals. Those who are passionate enough about their craft and are willing to give their time and effort in perfecting the craft, are living “The Great American Dream” although they are in the Philippines. They get as much money as their counterparts in the US do, plus they have one advantage – food and the cost of living here in the Philippines is cheaper. Aren’t you the lucky one.

How I wish I could be a diamond… So, how much am I? I’m still living and doing my job, and yeah, I’m worth $180,000.00 – I wish! Php 180,000.00 – you do the math. How much are you?

So, what exactly is Search Engine Optimization and what can it do for you? For the boring and detailed history you can check out Wikipedia’s definition of SEO.

In a nutshell, SEO is basically a way to help you get top ranks in search engines (a.k.a. a way for you to monetize your blog). Everybody wants to try their hands at SEO, but SEO is a tough nut to crack and an even harder puzzle to solve – NOT!

SEO is pretty easy if you really try to understand it and not get into its nitty gritty. The first and most important thing with SEO is content. CONTENT IS KING – I’ve read this somewhere, I just can’t remember where. But that is definitely true. Write good content, something that people would really want to read, add some visuals for those people who just can’t live without eye candy and would go away as soon as they see that there’s nothing there for them, make sure that every post is good to go, meaning no wrong spellings or obvious grammatical errors, and you’re done for the first phase.

As Mr. Strunk say: “A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”

Try to follow that advise… I don’t think I do, but sometimes I do.

The next thing you need to do is to make sure that everything, from your pages to links to navigations etc etc, is ready for the crawlies. Crawlies (a.k.a robots and spiders) are finicky and you have to lure them, entice them to crawl your site. You have to make them love your site and in order to do that, you have to present an uncluttered website – no keyword stuffing, no invisible pages, no clumsy content.

Bravo! The crawlies are loving your site. But don’t stop there. You need visitors – not just visitors, but readers. They are the blood source of your website. You have to entice them just like the way you did with the crawlies, even more so. They will decide the fate of your website. Give them content, give them eye-candies, offer them advices, freebies, entice them to subscribe. Make them stay – as I’ve said before, Content is King. Try to find bloggers or website owners who are geared toward the same interests, the same goal and you will find people coming to your website without you begging them to do it. Post in forums, submit to search engines, do manual link building. I don’t really trust those link building/SEO softwares out there, nor do I want to shell out money for them when I can just do everything manually. Thus, giving me full control of sites that are linking to me. Linking to bad sites like link farms and banned sites will generally rub off to you, its like having one single rotten tomato in a basket of fresh tomatoes. No matter how careful you are, someday, somehow, that rotten tomato will get you.

So now, you are number one in your chosen keywords or key phrases. You are basking in the glory of it all. A week later, sometimes a day later, you go online check google and what do you see? Your website at the bottom of the list. Do you cry out in agony, tear your hair apart in frustration and don a clothes sack and put ash in your hair?

What is exactly happening here? Ranks are elusive beings, what with millions of websites popping out every hour or so, the keywords/phrase that you are ranking high in will become nothing but a dream as the day progresses. So, what do you do? You track your progress and update your website, that is. You don’t like your site to be a sitting duck after everything that you have done. You have to update. The more often you do, the more often crawlies will go to your site and index new content which will eventually count towards your website popularity.

Remember:

1. Content is King
2. Make everything search engine friendly. Do not hide content. Do not stuff keywords into a single post.
3. Link to “good” websites. Submit to search engines.
4. Update, update, update.
5. Do not be a sitting duck.