Search Engine Marketing & Optimization talk at Urdaneta City University

Sincerest thanks to Bitstop Network Services, Urdaneta City University, and ICT Pangasinan for making this Search Engine Marketing & Optimization Seminar possible.


(Note that video has noise at 3:50 that will last like 30 seconds. Partial Q&A included.)

My talk focused on introduction to search engine marketing & optimization, planning an SEM campaign, keyword discovery & analysis, search engine processing basics, improving website page titles, description, menus, body text, other assets, and good content (on-page optimization), tracking and fine tuning your website.



Club member Gary Viray gave a talk on link building techniques, tools, & tactics (off-page optimization). This includes getting a website linked through directory submissions, article writing, online press releases, social media/networking tools, and paid advertising programs.

I'm supposed to conduct this workshop alone and very glad that Gary decided last Friday (2/20) to help out. I was a bit nervous as Pangasinan is a famous hub of SEO practitioners in the Philippines. They are also in the planning process of the upcoming Search Engine Marketing Conference (SEMCON) Pangasinan this 3rd quarter.

Many thanks to the SEO Pangasinan folks who joined this seminar such as Marc & Virgilio, Aldwin, Eric, Philip, Fernando, Julius, Ricardo, Julius, among others.

I am also thrilled to meet Richer who topped the midway count & Pinoy roster in the Busby SEO Test competition. He also shared his insights on starting a blog, how to increase blog traffic, blog commenting, among others.

Of course to Micaela who became my travel buddy and helped out in the event by taking a lot of the photos I have posted here. She also shared some blogging tips & insights to the participants in the afternoon.

If you have made a blog post about the event, let me know and will link you up here. Cheers!

• SEO and SEM Seminar in UCU by Janette Toral (Julius Mamaril)
  

Related:

• I left my heart in Hundred Islands, Pangasinan
  
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM / SEO) Conference Bicol
  

Visiting Urdaneta City University

Micaela joined me this morning on my road trip to Urdaneta City University (UCU) to check out the venue of our upcoming SEO/SEM workshop. We left the Five Star bus station in Cubao at 5 am and reached the venue before 9 am.

The expected number of participants, that may reach to more than 120 resulted to conversion of this event from a simple workshop to a full blown seminar type. However, we are still allotting time in the late afternoon for those who would like to join the hands-on part.

I'm happy about the interest gathered in relation to this event with folks volunteering to help out and even share knowledge. Unfortunately, I won't be able to accommodate all at this time.

The good news though is that the SEO Pangasinan community, where Gary Viray is an active player, are currently organizing Search Engine Marketing Conference (SEMCON) Pangasinan. I'm sure that will bring the best of the best from Pangasinan and reach out to bigger audience. We will also actively support that event in anyway we can.

Lunch at Matutina's

I joined the Bitstop Network Services team for a hearty lunch at Matutina's Restaurant. Easy to say that I ate more than my fair share (so no dinner for me tonight).

See you tomorrow! Thanks again to Bitstop Network Services, Urdaneta City University, and ICT Pangasinan for making this possible.

SEM / SEO 101 Talk at College of Saint Benilde

I finally delivered my talk on search engine marketing 101 at College of Saint Benilde yesterday. Thanks to club member Adolfo Aran III for the kind invitation.

Several deans and professors dropped by prior to the start of my talk. They were very keen in exploring areas of collaboration. As we had very limited time, Adolf and I discussed this and spotted two. As it gets further confirmed, will post it here soon.

Many thanks also to Raymond Padolina of Junior Marketing Association for patiently coordinating with me and for that beautiful poster image that they prepared to promote my talk session. He also gave me copies of the photos that they have taken at the event.

Around 60 to 70 students attended and got interesting questions from those who are doing some thesis work. If there is anything I wasn't able to do, that would be getting the url links of students with blogs. I should do that next time and give them link love.

After the event, I invited Adolf to try my favorite Korean restaurant in our neighborhood and glad that he enjoyed it.

Search & You Shall Find talk at De La Salle - College of Saint Benilde

Through DigitalFilipino Club member Adolfo Aran III, I got invited to be a speaker by the De La Salle - College of Saint Benilde Emerging Trends in Marketing Class and Junior Marketing Association. This will be at the Case Room, 3rd floor, Mutien Wing, CSB Main Bldg on February 24. The talk will be at 6pm expected to be attended by marketing and business students.

My talk, dubbed as "Search & You Shall Find", is an introduction to search engine marketing.

My visit to this school has been long overdue and look forward meeting the students this Tuesday. See you DLS-CSB!

SEO / SEM Workshop at Urdaneta City University

I'll be conducting a workshop on Search Engine Marketing - Search Engine Optimization this February 27 at the 4th floor new building of Urdaneta City University (UCU), Urdaneta, Pangasinan.

The organizers of this training are Urdaneta City University, College of Computer Studies in cooperation with ICT Pangasinan and DigitalFilipino Club member Bitstop Network Services, Inc.
I was able to catch up with Wilson Chua last February 9 at E-Services Philippines who made this workshop possible.

This hands-on workshop will discuss tips and techniques to get a site to the top of search engine rankings (e.g. Google, Yahoo, and MSN) and stay there.

• Introduction to Search Engine Marketing / Search Engine Optimization
• Identify niche positioning for products and services that you'll sell, target customers, buying frequency and motivation.
• Keywords discovery, attractiveness analysis, and implementation.
• How search engines process information as it crawls websites.
• Improving your website structure and navigation.
• Improving your website page titles, description, menus, body text, other assets, and good content (on-page optimization)
• Getting your website linked through directory submissions, article writing, online press releases, and social media/networking tools. (off-page optimization)
• Introduction to paid advertising programs.
• Tracking and fine tuning your website.

I am excited to meet IT Graduating Students, IT Instructors, and other interested individuals who are expected to attend this one day hands-on workshop.

First-come first-served basis. Interested parties are requested to contact Ficer Dofredo - IT head of Urdaneta City University at 0908-2299114 to register. The workshop fee is one hundred pesos (P100). Food is not included. As computers are limited, if possible, bring your own laptop with portable Internet access (such as through your mobile phone).

2/20 Update: My tag team speaker at SEMCON Bicol, Gary Viray, will join me in conducting this whole day workshop. He will also talk about off-page optimization.

See you this Friday UCU!

Blogging 101, Blog Marketing & Advertising, Blog Monetization & Business Workshop Series

All DigitalFilipino.com Club members are invited to attend the forthcoming Blogging 101, Blog Marketing & Advertising, Blogging Monetization & Business Hands-on Workshop series this February 18 to 20 at Netopia Internet Cafe, Ground Floor Greenbelt 1, Legaspi Street, Makati City from 9 am to 5 pm.

DigitalFilipino.com Club members can send participants for free on this training noting the following conditions:

• Corporate members - 3 days (1 participant per day)
• SME members - 2 days (1 participant per day)
• Individual members can attend a one-day session. This applies to those who were not able to attend the January workshop series.

Non-club members (those who have not paid annual membership fee) can send a participant for three thousand pesos (P3000) per day, exclusive of VAT. Slot is confirmed upon receipt of payment.

Participants should fill-up the registration form and await slot confirmation. We can only accept a maximum of 18 participants per day.

The training program shall be as follows:

February 18: Blogging 101 Workshop
(5 slots taken, 13 slots available)

This hands-on workshop will help the participant go through the process of creating a blog, configure it for personalization, discuss blog ethics, developing content, and letting the world know that your blog exist.

• 9:00 - 12:00
• Introduction to Blogging
• Type of blogs highlighting the popular ones
• Platform
• Blog creation
• Blog ethics
• Copyright
• Advertising
• Re-publishing
• Blog content
• Purpose
• Topic tracking
• Writing
• Monitoring performance
• Podcasting
• Vlog
• Mobile blogging
  
• 1:00 - 5:00 Blog Promotion and Marketing
• Ping
• Advertising
• Social bookmarks, networks, and media
• Contests
• Google Reader
• Comments
• Link exchange

February 19: Blog Marketing & Advertising
(9 slots taken, 9 slots available)

This hands-on workshop will give participants an appreciation on how blogging can be used to promote a company's products and services. It will also look into various ways that blogs can be tap as a medium to reach out to target market segments as a new advertising and marketing alternative.

• Corporate Blogging Introduction and Uses
• Creating a Corporate Blog
• Corporate Blogging Guidelines
• Blog Marketing
  
  • Tapping Blogs to Create Buzz (events, give-aways, promo)
  • Tapping Bloggers for Insight and Feedback (alerts)
  • Identifying target blogs
• Blog Advertising
  
  • Direct advertising
  • 3rd party banner or text ads
  • Paid reviews
  • Paid features
  • Identifying target blogs

February 20: Blog Monetization & Business
(6 slots taken, 12 slots available)

This hands-on workshop discusses the various ways that blogs can be monetized and make it self-sustaining:

Blog Monetization

• Get Paid to Blog by Joining Blog or Content Network
• Joining Advertising Programs
• banner ads
• text link ads
• advertorials
• paid post
• Joining Affiliate Programs
• Book/E-Book Publishing Based from a Blog
• Sell products or service through the blog
  

Blogging as a Business

• Creating a Blog Content Network
• Creating a Blog Advertising Network
• Creating a Blog Writers Network
• Getting Consulting and Blogging Projects

All training materials shall be posted at the club member site and also at our social network for online interactive learning purposes.

Interested non-members are requested to sign up as an Individual, SME, or Corporate member prior to the workshop and confirm attendance for food count purposes.