This is a rant post, I’m not feeling quite well today as I have a bad colds. Just wanted to share how I feel about the state of our country and hopefully know if people see it the same way as I do.

We always see in the movies these lines, but I would not talk about a romantic relationship about couples, when you love, love the good side and the bad side of the person. What I want to stress out in this post is about the love for our country.

In the up coming fight of Pacquiao with Diaz, we are cheering for Pacman, we are proud that we are Filipino when he wins, crime rate is 0% during his fight. As if the whole country is at stop. To support our kababayan. But after the fight, and we see the news, we get angry at the prices of commodities in the country and curse the government. Is this really love for our country? Are we just proud if we see a kababayan achieve something?

When we watch game shows, and participate at home with these shows, why do we ask blessings from God? Will God take His time to be in game shows, where you can win just by answering stupid questions that anyone can answer? Win by spinning a roulette? Or is He in the minds and hearts of people working hard in business or at work, where they EARN money? In the hearts and mind of people that build bridges, buildings, shelter, technology? Yet, when people lose in these game shows, they feel sad, felt like God is not with them, wait till another opportunity comes by them to be included once again in these game shows.

Isn’t it about time to put our time to more productive activity?

Back in college, my Materials Science Professor will always tell us the story of Mrs. Biyo. The teacher who won an award for teaching. With only a chalk and and eraser in her hand when she entered the competition, competing with other teachers with computers, projectors and presentation. We are proud that she once again put up the Filipino name. Named a planet after her, Planet Biyo. People will most likely say she is wealthy now, outside the country, teaching with 6 digit dollar income. But no, she decided to teach in the Philippines. And most people will laugh. How can you laugh at an admirable act?

And most importantly, the ever popular, people that associates rising from poverty from getting out of the country. They know the threats of leaving, they think that there is no hope for the Philippines and they believe it so hard that they can leave their family. They said they are ready to face anything just to get out of misery in living in the Philippines. You can hear them say the government is corrupt and all. Decided to go abroad and work. Some even attempted to go abroad illegally, but when terrorist kidnap them or when they are sentenced to death on other countries, who will they run into? The government… And more hate will rise if the government tried their best and still no hope. Why can’t they take responsibilities for their own actions? I would like to think that these people are soldiers that are ready to sacrifice being away from their families, the only difference is that, soldiers are willing to die for their actions, which makes them admirable.

What happened to doctors, nurses and other professionals that will help poor people? Are the children more patriotic than we adults? Try ask them what they want to become and what’s the reason for doing so… We have heard them say it for the benefit of our country. And we are proud of our children for having to say those words at a young age. But when they grow up, where are they? Earning thousands of dollars abroad and whipping other people’s ass, ain’t you a proud parent?

We are proud when we hear the stories of Filipinos putting up our flag and our pride across all nations yet we fail to embrace the bad side of our country. Is this really love? “Oi kababayan ko yan!” but when the market is down, we almost want to curse all people in the government, the country and everything about it…

Baby Come Back

This morning while I was busy working on some web designs, my ex-team leader from the company I used to work talked to me. She asked how am I doing? I said, I’m alright, I have my own business now.

As we talked, she asked if I am willing to go work again on a freelance basis for the company as a web html & flash developer, I have never been the good employee, I do the job great but not the most disciplined in working. I have my side tracks when in a job, especially if its a routine work and I go to office late (4 hours late most of the time :D) so I am quite surprised for them to ask me again.

You might say that this is a great way for an extra income and the work would be a dream as I will be working at home and still get the pay check… But the reason I declined the job offer is that:

1. I love being a web entrepreneur now. I have so much things to do. I work 16 hours a day. But still love it. I can work 16 hours for months without getting bored compared to 9 hour cubicle job.
2. I am my own boss. I control my time. I can eat whenever I want. I can go where ever I want, whenever I want. I can play when ever I want. This is one of the best things an entrepreneur have. I believe this is the only one and the only reason why most people want to be an entrepreneur. “Work 16 hours for yourself so you won’t have to work 9 hours for somebody else.” - To be free, to have more time for your family.
3. I simply have no time to work for anyone anymore. I believe the return of investment of my time will not par with the money I would earn if I were to work for a job again. Compared to a regular job, even you work harder, you still have the same pay check every month. And the risk is that, if you lower the quality of work, you might get fired. Now who is in control of your life? Your boss, not you.

Why am I writing this?

Nothing, I just finished my work for today, so I might as well post it. I’m not BORED in anyway, just doing my post. Seriously, I just wanted to post this so that when time comes that I want to recap what happened to my life, I can see from this blog that I used to be so afraid to quit my job yet today, I am afraid to work for a company now.

I’m a web designer, a Filipino, and when I started in SEO and internet marketing, I felt like shit. Shit traffic, shit post, shit blog all tons of shit, I also do shit comments on other blogs. That was really awful. I was perfectly clueless and don’t know what to do to get traffic from the search engines. Today, I don’t apply them on this blog. You might see that there are no advertisement here and I would like to keep it that way. I apply them on other sites that make me money online.

I would like to help the newbies out there on how to get started on their blog. I won’t tell you to go and comment on other blogs, stumbleupon, entrecard or twit your blog. That should be your last resort. Never ever try social networking to promote your blog, unless you just want to be famous. But if you’re in this business for the money and for the killing, woo Big G and the other 1st and 2nd tier search engines.

SEO, internet marketers and all those people that make money online know how search engine ticks. If they don’t know how, they’ll starve and I’m one of them. I have to pay the bills, help my family and save some more for future education. But for the sake of this article, I’ll be pertaining to google since it has the biggest market share.

What does Google wants?

There are many things that make google ticks but lets focus on this most important part of SEO. Google loves content. And the fresher the content the better. Do I need to say more? Ok, I’ll explain, Google loves content, long related targeted content. That’s what google loves.

If you’re making a blog post, talk about a topic that is really targeted. Meaning, post a content that will give your page an authority. Specify a certain keyword for this post. Bold it, italics it, H1 tag it etc. Don’t put any other unrelated keyword in there. Just focus on that word. Talk about it, as lenghty as you want. But be sure its still human readable.

Never Give Up On Your Site

This is not an inspirational paragraph. I’m telling you this because if you’re site is new and its been a month and you’re not getting traffic, most likely you are sand boxed. You’ll know you’re sandboxed when you have a steady traffic day after day then you suddenly lost all the traffic. Do not worry, this is normal. Its google’s way of welcoming your site in the internet. After that you’ll be ranked accordingly. How long do you have to wait to get out of the sandbox? 90 days. This is the normal thing. Sometimes even longer. Sometimes even years. But don’t lose hope. There is a way to make it better and faster. What? Just add more content.

How Often Should I Add More Content or Post on My Site?

Ok, I’ll be borrowing the lines of bloggers “Have a posting frequency”. This is true. You should update often and have a posting frequency. But, on the safe side, remember this.

If your site is 90 days old and is getting 0 - 15 visitors a day. Do not make any more post. Optimize what you already have.

After you get out of the sandbox, you’re ranked accordingly by google. Of course you’re ranking is shit. Don’t expect anything yet. You’re the new guy. But don’t blame the site. It’s your fault and it’s only you that can make the site better. Just keep getting links, submit from directories, submit articles, do SEO, optimize your page. Again, no social networks (if you want to make money that is).

After 30 days of optimizing, getting links and SEO. Check your stats. You should be getting more visitors now.

If you’re getting 15 - 50 visitors a day. You should at least, update your blog with 2+ pages or post per month.

You can still stick with your posting frequency but keep it at least 2+ post per month.

Now let me tell you something why I wanted you to optimize your site without using social media. Those visitors that you see on your stats are coming from organic traffic / search engines… Those are traffic that you can convert to money. You can make money out of that traffic. With adsense, you can make your CTR boost up to 20% with that traffic. I went as high as 50% with my other sites. Because these people are buyers, searchers that are looking for a product or service, if they saw your ads, even if they know its an ad, they will click on it. Social media traffic, these people are just having fun, blog hopping, stumbling, just reading other blogs. They wont convert and will just ruin your CTR. This is the secret to making money on the internet. You want organic traffic.

Ok, lets move on. Never stop optimizing your site. Keep posting, keep getting links, keep submitting and keep optimizing your pages. By the time you get your visitors up to 100.

If you’re getting 50 - 150 visitors a day, you should at least update your blog or site with 2 pages every week.

This is a no brainer. Google loves fresh, unique content. The spiders will always crawl your site every day and your pages will be indexed immediately.

150 unique and organic visitors a day is pretty number. If you want to increase that number, just keep posting more blog posts and keep on getting links. Never do social media. Never. Don’t ruin your CTR. As I will say, that is pure traffic, search engine traffic that you can make money of. Don’t pollute it. Google will reward you with a strong stream of traffic that can last for years. You will increase your CTR and in turn Google will place high cost per click ads on your site. $1 a click is peanuts for you if you have a high CTR. Even if you missed a posting date, it won’t have any disastrous effect on your blog.

Ok, I won’t be making this post longer. To close this out, just keep getting links and update frequently. And G Almighty will reward you till kingdom come. That’s how you do SEO the Google Way. Good luck on making money online.