I’d like to thank everybody here tonight for choosing to be a part of this special day.

I cannot imagine how this day would have been like if nobody came. What if nobody came? What if the weather didn’t cooperate? What if… What if?

We all have that tendency to ask “What if?”. It’s our nature to second-guess the wisdom of the universe. To wonder… What if we’re not really meant to be together? What if there’s someone waiting for me over at the next corner? The next stop? What if I had already met the one for me but was too stupid to even recognize her? What if??? We just can’t seem to “trust” enough.

We have many crossroads in our lifetime. Those turningpoints that demand a moment of clarity to help us make the right decision. In my life, I’ve been lucky enough to have always met people who taught me or helped me learn a lesson at every crossroad. Just in time for me to be sure that I’m always making the right decision and spare me from asking that dreadful question of “What if?”.

Lory has helped me learn to stop asking “What if?”. Having her in my life pushes away all uncertainties and help me focus not on “What if?” but on “What Is”. No second-guessing, no regrets. No “What ifs?”. Just “What is” and that’s “Us”.

From now on, we’ll be facing crossroads and turningpoints in our life trusting that we’re going to make the right decisions together and not doubt each other. No room for doubts. Where there is love, there can be no doubt.

A huge part of who (or how) I am today is because of Charley Barretto. She helped me learn (err… discover?) the lessons I needed to progress.

I believe I have discovered that which you wanted me to learn so many years ago. That which you could not even begin to explain to me. That which you could not teach for to do so would guarantee my failure.

For most of my life I have relied on my intellect and it has served me well. It has also been my greatest downfall for I could not see the ultimate lesson I needed to “learn” (learning is again nothing more than a conditioned, mechanical way of the intellect to grasp an idea which would forever fall short if you want to transcend. But words begin to become insufficient when I start to talk about these things so just bear with it please).

It didn’t make sense to me that day you asked me if I would accept you as my teacher. I understand it now that for me to learn, I have to be ready to learn and ready to have you teach me. That’s why I can’t be the one to ask you if you would accept me as your student.

I’ve been witness to the greatness and the divinity that is man. I’ve finally come full circle. Now I am longing to be back in the presence of the one who helped me see that I did not need anybody nor anything outside of me.

I have found Lory. Another soul who has helped me learn another lesson… Love. Not the kind of love that Mother Theresa had for the whole of humanity. That kind of love although most noble, does not help a person transcend because it cannot threaten the individual. Love that helps you break free from the bondage of the self. Love that helps you loose yourself only to find more of you in the end. A beautiful cycle of finding and loosing that can only be had when you fully lay yourself on the table, defenseless.

You have helped me transcend my intellect so I can see my soul. You have helped me see my place in the great equation of life, reality and the universe. Oh, I have stories of magic that could rival the myths of old. But there is danger there. Danger in knowing that I am the very life, the very universe, the very power, the very God that I am seeing, seeking, experiencing could trap me into being “my self”.

Lory has helped me loosen my hold on my self. By loving her, I have given her the power to threaten me and shake the very foundation of my being, my beliefs… myself. With her, I have found the ultimate freedom every soul knows it should be. She has given me the chance to transcend that which I have spent my lifetime to find… Myself. How many times she’s cried because I could not see beyond myself. But she’s there with me still and I love her even more (if that is even possible at all) for that.

Charley Barretto, I want you to meet Lory Ambayec. She is me and I am her. We’re getting married this November 29 and I want you to be there in the ceremony. We want you to be what you have always been to us. Our Godmother.

Here he is. We got him about 2 weeks ago. He’s a pug and we’ve named him Quan which means soldier in Chinese.

Here he is with his Soldier Boy outfit.

Here he is on his new Sponge Bob Square Pants mini sofa.

We just absolutely adore him even if he pees and poops in the living room sometimes.

We’ve had Z (our Chevrolet Optra Wagon) for about a year and a half now so we’ve decided to give it up and get a new car. This time, I wanted to get a car that somehow reflects my fiancee’s personality so I got her Remus - our new Toyota Yaris. That’s what Lory named her new car and she absolutely loves it. It’s also quite a gas saver too, compared to our Chevrolet. With the recent increases in gas prices, this car really rocks.

I read a very disturbing entry on John Andrews’ blog entitled “Google is not an Algorithm: Google Imparts Intent”. Google is starting to become megalomaniacal now. How could Google’s quality team have the insight and moral ascendancy over other people (webmasters) and have the right (they do have the power to do so, I know) to pass judgment on others? Much worse, not give them due process and the proper forum to defend themselves (or their websites)?

Google is a search engine that is supposed to “rank webpages” and not “pass moral judgment on actual people”. What if I’m a webmaster that has multiple, unrelated websites simply because I want to make as much money as possible? What’s so “evil” about that? C’mon! Google makes billions of dollars per month. What if the reason I’m doing it is because I have a very sick daughter who’s dying of some weird disease that’s very expensive to treat? Would Google’s quality team think of me and my websites differently?

I think their credo of “Don’t be evil” would ultimately cause their downfall because they’re starting to think that they can go beyond algorithms and mathematical formulas. I think they’re starting to realize that they can’t fulfill their creed of “Don’t be evil” unless they transcend algorithms and mathematical formulas that can only go as far as knowing what’s “correct and incorrect” (1 + 1 = 2 is correct while 1 + 3 = 8 is incorrect) but would forever fail to discern what’s “Good” or “Evil” (having 1 website chock full of quality content is “good” while having multiple websites with mediocre content is “evil”).

Being able to view AdWords ads that are targeting specific countries can be very useful. Whether you’re an AdSense publisher looking for less-competitive keywords to target or an SEM consultant managing a localized AdWords campaign of a client, you would need to learn how to do this.

Although you could always go to the Google Adwords Preview tool, there is a much easier way to do this.

1. Do your search for the keyword you want on google.
2. When the results appear, click on your browser’s address bar and just add &gl=us at the end of the URL string if you want to see US geo-targeted AdWords ads.
3. Press enter.

You can of course replace the country code with a different country other than the US if that is what you need. Try it out and tell me if it works!

After having lived in Raya Gardens for a few months, we’ve decided that it’s not what we want. I guess it’s father time having an effect on me for living in a nice condominium such as Raya Gardens just seemed to have lost its appeal to me. The place looks great but I guess I’ve “matured” enough to want a simpler life.

That’s why we have acquired a new place at a really nice place just outside of Metro Manila but not too far for it to be inconvenient to be driving to and from Makati where we work.

Below are some pictures of our new place. You wouldn’t believe how beautiful La Marea in San Pedro, Laguna is. All our friends who’ve been there couldn’t help but truly love the place.

I have been invited to conduct a detailed seminar on SEO for AdSense. The seminar is entitled “SEO for AdSense”. The seminar would be held in Room 1101, 11/F, Chung Sheung Building, 9-10 Queen Victoria Street, Central, HK and is organized by World Champ International Enterprises. This would be a very detailed, instructional type seminar wherein attendees would get actual, hands-on experience during the seminar.

Seminar details:

Seminar Details :
Organizer : World Champ International Enterprises
Venue : Room 1101, 11/F, Chung Sheung Building, 9-10 Queen Victoria Street, Central, HK
Tel : 2590-9328 ; 2811-5721
Contact person : Alice Sy
Seminar date : November 17 & 18, 2007 (Saturday & Sunday)
Time : 6:00 pm to 11:00 pm ; Registration starts at 5:30 pm
Medium of instruction : Mainly in English
Fee : HK$2,000 per person ; HK$3,800 (two person register at the same time)

Seminar Outline

1. SEO For AdSense

2. What is AdSense

a. General discussion of the Google AdSense program

3. How it works

a. Basic mechanics, rules and implementations of the Google AdSense program.

4. How you can make money from it

a. The PPC model (original AdSense model)

i. The original Pay Per Click model of AdSense pays a publisher for every “valid” click on the AdSense ads that are published on his/her website. The payment a publisher receives is a fraction of the bid placed by advertisers for each keyword that they are targeting.

b. The PPA model (Referral 2.0 model)

i. The new PPC Referral 2.0 model compensates publishers only every time a specific action is completed by users who click on their ads. An action maybe a form inquiry, a sale or something similar. Publishers do not get compensated from each click unless their specified action is completed by the user who clicked on the ad.

5. The Process

a. Finding the right keywords to target

i. Searching for popular keywords

1. The more a particular keyword is being searched for on the Google search network, the more popular it is.

ii. Searching for the least competitive keywords

1. The less number of websites that are actively targeting a keyword, the less competitive it is and the easier it would be for your website to achieve top rankings for it.

iii. Searching for keywords that have the highest CPC

1. The higher the bid that advertisers are placing for a keyword, the bigger your revenue per click would be. This is because your commission/revenue is computed as a fraction of the bid of the advertiser for the keyword.

b. Finding the right domain name

i. Finding keyword rich domain names

1. Domain names that include the target keywords have a higher chance of achieving top Search Engine rankings for their target keyword.

ii. Finding old/expiring/recently expired, etc domain names

1. Using a domain name/website that already has a “history” in Search Engine indexes can achieve top rankings faster because they would already have previous back links and Google PageRank.

c. Designing the perfect website

i. Search engine-friendly website design

1. How a website is designed plays an important role in how well it would rank for its target keyword. Specific design elements that contribute to better rankings would be discussed.

ii. Search engine-friendly website structure

1. How a website’s navigation and internal link structure is designed helps search engines better index and rank a website. Specific tips on Search Engine-friendly navigation and internal link structure.

iii. Maximum number of AdSense ads

1. The more ads that you have on your web pages, the more options your website visitors would have. The maximum number of AdSense ads would be discussed for maximum Adsense revenue.

iv. Optimized AdSense ad placements/layout

1. Proper placement and implementation of your AdSense ads increases the chance of users clicking on them and subsequently, your AdSense revenue. Different strategies for AdSense ads placement, layout and implementation would be discussed.

d. Driving visitors to your website

i. SEO for AdSense websites

1. Onpage SEO for AdSense websites

a. Title tag

b. Description meta tag

c. Heading tags

d. ALT attribute

e. TITLE attribute

f. Optimizing the URL

g. Site structure optimization

2. Building backlinks to your AdSense websites

a. Backlink keyword optimization

b. Free directories submission

c. Forum postings

d. Blog comments

e. Article writing and submission

f. Press release writing and distribution

3. Writing optimized website content

a. Writing optimized headings

i. Main headings

ii. Sub-headings

b. Writing optimized paragraphs

i. Keyword density factor

ii. Semantic optimization

ii. Paid traffic to your AdSense websites

1. Google AdWords

2. Yahoo Search Marketing Network

3. Microsoft AdCenter Network

4. AdBrite Network

iii. Social media network

1. Stumble upon

2. Digg

3. You tube

iv. Other sources of quality traffic

1. Craigslist

2. Related forums

e. Tracking your AdSense ads’ performance

i. Creating URL channels

1. Creating URL channels to help you identify websites that are performing well and websites that are not.

ii. Creating custom channels

1. If you want to identify specific Adsense channels that are performing best or under-performing, you can create custom channels to track their performance.

f. Tracking your website’s performance

i. Tracking your website’s performance for different campaigns across different mediums (SEO, PPC, Forums, BBs, etc.).

g. Improving your AdSense performance and revenue

i. Important tips on how to improve your Adsense performance and increase your Adsense revenue.

6. Case study

a. Actual campaign creation from research to implementation and tracking using the main keyword “organic food”.

Read the press release about it.

I remember when I first got into search engine optimization back in 2000. So many SEO people then were busy trying to discover that elusive SEO magic bullet that would take their website to the top of search engine rankings. I’ve seen and personally tried some of them with varying success. I’ve successfully taken some of my early websites to top search engine rankings using some of these old SEO magic bullets. I’ve also gotten a few websites banned on any and all of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN/Live) for the tricks I’ve used before.

To be perfectly honest, I wish that SEO is more complicated and difficult than it really is. At least, I could more easily justify the cost of my SEO services. The truth is, much like what I said in my short presentation at the SEMCON held at the Intercon Hotel in Makati last month, there really are just 2 key elements of a successful SEO campaign: Content and Links.
It doesn’t matter what the latest search engine algorithm is. For as long as you have properly leveraged these 2 key elements of your SEO campaign, I firmly believe that you would be able to achieve top rankings across all the major search engines and maintain that top ranking. The time that it would take to achieve success can of course vary as other elements come to play but it’s really just a matter of time before you find your website on the first page of all the major search engines for the keywords that you are targeting. Make no mistake about it. Content + Links = Top Search Engine Rankings.

Content Is King

Content on Your Website

This old cliché still holds true to this day. I firmly believe that no matter what new algorithm Google or any of the other major search engines come up with, content would still play a central role in how they rank a particular webpage. Florida? Bourbon? LSI? Bring it on! For as long as your website has content that is highly relevant to the keywords being typed in by users, it would always be on top of the results. My own website’s first page rankings for over 200 “SEO” and “SEM” related keywords, is a solid testament to the power of content.

To this day, content is still largely defined as “text” but search engines are already starting to include “other forms of content” into the search results. More and more maps, images and even videos are appearing in search results. As search engine algorithms evolve and become capable of indexing and ranking more types of content and the Meta data embedded to describe these other types of content, the SEO landscape would somewhat change but content as being a core factor of SEO would remain constant.

Content on Other Websites You Are Associated With

The next thing that you need to consider about content is the content found on other websites. Surely there are other web sites on the Internet about widgets and/or other semantically related topics. What you need to do is to find as many of these web sites as possible and to categorize them as either competition or non-competition (i.e. the Blue Widgets Association of America). Don’t worry about what you would be doing with these web sites just yet. We’ll discuss about how these websites would interplay later on.

Links

Links On Your Website

You can leverage as many of your other web pages to push the web page you have optimized for the keyword “blue widgets”. Simply mentioning your target keyword on your other pages and using that instance of your keyword to link to your “blue widgets” page would tell the search engines to prioritize your blue widgets page for the keyword “blue widgets”.
So for example, if you have a page about blue widgets, make sure that you link to it from as many of your other pages using the phrase “blue widgets” as anchor text. This would make the search engines know that your page about blue widgets is the most relevant page on your website for the phrase “blue widgets”.

Links From Other Web Sites To Yours

A link to and from your website constitutes an association between the two. How that association is defined would depend on the content of the 2 pages that contain the links. The actual text (a text link is ideal although an image link using the ALT attribute would also do.) used as the anchor text to link to the other website also plays a big part.
It also doesn’t hurt to have at least 1 outbound link to another web page on another website that is semantically related to your target keyword of “blue widgets”. Just make sure that the web site that you link to is not your competition.

Basically, if you have web site about widgets and in it, you have optimized a web page about blue widgets and you have enough (the actual number is relative to the keywords being targeted so I can’t give an actual number) links from other widgets related websites on pages about widgets (and other semantically related topics) and those pages that link to your blue widgets page use the phrase “blue widgets” or other semantically related keywords as the anchor text of the link to your blue widgets page, very soon, you would find your web page about blue widgets on top of search results for guess what keyword?… blue widgets!

Well, I migrated to a new web server and wasn’t able to recover the old posts from my original blog. I didn’t really put in that much effort to it anyway. I think my original blog didn’t have enough importance and contained very little informative posts in it so I said goodbye to it altogether.

This time, I promise to write more important stuff that more people can make use of and benefit from. So here we go folks!