The Philippine online community is growing and maturing at a very rapid pace. Filipino webmasters, bloggers and publishers are discovering that there are more effective ways to drive traffic and to earn residual (even full time) income from their properties and activities online. If membership to the SEO Philippines mailing list is any indication, then it’s safe to say that more and more Filipinos are becoming interested in search engine optimization (SEO). Why the sudden interest in this field?
Filipino bloggers were first to sign up thanks to stories from bloggers like Darren Rowse. Filipino bloggers realized early on that they could earn from their “labor of love”. But it also became clear that it would take more than just signing up for Google AdSense and then slapping on some ad units on their pages. I’ve received lots of emails and instant messages from bloggers asking for ad placement advice, traffic building tips and yes, even AdSense sign up tutorials. And it’s all good, it shows people are genuinely interested. The mailing list was launched to provide similar-minded people with a forum where they could privately explore and inquire about SEO topics. The best thing about the mailing list is that other Filipino SEO veterans have signed up and are sharing their knowledge and experiences to the whole group for free.
Filipino webmasters, owners of small-to-medium sized websites have also come to embrace the search-engine-friendly school of thought. First they keywords for most develpers was functionality and usability. Now, the buzzwords are spiderability, indexability and profitability. Members are applying SEO traffic building and monetization strategies on their websites and are seeing marked improvement. Other members are hooking up to exchange links and to discuss collaborative projects and are using SEO knowledge to drive traffic to their Web properties.
I asked some members what they expected to get out of SEO Philippines and here are their answers:
SEO is likewise new and novel to me and what brings me here is the fact that my personal tech blog has a google P.R. of 5, quite surprisingly. And somehow I’m loving the fact that I get lots of hits from Google (and other engines, for that matter), and I imagine the possibilities if I were able to increase this even further. (Angelo)
I want to learn and develop SEO because there are other dreams I would like to fulfill online and I guess it would really help if there are people to exchange ideas with and to learn from the experiences of others. (Anton)
I’d like to know more about people interested in this great thing and possibly help and learn more from the experts…and eventually earn more. (Reah)
Since I’m a CS grad and am deep into programming/software development, my interest in SEO is more on the algorithms and tools. (Migs)
I found that SEO skills + web dev skills = MONEY…so hopefully, i can expand my SEO skills so that i can earn more money. (Joel)
I think it’s safe to say that SEO is finally in the wired Pinoy’s psyche.
October 24th, 2005 at 8:33 PM
I can see this direct marketing scenario described by Jeremy Zawodny (Yahoo) playing out here.
October 24th, 2005 at 9:15 PM
Migs, funny how Zawodny has AdSense running on his blog. Compared to DMAers, I think we in the mailing list now a little bit more :) I don’t how the local DMA fares though…
October 26th, 2005 at 4:51 PM
Hi Marc, primarily what computer languages are being used for SEO skills?
October 26th, 2005 at 5:02 PM
Jio, believe it or not, SEO isn’t really a programming-centric field. SEO programmers I know just use programming to automate some tasks, but technically everything in SEO can be done without programming, albeit at a smaller scale. PHP/ASP/JSP/CF/Perl will do. Background in networking also helps.
But if you’re really out to reverse engineer something…let’s wait for the hardcore coders to tell us what skills will be relevant :)
February 21st, 2006 at 5:02 PM
I hate this Google Adsense thing! Well sort of, I only made about $4 in 3 days, at the rate I’m going, I’ll only make about $40 a month, that sucks! :( Kawawa naman If I was living in Manila, that would be a fortune, but unfortunately, $40 is worth one T-Shirt here in the U.S. :(
February 23rd, 2006 at 1:44 PM
Angel, $40/month for one site is not bad. Now go and make 100 other sites to hit $4000/month :)
April 17th, 2006 at 9:12 PM
im a self-taught webmaster and i’ve been hooked to making money online ever since i started more than a year ago clicking on donkeymail emails for pennies.
i think the internet is one of the last few chances of Filipinos to have a better life without leaving the Philippines. there is plenty of advertising money going around, thanks to Google’s business model.
making websites and driving targeted traffic to it is not really rocket science. anyone using common sense can do it and earn dollars at almost zero cost.
May 17th, 2006 at 10:37 PM
I’m a owner of a web hosting company and we’ll be launching web hosting plans mainly in the Philippines and Asian market. Do you offer Search Engine Optimization Services? What are the guarantees? Please send me your rates also…
Thanks.
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October 5th, 2006 at 12:40 PM
Hello Mark! I’m a kababayan working as a SEO for a client. Commenting on blogs like this is fun but with so much fun I admit I get lost and deviate from the ABC’s of doing it the right way.
Forgive me if my username isn’t that related to your blog kaibigan. I’m using it in relation to the site that I’m currently handling. Sana huwag mo akong i-ban.
John
September 18th, 2007 at 5:01 AM
Angel, instead of creating 100 of sites. Create only one or two real good site that has value to your visitors. Aim for the long-term goal. Make your visitors love your site, they’re going to help you spread the word “word of mouth” just like myspace.
July 12th, 2008 at 12:13 PM
The SEO Philippines Yahoo Group already dead? Because I saw the date of the last post it was last year.