Tensed SEO World Championship

I never thought this will make me a bit tensed. This is just a contest, what I would say with the Isulong SEOph and the ItuloyAngSulong, SEO contest and was mainly playing around and learning at the same time. But in the Vorgermilten… I was a bit serious since the top prize was supposed to be $10,000. Eventually I got the top rank in Google but unfortunately it was a hoax. No money for me.

Now here comes the SEO World Championship and is now giving away a brand new car as the first prize. Carribean cruise as the second prize and a Sony Plasma TV as third. I thought I would have the same feeling like in the Isulong SEOph and Ituloy AngSulong SEO contest. Where I would say… this is just a contest and not feel tensed at all.

But for some reason, I feel tensed. I currently have the number 1 spot in the SEO contest with my GlobalWarming Awreness2007 entry. And being the number 1 site, I feel a bit tensed. Knowing that FredrikMH of eglobalwarmingwareness2007 and Mr. Monkeycolo ecoloband is just there and any drop I may get could move them forward.

Yes it’s just a contest, 1, 2 or 3 spots are all cool. Yes I know, but once you are up on the number 1 spot… you want to stay there. And I’m just hoping to stay there for the next 40 hours when the contest ends.

We SEOs all know the story of Jim Westergren when he was not the winner of the V7N SEO contest but after 15 minutes, he was already on top after the winner was declared. He lost by 15 minutes.

40 hours is such a long time to say that I already win the contest. Maybe in an hour or less my ranking can go down. Considering Yahoo and MSN sometimes mixes it all up. Hopefully not. If they mix it up at the same time, oh no, that is double Jeorpardy.

I am pretty competitive in the things I do, although I am no sore loser as well. In the things I get into, I like competiting and in my early teens, I was into BMX racing, I competed in races. In mountain bike races, I competed as well. I got into several martial arts and has competed in Taekwondo competitions. But most of the time, these were local, or at the highest level I got was national competitions. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. And win or lose, I am having fun.

But for some reason, I feel so tensed with this competition. Simply because it is global and this is something that can give worldwide recognition, but if search engines play around which is not impossible, it will just be part of a dream in the past and I will be totally unknown.

Somtimes I feel it is better to lose with a big lead, than lose when you were already very close to winning and at the last moment, you lose it all. Now that is the tensing part. It’s because I am the current leader and still feels uncertain on the stability of some search engines.

Hopefully, everything stays the same after 40 hours. As for the other competitors, ecoloband and eglobalwarmingawareness2007, it was a good contest and I have high respect for your efforts. I hope I get to know you guys too and just share ideas probably via IM in the future.

What I need to do before 2007, and what I need to improve on in 2007

Before 2007

  • Finish all client projects – Probably one of the toughest, but I will push through with it.
  • Answer client calls – I still have many pending issues, either by email, voicemail, or our support ticket system. Projects are overwhelming and just taking over the time of everything.
  • Fix up room – Due to all client projects, this is what is also delaying everything else in my life.
  • Greet everyone – I am not done with all my Christmas greetings. It is still a long way to go but I have partially sent all my ecards already.

In 2007

  • Get back in shape – Especially in cardiovascular endurance. It is more of a psychological war to me than a physical limitation since I tend to compare myself to my physical abilities in the past when I was competitive in various sports and I tend to compare what I can do before and what can I do today and this has depleted over time. Which sets frustrations in. Unlike if I was just starting and was unaware of my past, it would be easier.
  • Concentrate on customer support – I am considering on adding a good CRM system, and concentrate more of the production processes than doing production itself.
  • Develop production teams – And since I am not going to concentrate on production, I will develop production teams of my own. Sometimes I can never be contented with the code and I am strict with the code. So hopefully, I get to find the right people to do it that has nice and clean code.
  • Fix computers – Basically my workstations, I have 1 windows PC running and 1 laptop, both on dual monitors. My Mac is temporarily not used because of the convenience I get with dual monitors on my PC and I have no monitor for the Mac. I have 2 more PCs that are not running that I will fix where one will be my Linux workstation and the other I will give away or sell.
  • Sell printers, scanners and photocopier and maybe my fax machine too – I will buy a 4-in-1 color laser printer, copier, scanner fax machine probably, it will be a space saver in my small office-home office setup.
  • File management – if my room is a mess, so are some of my files. And have a better organized backup system.
  • Watch more movies – Mainly not for recreation, but awareness of trends. Awareness of the market. I will just probably sign up with Netflicks and watch at home.
  • Attend tradeshows – This can be expensive, so I will probably just attend 2 or 3. I am targeting Search Engine Strategies, Search Marketing Expo and maybe Webmaster World’s Pubcon.
  • Go to church more often – Although I have my own meaning of the church, my own definitions, my own belief, I believe I am not in conflict with the teachings. I may even augment and strengthen my faith, but if I share it with others, it might just confuse other people and they will say I am weird or something. So i do not share my belief, but my belief is basically having my religion entangled with science and they are actually united in a way and are not divided as some people may think.
  • Get a new video camera – The Internet is all about video next year. More Internet marketing activities will involve a lot of rich media, so I need a video camera, and will start working on some video editing skills, and if time permits it, try working with some animations as well.
  • Get a new lens for my digital camera – Maybe a lens with a better aperture and some F-stops and will try to do some magic with my amateur photography skills.
  • Speaking engagements – Will probably talk more in mini shows, mini conventions, small training seminars I can arrange. Probably both in the US and in the Philippines.
  • Buy some VOIP hardware setup – This is for better customer support as I will have someone dedicated to work for me on the other end of the world for my US customers, who can also immediately implement some technical help needed. With this setup, which I do not plan to abuse also, but I can use after office hours for cheaper calls to my family by installing a VOIP gateway as well on the other end.

So far I only have those to do. Maybe even more but I haven’t planned it out that well yet. Let’s see.

When will I be certified?

Apogee Search in Austin Texas is one of the SEMPO supporters and I believe they are also an Adwords Qualified Company right now. One nice thing I see with Apogee is they are not only concerned with the clicks a client gets from a PPC campaign or from SEO efforts. They are interested in the customers they can bring in to clients. Which I believe should be a must in every SEO/SEM service.

I blogged about my opinion on Search Engine Optimization/Search Engine Marketing certification already on Ituloy AngSulong. I still believe these certifications may not be proof of one’s proficiency in SEO/SEM, but I think I still need it just for better client trust and no other purpose. Although I have my ways of proving my SEO/SEM proficiency with my current clients’ performance, having these certifications will just probably help a little bit more in my own ability to sell. So when will I be certified?

Google knows Benj Arriola

If you try searching for Ariola on Google, you get some results.

If you try searching for Aryola on Google, you also get some results.

But when you search for Benj Ariola or Benj Aryola, this is what Google says:

Did you mean: Benj Arriola

There is really nothing special here. No special SEO technique involved. This just shows the the word Arriola occurs many times in the Google database with the word Benj. Thus name corrections like these can, in some way be a measure of online popularity. 😀

Vacation Over, Back to Work

Vacation: Over. Back to work again. 2 weeks is to short and I lost a day in travelling from east to west over the International date line with 14 hours of air flight. (Which is 12 hours when done west to east since it rides along the rotation of the earth.) But it was still good well spent quality time with my family.

SEO Contest: With last minute efforts, I was already number 10 that night. But was dancing at 10 and 11. And the top 10 win a prize. And when it was the official results time to refresh it, I moved to 11. Nyhahaha. Some of my friends told me it sucks, but all I can say, the SEO lessons in the contest are priceless. There’s a lot that I have learned in this contest. I have some photos of the Isulong SEOph SEO contest event here.

Michael Turner of HarvestSEO got some photos too and said something about me attending the event. He’s probably right. 🙂

Christine, who is one of the SEO Philippines members wanted to take a photo of everyone and took a picture with my daugher Jamie. and also took a picture with me.

Anton Diaz had a nice photo with me in the center, and also with my wife in the group photo. 🙂

The Storm: The day right after I came to the Philippines was when typhoon Milenyo passed by and knocked down a bunch of trees and electrical post. We had no electricity for 2 days while other areas were worse, up to today, some places in Bicol have no power and even phone lines are dead too.

Photos/Videos: I will try to prepare them and uploaded one by one. I still got to catch up with emails, voicemails, IM’s, snail mails, all waiting for my attention.

Back to Work: Yes, and I miss my family already. I drove my daughter everyday to school, and went with my wife everywhere. I came to the US Tuesday 12am, sorted my stuff, slept at 4am, went to work, came home, slept and… wow, I slept too long! I woke up at 3:30pm and called up the office right away. Well I will get a lot of sleep now, so I can catch up. At 4:40pm, I decided to pass by Einstein Industries just before they go home at 5:00pm and talk to a few friends and leave some dried mangos. Tomorrow is all work again.

Is this a Vacation?

My Vacation: Going back to the Philippines, and attending an SEO Contest awarding and an excellent time to be with my family. And… design projects, development projects, SEO projects, hosting accounts, SEO contest, rooms a mess, legal stuff, quality family time, maybe seminars/speaking engagements coming up, arrggg. Maybe it may not feel like a vacation. But aside from attending the SEO contest awarding, being with my family is the best, nothing beats that.

SEO Philippines

Alexaholic – Nice way to compare traffic

You can enter up to 5 websites and see the graph of their traffic based on Alexa superimposed over each other. Pretty cool. Check the traffic of my entries in the Isulong SEOph contest compared to my blog ActionOnline.biz as a control.

Geeks Manual Comparison Geeks Manual Comparison Isulong SEOph About Isulong SEOph News on Isulong SEOph SEO by Isulong SEOph Tools found – Isulong SEOph Isulong SEOph About Isulong SEOph News on Isulong SEOph SEO by Isulong SEOph Tools found – Isulong SEOph

Looking for a job with the government

A lot of people say working for the government is well paid and has many benefits. If you are interested in getting one, there are tons of opportunities you can find online. Like the listings below, some are a bit redundant, but try searching yourself. Try in the job you like and choose the state where you want to work in.

Science and Technology Websites Science and Technology News Learn More About Science All About Science Science and Technology Tools

Oh Crap, My Personal Crap is Getting Exposed

Yes, if you found out somewhere that I am one of the new writers of an SEO blog, oh no… and you are looking at my personal crap blog. *lol* My main blog is still ActionOnline.biz, but of course my name on that blog is still my name. Hmmm… Maybe I need an alias like the others, but I think it’s too late. I should have made some name for some branding effect. Oh well, what the heck. I don’t care. I still like my blog as it is, but if you are looking for SEO topics I post… sorry most of them are not here. You will probably find them in ActionOnline.biz or Isulong SEOph.