The Evidences of Humility

"You need not boast when you have the answers. You need not judge when you know you are right. You need not exaggerate when others don't believe. You need not defend yourself when being ridiculed." - Angelyn Co Special thanks to the book of Charles Stanley, Relationship Principles of Jesus. I am continuously blessed by this book. "How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." - Luke 6: 42 Humility is accepting criticism from others. We all have blind spots. We all have attitudes we aren't proud of. When brought into the light, many of us excuse this behavior by saying, "This is how I really am", "I was born this way", "Accept me completely". While this is true, there are consequences: 1. You impede your personal growth. Most of the time, when someone had the guts to point out your mistake, that someone cares for you. That someone wanted you to understand an area in your life where you can improve. For example, Charlie confronted you of a selfish comment you gave to one of your friends and you say, "Come on, lighten up! You should by this time, already know who I am and how I talk." By saying this, not only have you personally tagged yourself as what Charlie confronted you with: selfish/rude. You have told Charlie to look at you in that way. Thus, the next time a similar incident occurs, he will be smart enough to ignore you - which brings us to the second consequence. 2. You create a gap.

In context, when you want others to accept you for who you are, you also need to accept who they are. Some friends can be rude when correcting you - tactless with their words.

By shrugging off an opportunity to grow, regardless of this person's character, motive or choice of words, it will be your loss. It is your perspective that counts. When you accept your friend's correction, you also give your friend a seat of importance in your life. It is also a means of telling him, you have the right to tell me what needs to be corrected. Doing the opposite, leaves a connotation that we're just 'good time' buddies. Don't cross the line. Humility is accepting your weaknesses. Charles Stanley, in his book Relationship Principles of Jesus, also made me reflect that the trait or attitude we despise from other people is the same exact attitude that we possess. Similarly, if I may I add, it may also be true that the reason why you dislike someone is because you're jealous of that person: you wish you had something she has or you hope to be in the position she is in. I didn't want to believe this either when I first heard it from a Bible Study. But based on personal experience, I encourage you that once you feel a tingle of dislike in your heart, take it as a warning to check your heart. It might just be you who is in the wrong. Grab every opportunity to learn. Be humble.

Posted via email from h3sean's posterous

Linkbuilding Factors | Linkbuilding Levels | The Different Levels of Linkbuilding

First and foremost, I would just like to say that linkbuilding is here to stay. Social will NOT take over linkbuilding's value and effects. There are different levels of linkbuilding that we use in our team that I think you should be familiar of too.

We have killed God

Religion is banned in debates. Christianity is frowned upon by the world. God has been killed by atheists.

This entry has been inspired by Ravi Zacharias’ podcast: “The Search for Absolutes in a Pluralistic Society”

The German philosopher Nietsche wrote this story in his book  Die fröhliche Wissenschaft(Gay Science)

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market-place, and cried incessantly: “I am looking for God! I am looking for God!”   As many of those who did not believe in God were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. Have you lost him, then? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they shouted and laughed. The madman sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances.

“Where has God gone?” he cried. “I shall tell you. We have killed him – you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? 

Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God’s decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us – for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto.”

Here the madman fell silent and again regarded his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern to the ground, and it broke and went out. “I have come too early,” he said then; “my time has not come yet. The tremendous event is still on its way, still travelling – it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the distant stars - and yet they have done it themselves.”  It has been further related that on that same day the madman entered divers churches and there sang a requiem. Led out and quietened, he is said to have retorted each time: “what are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchres of God? God is dead. We have killed Him.”

via h3sean.com

Posted via email from h3sean's posterous

Reverse SEO

inShare0

Search Engine Reputation Management is getting increasingly popular these days. These are times when free thought and opinion is honored by the search results in blogging platforms, forums, social networks, etc. Because of this, companies that commit mistakes (who doesn’t?) can face grave consequences in having bad reputation results in the search engines. Reverse SEO is exactly for managing these negative search engine results.

When a bad Reputation pops up

You won’t really know when one of your employees or high level staff will do something stupid. You won’t really know if or when your product will fail. You won’t really know if an unreasonable, irate customer will walk in your door. You won’t really know if that customer knows how to do SEO. You won’t really know when you’re gonna get a bad reputation in the search engines. What you need to know is what to do when this happens.

How you can put it down

There are different ways and approaches that you can do in order to put a bad reputation in the search results down. There’s the ‘strategic’ method and the ‘grinding’ method.

Strategic

1) Tell Google

If something goes wrong, the first thing you can do is to check if there is anything against Google guidelines in the entry. If there is, you can report them to the big daddy of search and have that entry de-indexed. Here’s Google’s ‘against the guidelines’ list:

• My confidential, personal information is appearing in search results (e.g. name, address, phone number, medical records)
• A piece of content I am concerned about has already been removed by the webmaster but still appears among the search results
• I have found a site that is engaging in suspicious behavior
• I would like incorrect or inaccurate information to be removed from search results
• My full name or the name of my business appears on an adult content site that’s spamming Google’s search results
• A page appearing in Google’s search results is violating my company’s trademark rights
• One or more pages on my site have been removed due to a legal complaint, and I would like them restored.
• I have a legal issue that is not mentioned above

2) Settlement

There is arguably nothing more fulfilling than being reconciled with a brother. Reaching a mutual agreement between the offended party who owns the bad reputation and the company itself can sometimes be the best and easiest way to remove a bad reputation from the web. It can be accomplished in 3 easy steps:

1. Contact the webmaster
2. Ask for a meeting – be at your best
3. Negotiate for a compromise between both parties

This is usually done in the form of monetary settlements. Since the company has incurred personal, (and sometimes emotional) damage to the customer, there can be high demands from the offended party. If the bad reputation is affecting the business and the brand in a negative way, take care of it.

Weigh it out. Are the demands of the customer weightier than the damages incurred of the bad reputation? If it’s a no, then give in to the demands. Don’t think about it anymore – just do it. Every second, there are 3 billion searches happening globally. Why take a risk? Who knows if .1% of those searches could be about your brand?

via seo-hacker.com

Posted via email from h3sean's posterous

SEO Hacker Team

Ever wondered about who the people behind SEO Hacker are? I’ve been trying to get this out for a while but we haven’t been able to take a complete photo shoot until now. So without further ado, I would like to introduce to you the God-sent people who have helped SEO Hacker become what it is today.

Sean Si is the head-honcho and editor-in-chief of SEO Hacker. He is a Bible-believing born-again Christian blogger in God and You. He is passionate about teaching, speaking, leadership development, personal growth, SEO and God. Get in touch with him through:  |  |  |

Angelyn Co is arguably one of the best managers around. She can make people produce – outsourced or in-house, you name it. Her contribution to SEO Hacker is priceless. She’s also the queen mother of the team and we all love her.

 

Kevin Si is an artist from the deep roots of his soul. He loves to work fast so that he can flitter around Facebook and 9gag. He is also in charge of front-end web development and design and giving the team a good morale boost when we’re all salivating with heavy workload.

 

Austin Takahashi is the team mascot, singer, dancer, performer, DJ, entertainer, philosopher, movie critic extraordinaire – you name it. He can be anything. But for now he’s primarily our blog manager. Takes care of all our blogs like they were balloons. If it doesn’t make sense, that’s probably his soul. Follow him at @autitakahashi

 

Vince Salud is the man to go to when things get overloaded. He’s able to carry the extra load and run the field. He is also SEO Hacker’s PPC Manager. He is also passionate about cars and girls. Single and ready to mingle. Yeah.

 

Robert Cipriano with  his suave looks and demeanor is a guy who will see through in finishing the work assigned to him. He is a born-again Christian and is passionate in sharing God’s Word through his Internet Christian Radio Station, Truth-on-air. He’s in charge of SEO Hacker’s Linkbuilding campaigns.

 

Richmond Ibasco is not what you will call a typical programmer. He is a guy who knows how to have fun in his own definition of the word. And lots of it. He is the lead back-end developer and programmer of SEO Hacker. A programming genius and hard-core gamer. Don’t let the good-boy looks deceive you.

via seo-hacker.com

Posted via email from h3sean's posterous

The Prosperity Test: How God blessed me Triple in 16 days | Tithing | Testimony

Just recently, I’ve been struggling to give my tithe to God – because I will be going negative. I’ve had this bad habit of waiting 3 months until I give God 3 months worth of my tithe. I’m not saying that it’s a sin to do so. All I’m saying is that it’s much better if I give God my tithe the moment I get my income for the month. This is my testimony about tithing and God’s great financial blessings to me.

This entry has been inspired by God’s blessings in my life – His molding of my character, and His recent prosperity test for me. To you oh Lord, I give my greatest thanks and praise. May this entry always glorify you!

And for the month of February, I’ll be going negative if I do give my tithe to God. Bad budgeting.

You see, I’ve been supporting campus missionaries. And there’s this specific campus missionary that I give a sizable amount to. My support for this person is charged via credit card. On November 2011, I cut that specific credit card due to bad service. What happened was, my support for that campus missionary got cut too – 4 months behind as of February 2012. I was only able to transfer the billing to my other credit card on Feb 2012.

That money isn’t mine. I pledged it to God to give to that campus missionary. Because it was 4 months already, it was an even bigger amount. I knew that I’ll be going negative on March’s credit card billing. I asked God if my support to that campus minister could be considered as my ‘tithe’ – apparently God said ‘NO’. Little did I know that God’s ‘No’ is because He wants to bless me more than that.

Let’s roll back a little bit – where I am now

I’m an internet marketer and SEO specialist. Right now I’m the proprietor and managing director of SEO Hacker – an internet marketing company. We offer a wide variety of best-quality services and we prove our worth by applying our internet marketing strategies to our own website. Right now we have 10 wonderful full-time workers (including me!) and a lot of part time writers and are looking for more people!

The company was started by God in my life through helping me test and experiment with this blog, God and You. I was not born rich. My family is not rich. I had no money to start a business. No capital at all – ZERO. And yet, God started the company with me from doing freelance SEO work – to signing contracts with big name clients. God is my provider.

The SEO Hacker Team

The company earns a good amount each month and I get to keep a portion for myself – enough for me to spend for myself, my dates with my wonderful girl, my family, etc… It was a blessed amount. It was also more than enough for me to give and support other people in need. Which, I believe, God has called me to. And to top it all off, I get to save a fair amount at the end of each month.

All these blessings were brought to me by God just like that in the year 2010 when I graduated college. He just provides!

But last year (2011), I had no new contracts to boost up my savings and earnings even if I worked hard for them. Strange. Still, I gave my tithe to God and my support to other people.

But February 2012 was different – I was going to go red.

I didn’t want to go red.

I want to get married this year – and, I can humbly and honestly tell you that I’m VERY far off financially.

via h3sean.com

Posted via email from h3sean's posterous

How Foursquare affects SEO | Foursquare Optimization

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, are among some of the many social media outlets that affect SEO.  However, what many local businesses don’t know is how Foursquare can also aid in their SEO efforts.

This entry is a guest post by Alexis Tate

Foursquare emerged in 2009 and was deemed the “new Twitter” in 2010.  A social media outlet specifically created to allow users to “check-in” to their favorite restaurants, stores, etc., receive deals, and share their check-ins with friends, Foursquare is yet another free social media tool to be used by businesses to better their SEO and overall sales.

Here’s how Foursquare works:

1. Users create an account and check-in to the places they go.
2. Participating businesses offer deals and discounts to those who check-in as well as specials to those who are “regulars.”
3. Users’ check-ins not only get shared with their Foursquare friends, but to all of their Facebook friends and Twitter followers if they opt to do so.

Foursquare encourages not only sharing, but brand loyalty.  It’s truly a win-win situation for those businesses and customers that choose to participate.

Apart from the impact sharing and customer incentives will have on a business’ online presence, Foursquare affects SEO in a very simple way: Businesses with Foursquare profiles get indexed and crawled by Google.  This means that it could directly affect business’ ranking on search engines.

via seo-hacker.com

Posted via email from h3sean's posterous

What is Coherence? Walking the Talk

There are only a few people I know who like listening to Ravi Zacharias. It might be a matter of personal taste, I don’t know, but by understanding Christianity through philosophy and logic gives me a sense of coherence in the what and why of the Christian worldview, sometimes as opposed to other competing worldviews.

Author’s note: this one is an extended reflection from a recent conversation over yogurt

Coherence, by dictionary definition, means:

a : systematic or logical connection or consistency

b : integration of diverse elements, relationships, or values

I remember one anecdote Ravi shared in one of his messages. At a conference in a university, while he was speaking a woman who stood up and exclaimed, “Whoever told you that the world needs to be coherent? Where did you get this idea that life had to be coherent? “ In a rather humorous manner Ravi replied, “Ma’am I’ll be very happy to answer your question, I just have one question for you. Do you want my answer to be coherent or incoherent?”

I think he has a point.

Coherence is significant – both in a philosophical worldview’s answers to the fundamental questions in life, and in terms of exhibiting our faith.

Gandhi once commented, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”(1) referring to the materialism of Christian countries in contrast to what Jesus claims in Luke 16:13.

Some of us may prove Gandhi’s point.

via h3sean.com

Posted via email from h3sean's posterous

3 Ways on How God Wants You to Pray

As we are mostly aware, a conversation is formed by two or more people. Whether close friends, the best of friends, just friends or mere acquaintances. I have learned that it is the same with prayer.

Special thanks to Tom Holladay’s book: Relationship Principles of Jesus.

Many of us mistake prayer as an activity: an act to do before/after meals; before bedtime, before driving. Some also think of it as an emergency button. Something to be pushed in times of desperation, emergency or need. Others think of it as a way to adjust how God thinks. Still some of us however, think of it as a duty, a part of his or her daily routine in order to be good.

Comparing it with our daily conversations, many of us only talk with our seatmate because we didn’t hear what the teacher said about an assignment. Others only had a talk with a colleague because he/she is in very good terms with your superior. And still some only had a conversation with a vendor because he/she is a famous gossiper.

You see, sadly I learned that many of us have shallow conversations with God because we’re used to having this type of conversations everyday. We become too busy and hectic with our own schedules and agendas that we tend to neglect the fact that we had not communicated with God, or not really. We forget the fact that He is very much involved in our lives; our Father and the Lord Almighty.

In Luke 18 verse 1 and Luke 11 verses 5-13, Jesus shares 2 parables of contrast of what God is not. He talks about a Parable of the Persistent Widow pleading to an ungodly judge for justice and an unhelpful friend who wouldn’t lend bread for a friend. At the same time, Jesus teaches how to pray without ceasing.

The widow chose to be persistent with her plea for justice and so the judge agreed. The friend chose to ask for bread with audacity and so his neighbor got up from his bed and gave him. Our choices count.

1. Be Persistent. Remember when you were 8 and you wanted so bad to go to the amusement park and so you pleaded with your parents to bring you? You gave them all sorts of reasons as to why you wanted to go. You also most probably asked more than at least 5 times, am I right? You kept doing so until your mom said yes or when your dad told you, you can’t. In short, you only stopped when you received an answer.

When we were young, we persisted our parents for something we want because we know that only they can answer and satisfy what want. We depend on them. So why is it that now, when we are older, we forget that God is dependable and He answers ALL our prayers?

Is it because we fear He won’t answer our petty requests? Or perhaps God is not capable of the impossible?

2. Be confident. To answer the first question, we find Luke 11: 9-10, Jesus says “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”

For the second question, we have Luke 1: 37 (NASB) “For nothing is impossible with God.”

Confidence has a lot to do with trust if you ask me. Trust has a lot to do with understanding. Understanding only comes when you personally have a relationship with God. So we go back to basics: do you have a personal relationship with God? If yes, then great. If no, then I would understand that this would be quite a big step. But still, I personally encourage you to take it for you will be surprised with what God can do with you. For those that have, please bless our readers and share.

Confident prayers come with expectations. Just like when you call a close friend and asks her to call you back. You expect a call or an answer. Pray expectantly.

3. Be Reverent. When Jesus taught His disciples how to pray, he started with “Our Father, who are in heaven, Holy be Your Name”. Jesus revered His dad. Note that He has a personal relationship with Him to start with. Then Jesus acknowledges that God is in the realm of power and control. I like how Tom Holladay pictures heaven this way. God is bigger than what you and I could ever imagine. You are talking to the God of the universe, the Creator of all, how then can He not be honored and praised?

We each have our own conversational style when we talk with our friends and loved ones. In this day and time, with the help of technology, we even have different modes too. God however, has no form or style that He prefers. You don’t even have to worry about timing.

God welcomes you to pray. Talk with Him today.

via h3sean.com

Posted via email from h3sean's posterous

Online Reputation Management Guide | Social Media

Social media is a key player to your online reputation management. Good things and bad things are posted everyday. Some get noticed and some get left behind. Extremely good things and controversially bad things get popular – and go viral. Social Media Reputation management is a fluid and critical platform of your online reputation management.

Social media has the ability to make good things even better and bad things even worse. It has the power to supersize information and share them to the world. It puts things in a micrscope and stretches the specimen to the size that the microscope sees. And if your brand is under its supersizing mercy because of ‘something gone wrong’ – your reputation will be greatly affected.

So here’s a simple online reputation management guide to help you in your Social Media Reputation:

Inside the ring

This pertains to your reputation inside the social network. How you deal with news and events and happenings that will tarnish your company’s reputation inside the social network’s ring of influence will be discussed under this category.

Prevention

Creating and publishing great content

Coca Cola’s ‘Content 2020′ video is an example of great content that helped boost their company’s online branding.

This increase in online branding will help drown out any other searches that are happening around in the social network for any other content connected to their brand – including derogatory ones.

Make sure your social account ranks in that social network’s search engine

For example: Make sure your Facebook page is optimized to appear as top result in Facebook’s search engine results when your brand is searched for. There are other ‘hate pages’ that you wouldn’t want ranking above you. There are a lot of social network account optimization tips and strategies available out there.

Here’s one by Kristi Hines: How to Optimize 7 Popular Social Media Profiles for SEO

And here’s another one by your favorite SEO blogger: Google Plus Optimization

Clearance

A lot of things can happen inside the ring. Usually these things are sparked by a disgruntled employee or one of the representatives of your brand doing something stupid – and it is caught or leaked on photo, video, or news.

Truthfulness

If the bad news happened to pierce your prevention strategies, the first step to clearance is to verify the truthfulness of the content. If it is indeed from your company then the best thing you can do is to publish a public apology about it. If the apology is true, chances are, it will also be shared alongside the derogatory content. If the public apology is creative, chances are it will also go viral.

If the content happens to be untrue, you can publish a statement that the company has verified the truthfulness of the content and has concluded that it is misinformation. Again, publishing creative content about the verification of the derogatory content’s truthfulness increases the virality of your innocence.

Any derogatory content published inside the ring gives you no control over it. Chances are, people may keep on sharing that content if it feeds their curiosity and popularity as curators of content. What you can do is create content alongside that derogatory content – and try to make it as viral.

Remember, in online reputation management – when you reach the clearance stage, it means you’ve already lost. Your prevention strategy is always key.

Outside the ring

Social media can still help influence your reputation outside the social network – particularly in the search engines.

Prevention

As mentioned in the first Online Reputation Management tutorial, social network accounts can help your Online reputation management prevention strategy. Getting into all the authoritative social networks, and establishing and optimizing your social network accounts can be a solid foundation for your online reputation outside the ring.

Search engines love real social network accounts. And they usually show up in the search engine results page. Just take a look at Oreo’s example:

Facebook, Twitter and Youtube easily shows up in the top 10 search results. Protecting your top 10 results in the Search engine results page is very important – powerful social network accounts make it so much easier.

There are a lot of ways you can increase the authority and trust of your social network accounts – the best ones are to:

• Link to them
• Optimize them
• Update them frequently by posting in them

via seo-hacker.com

Posted via email from h3sean's posterous

Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's

I didn’t quite get it why Jesus had to add that last phrase ‘and to God what is God’s’ – what is Jesus pertaining to? Everything? God owns everything. But why did He have to state the obvious during a time when he was being asked a trick question?

This entry was inspired by Ravi Zacharias in one of his podcasts and by Matthew 22:15-22

Let’s take a short look at the passage:

Matthew 22:15-22 (NIV)

Paying the Imperial Tax to Caesar

¹⁵ Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. ¹⁶ They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. ¹⁷ Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial taxto Caesar or not?”

¹⁸ But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? ¹⁹ Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, ²⁰ and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”

²¹ “Caesar’s,” they replied.

Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

²² When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

The Context

Taxes during the time were levied on people who are not Roman citizens. The Israelites hated this. They hated Roman tax. They were anti-government. But they also know that it is lawful to obey authority – under the governing human laws.

The Herodians thinks it is only right to pay taxes. They were pro government. Pro Caesar.

That means whether Jesus gives a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’, he will be hated – either by the Israelites or by the Herodians.

At this point, you are going to choose between two evils.

But Jesus did not.

He gave the most amazing, out of the box, out of this world, and yet simple, answer that we could never have thought of. He answered with the obvious and yet the answer is also an elusive one. Showing them a denarius, He simply asked: “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” and it was obvious who really owns the coin.

via h3sean.com

Posted via email from h3sean's posterous