Unclank

Until God Steps in

2012-02-20T19:51:00.001-08:00

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Two weeks ago, I’ve decided to stay home on Saturday since I’ve been out on after-office meetings the whole week. It actually gave me the time I needed to catch up on podcasts I subscribe to but barely listen. That time I listened to Timothy Keller, and his message was a bit (well, actually it was a lot) sobering. He talked about having a crushed spirit – its priority, complexity, solitude and how to heal it.

Author’s Note: this one may come across as emo. You have been warned. =p

The human spirit can endure in sickness,

but a crushed spirit who can bear? – Proverbs 18:4

Before, I would often find myself in seasons where I feel disconnected with everyone – that “nobody understands” me or what I’m going through, and people who attempt at doing so will most likely fail. During these seasons I would just lie in bed – confining myself in isolation but at the same time waiting for someone, somewhere to reach out. I would check my phone every so often if anyone sent me anything that would have the slightest semblance of care or concern. I’d have my headset on to drown out both silence and noise while I draw for hours on end, trying to sketch on paper whatever it was that weighed my heart down – struggling to have visual recognition, hoping to make some sense out of it.

Other times I would be in the middle of the crowd, yet still feel detached – often wanting to withdraw.

In all honesty, sometimes I still experience these phases.

I remember one friend back in college telling me, “I wanna understand how you think.” I answered, “Don’t. You’ll go crazy.” I was serious when I said it because sometimes I, too, would reside with the notion that I don’t and can’t understand my own self. All I know is that something was wrong, but I couldn’t determine exactly what it was.

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Link Prospector: A Link Prospecting Tool by Citation Labs

2012-02-19T09:53:00.001-08:00

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So I came in touch with one of the best Linkbuilders in the field of SEO, Garrett French. I follow his posts in Search Engine Watch – simply because they are awesome and provide high-value information to me and my team. I asked him if I could have a sneak peek into one of his latest projects - a link prospecting tool named Link Prospector.

Garrett helped build one of the most popular linkbuilding tools available in the market right now – Ontolo. Knowing that, it’s pretty much a no-brainer that I really had to look into what he’s up to now in his new-founded company Citation Labs.

After going through Link Prospector, here’s my two-cents about it:

Ease of Use

Link Prospecting Capability

Link Prospects Quality

Features

Overall:

Dashboard

The dashboard lets you check out your previous prospects, rename or delete them. It also lets you create a new campaign. Using Link Prospector is very simple and easy to use. You don’t have a whole lot of options to confuse you. You only have to start by creating a new campaign.

After you have created a new campaign, you will see this screen. Obviously, you have to click on Find Prospects to start prospecting.

Prospecting

When you are inside your campaign, you can then create a new report. The Prospects section of Link Prospector lets you choose your Report Type and filter your report by Region / Country, Search Scope, Depth, TLD and Date Range. These are very powerful filters and can really help you narrow your prospecting down.

There are different report types you can choose from. You can filter your reports to:

Guest Posting – Discover blogs who allow guest posts and offer your writing services.

Links Pages – Find the resource and links pages that will add a link to your site.

Content Promoters – Find writers who are likely to cover your story, or repost your infographics and articles.

Reviews – Look for people who review products or services in your space.

Giveaways – Offer goods and services in exchange for coverage.

Donations – Be charitable and earn links through sponsorship opportunities.

Commenting – Find the posts relevant to your key phrases. Join the conversation, and link to your site.

Expert Interviews – identify domain experts you can interview, or pitch your own expertise.

Directories – Identify quality directories to help you get your site listed quickly.

Forums – Add value to the conversation and build brand equity.

Topical Blogs – Pinpoint the blogs that cover your industry, and are likely to post about your site.

Professional Organizations – Locate trades and professional organizations you can join.

Research: Content – Find top tips for writing great content.

Custom – Use any amount of research phrases you like.

You can filter your prospecting further by using the Select Region filter – to which country and region you’re looking for a prospect in. You can also filter the Search Scope of your results -either web only, blog only, or both.

You can also narrow your results down further by filtering the depth of the results to the first 20 results – giving you the top 20 most relevant results from the tool.

TLD filter is one of the best features of Link Prospector. Getting a thousand .edu or .gov most relevant results that can help you in your link building opportunities is the ‘shiznit’. It’s amazing to have a list of 1,000 .edu prospects – even if you get just a 3% conversion rate, that’s still 30 .edu links for you. If you didn’t know, .edu and .gov are high authority links – and it’s really difficult getting some for yourself.

To top it all off, you can choose the freshness of your prospects by being able to choose a date range. You can choose ‘Any time’, ‘Past 24 hours’, ‘Past Week’, ‘Past Month’, or ‘Past Year’.

The Research Phrases section is all about your keywords and/or niche. This is where you are telling Link Prospector ‘These are the kinds of websites I’m looking for’. ‘Exclude Domains’ deals with your exclusions (in the exclusions section of the tool) – which you should fill up to tell Link Prospector which URLs you want Link Prospector to exclude from the report. You use the exclusion tool if you have already been to that URL and have contacted the webmaster or you have gotten a successful link, etc

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How to do Online Reputation Management? ORM Tutorial

2012-02-13T04:46:00.001-08:00

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Online Reputation Management (ORM) deals with everything about your company’s brand in the online community. This community includes the entire web – search engines, forums, blogs, news sites, social networking sites, etc…

Online Reputation Management is first being mindful of your company’s online brand then building on that brand in the search engines (chances are this is where you are sought for the most) through social media and other websites that produce and disseminate content.

Online Reputation Management is done through a funnel of three main processes:

Being mindful of your company’s online brand (Monitoring)

First and foremost, you have a brand – as the owner and manager of that brand, you have to be mindful about it. Know what’s happening to your brand. Know what’s the latest news about it. Know what people think about it. Where are you mentioned? What are they talking about when your brand is mentioned?

There are tons of tools that you can use in order to monitor your brand in the online world. Some of which are:

Google Alerts

This will be your best friend when you’re monitoring your brand online. You can track web results, news, blogs, video results, and groups results. There is no better way to get all of your brand mentions than Google Alerts. ‘Nuff said.

Yahoo Alerts

Set up for free to track news by keyword, stocks, local news, feeds and more. Receive notifications via email, Yahoo Messenger or mobile.

Twitter Search

Twitter has grown to be one of the best places to monitor your brand in. Almost everyone in the Twitter world retweets content with or without hashtag. The beauty of Twitter search is that it also lets you set-up search parameters such as dates, links, location, sentiment, Twitter account, and more.

Social Mention

Social mention is the social media version of Google Alerts. It helps you monitor your brand in different social platform throughout the web. you can subscribe to the feed, get email alerts or download the Excel file.

Building on that brand (Prevention)

Online Reputation Management extends to these factors connected to you:

Your Name

Company

Brand(s)

Product(s)

High profile employees

Handles/usernames

If one of these things get affected by a bad reputation, it would usually spread itself to the others like a festering disease. Protecting your name, company, products and high profile employees are carry less impact compared to your brand (which should almost always be your username). For this tutorial, we will be discussing more about your brand and how to protect it.

BRAND / USERNAME:

This is the best thing you can do in managing your online reputation. Build and build and build and build on your brand. Branding is key to ORM. Surprisingly, it’s also arguably your most powerful asset when it comes to SEO. Building your brand can start from getting all of your brand’s social media usernames. You can find it out using Knowem.

As soon as you know on which social media sites your brand is not yet taken, grab the opportunity to register it there. These accounts are your online licenses to build online estates. It will boost the chances of you filling up the first page of your brand SERP if you own powerful social media accounts with your brand as a username.

Some of the key social media accounts you SHOULD get are:

Facebook profile / page

Twitter

Google+ Account / page

Quora

LinkedIn

If you have these accounts, interlink them with each other and link to them from your blog / website and they should rank really well in the search engines.

Get a Blog

Another great way to prevent bad reputation webpages from ranking as your brand is to create and maintain a blog. Search engines love blogs. That’s enough for you to know that you SHOULD get a blog for yourself in order for you to rank well and to have that powerful leverage for your brand that you can flexibly use whenever there is any newly published bad reputation out there.

There are a lot more reasons why you should have a blog for your company – you can publish company news, establish a readership, promote products and services, etc…

We will be discussing more about ORM Prevention methods in the next lessons of this tutorial.

Fixing any damaging content to your brand (Cleaning)

Once the damage is done and you don’t have any ammo to fire back, here’s what you need to immediately do:

Hire an ORM consultant

Contact the owner of the bad reputation site and humbly ask if he/she can put it down

If it is against the law, contact any possibly concerned government body and ask them for help to bring it down

Ask Google to de-index it if there are any elements in the page against Google’s guidelines

If all of those are not an option for you, start with getting all those powerful social media accounts and create a network of links to them using your website. Start a blog and interlink that blog with those social accounts and with your main website. It will take more time for these to rank – and most probably the damage will already be done by then.

ORM work is mostly about establishing that bullet-proof reputation in the web by getting all the possible ‘real estate accounts’ you can for your brand.

As much as possible, the Online Reputation Management campaign / work SHOULD NOT reach the Cleaning stage. It amplifies the workload on any Online Reputation Manager – all the while the damage has already occurred. The funny thing is, most companies that look for Online Reputation Management only do so whenever there is damage already done. Online Reputation Management is not about damage control, it is about establishing online brand foundations.

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Online Reputation Management

2012-02-08T01:51:00.001-08:00

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A business’ reputation is arguably its most valuable asset. Marketing is all about brand building. We invest in our brand because we believe it is what will make the business grow and flourish. Once that brand gets a bad reputation, everything about the business gets dramatically affected. Online Reputation Management is all about protecting your brand or cleaning it if things get dirty.

The internet is an area of free ideas, facts, opinions and voice. It is a place where you can directly or indirectly find almost anything and everything you’re looking for. It is also a place mostly beyond your control. And often times, there will be people you don’t agree with – and people who don’t agree with you. When this happens, the internet can be a very messy place.

Disgruntled customers today mostly vent out their anger and frustration in the web – where they can freely do so and have an audience to boot. For companies, it might be unfair that these occurrences take place – but often times the ‘unfair incident’ happened to the customer first, and the web is their place of justice.

So just how do you make sure that these rants don’t go into the first page of the search engines? How do you prevent unwanted, devastating comments and feedback from popping up in the top results of the Search Engine Results Page?

I’ve compiled an Online Reputation Management Tutorial / Guide for you so that you can do your part in helping your company / other companies protect or fix their reputation on the web.

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Knowing What to Prioritize: The Reason Behind your Priorities

2012-02-07T07:58:00.001-08:00

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Life tends to throw us rolls of punches in the form of heavy work, pressure, problems, conflicts and arguments. Because of this, positive psychology teaches us to focus our energies on the good things and be happy.

“The truth is, whenever tasks need to be accomplished, there is the temptation to make the task you are doing, more important than the people for whom you are doing the task.” -Tom Holladay

Special thanks to Tom Holladay for his book The Relationship Principles of Jesus.

Not to downplay this type of ‘happy’ thinking, but personally, I found this mindset temporarily relieving but emotionally stifling.

For example when Adam focuses on work, does over time and skips meals because he feels fulfilled and rewarded for it and at the same time evades his wife, Susan’s sermons. There is something wrong. And then Adam defends, “I’m working hard to provide for you and to pay the bills”.

I encourage you today to think of what the most important thing is for you. And why do you do it? If the reason why you do, involves another person, then I urge you to think about this: Does that person appreciate it? If on the other hand, it only involves you, “Is it worth-it?”

If not, then I want to share with you what I learned today.

1. Build Relationships.

Before we get caught up working hard in doing things for someone we love/value, first get busy with building your relationship with him/her.

Whether you are a parent who wants to make up for lost time with your child, or a teenager wanting to make amends with your parents or a business owner who wants to try again, build relationships first.

The problem is, many times we forget the more important things because the lesser important things can also be a source of happiness / fulfillment. In Adam’s case, this is why he spent more hours at work while Susan waited and felt unloved. He failed to see the bigger picture of what Susan had offered, can offer, and will offer compared to work.

If we just continue to focus on what makes us happy (work. sports, hobby) because of its temporary gain, we inevitably sacrifice the more valuable blessing given us: relationships.

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Why Submission is a Blessing

2012-02-04T00:00:00.001-08:00

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In my devotion today, God spoke to me about submission. Today, men and women alike do not see the logic and significance behind authorities placed above us. We are most likely to grumble and complain especially when the weaknesses and negative attitudes of the one in authority are evident to us and to others. We wonder, “Why, of all people was I assigned here?”, “Why is my mom this way?” Or “It’s okay not to pay the right taxes, the government is corrupt anyway.”

In Romans 13 verse 1, God said“¹ Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.”

You might say, “But my dad is really unreasonable. You wouldn’t even dare think of that verse when you meet him.” I may agree with you and so would the whole neighborhood, but God placed you there, didn’t He? Do you believe it in your heart, that He is God? Have you considered that He has a purpose for you there? Has it occurred to you that this may be Him answering your prayers when you prayed, “Please make me more patient?”

You just may perhaps be the only reflection of the living Christ in your family. office mates, friends or classmates lives.

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Loving beyond your Heart

2012-01-30T03:09:00.001-08:00

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Lately I’ve been going through a lot in my personal walk with the Lord as well as in my family and love life. Relationships are a part of life. And sooner or later, you will fall in love. When that happens, I just want you to remember this entry – that you need to love beyond your heart.

This entry has been inspired by the numerous conflicts I have experienced in my life and my learnings and realizations from them. I wanted to share this with all of you because I believe it is important and that you need to hear this.

Being a man, God has assigned me the honor of being the leader in my relationship with my girl. He has designated me to bring her through the journey of spiritual intimacy, physical wellness, emotional wisdom, financial intelligence, and intellectual wisdom. This is not an easy task.

In fact it is a task that can only be possible through the grace of God. Without the grace of God, I fell into the trap of trying to do this on my own. I tried to love and lead her with my heart. And I soon found out how disastrous it could be.

You see, the heart can hurt. And when the heart gets hurt, the usual, natural tendency is:

Guys withdraw and wait things out until… (etc…)

Girls say things they think will soothe their anxiety and work the conflict out

Unfortunately, I’m the kind of guy who withdraws. I realized that I am not honoring God when I do so because I am not leading her when I withdraw.

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Google Plus Optimization

2012-01-25T07:06:00.001-08:00

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Google Plus is gaining momentum now more than ever – especially with the SEO world. It is continuously becoming a major factor – especially now that Search Plus Your World has rolled out. Google Plus Optimization isn’t so far from being an SEO technique that we can all use.

Search Plus Your World has changed the search landscape – making Google + a very powerful factor in Google search. At that, you should really put effort and focus on optimizing your Google Plus. Otherwise, you could get behind the Google shift – from links to social.

Name / Brand as the Page Title

The name of your Google+ Page will be included in the Title of the page. Again, Title tags are very important and hold considerable weight in on-site optimization. My advice is to put in a casual keyword in your Google+ Page’s Name section. Don’t put keywords that can shame you whenever you will use your Google+ Page account to post a comment on another person’s Google+ posts.

SEO Hacker is fortunate enough to have the word ‘SEO’ on its name – so our Google+ page already has our keyword casually inserted in.

Meta Description

The Meta Description of your Google+ Page is the one right below your Name/Brand. You should include your keywords inside to help you rank better for those keywords in Search Plus Your World.

When people find you in Google, this is evidently what they will see. As of now, SEO Hacker put its company slogan “Be Visible. Get Searched. Let’s Make this Happen.” in its Google+ Page. You can put yours there too.

Introduction Section

The introduction part is the body of your Google + Page. This is where you should put in all the stuff that people will want to know about you. This is also your chance to put in your primary keywords in a way that you can be strategically subtle about it. You can also take advantage of its ability to let you write stuff out in bulleted format to make it more reader-friendly.

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Common Mistakes of Men in a Relationship

2012-01-20T23:28:00.001-08:00

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Men were designed to lead. Created by God to be the first human being to work and prepare and lead before he meets his bride.Why then do we see men left and right failing to lead their marriage? Failing to lead their girl?

This entry was inspired by my discipler Aumar Aguilar. To you I give my thanks in helping me see the truth about leading in a relationship.

Loving a woman too much

When a man loves a woman too much, he sometimes take leading for granted. He adopts to his girl instead of leading her. They join the girl in her level instead of him stepping up. This is a major and common problem in relationships. Don’t get em wrong, loving your girl is a wonderful thing – but putting it above the place of God is a sin. Loving someone too much is idolatry.

Men have the tendency to step back and let others lead. Men have the tendency to be complacent. And when this happens, then women’s tendency to take lead kicks in. This is why we see relationships here and there where the men are silent and the women are the ones making the decisions.

There is something wrong.

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How to find the Perfect Mate

2012-01-12T20:49:00.001-08:00

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No, I’m not talking about your coffee. Our generation today has been hurt and burned by relationships turned sour. It’s not an exaggeration to say that this is a question that a lot of people have in their hearts. Just how do you find the perfect mate?

This entry has been inspired by the girl who holds my heart, and by my mentor Aumar Aguilar.

To think that we would have relationships all figured out 2,000 years after the death of Christ. It’s been so long and still it bothers us on how we can finally find someone – who knocks us off our feet. To find someone who makes us feel complete. Finding the perfect mate is a question that will always be left without a direct, one-line, blueprint answer. But there are guidelines we can use in order to finally find that person our hearts are yearning for.

1. Be the perfect mate

The perfect mate will only want the perfect mate. How can you attract somebody who’s supposed to be ‘perfect’ if you are not ‘perfect’ yourself? If he or she is ‘perfect’ then that person will have wisdom enough to only want what’s best for him/herself.

“The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” - Mark 12:31

The ‘perfect’ mate will be wise enough to love him/herself first – and look for the ‘perfect’ mate for him/herself too!

2. Seek God’s Heart

This is probably not the direct answer you’re looking for but it is the best one. Seeking God’s heart deals with a lot of things. And one of those things, is for you to be the person God wants you to be – in order for Him to finally present you to the ‘perfect’ one He has in store for you.

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” - Matthew 6:33

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How to Guest Post on a Blog

2012-01-12T01:41:00.001-08:00

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Guest posting is a very powerful linkbuilding technique. Basically in a guest post, you have full control. You can direct the title tag, anchor text of your backlink, number of words, images, author bio, etc. Let me show you where you have to start

Looking Out

First thing’s first. You have to look for blogsites where you can guest post in. Usually this is done through link prospecting. If you have established your list of blogs where you want to be heard, it’s now time to look for a way to get in touch with the webmaster.

Building Bridges

If you want to let your voice be heard, you have to sing to the webmaster first. Like his pages, Share his stuff, Retweet his entries and updates, leave insightful and encouraging comments in his blog. If you want to gain favor from the webmaster, you have to earn it. There is almost no other way on the web – unless you’re Justin Bieber.

Another option is to just shoot the webmaster an email even without investing much social media effort to catch the attention of the webmaster. This is a less effective way, but if you’re buying time – this works. And just for you, I’m going to reveal the guest posting email template that SEO Hacker is using now.

It is always better to establish and build on your relationship with the webmaster before asking for any favors. Guest posting is a mutual act but most webmasters think of it in a way that they’re giving you a favor instead of the other way around. You won’t want to go against that. Ride it. Make them feel how much you appreciate them and mean it.

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Dealing with the Pressures of Expectations

2012-01-06T20:29:00.001-08:00

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This article was inspired by the Holy Spirit where God spoke to me during my girly days. I hope you guys can bear with me.

For an early twenty’s coming from a Chinese family in the Philippines, we’re suddenly expected of a lot of things: help out in the family business, if not have your own; cook, manage the home, prepare for marriage, drive and be successful, am I right?

These might be easy for many of you out there. But for me, I’m in dire need of help. I know this blog entry seems a little different from all the other blogs we have written but I just want to encourage and be encouraged by you readers.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes when I’m being pressured, I tend to compare what I am, what I have and what I’m going thru with other people. I don’t exactly talk about it but it goes thru my head. Inevitably, God knows.

As a gentleman He is, He responded by reminding me of this verse, John 21: 22, “Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” This verse told me that Jesus is focused and holding me accountable in my own walk, not in the walk of my parents or loved ones. It’s about me and Him.

Whether or not I were jealous of the lives my friends have, overprotective of other family members or ‘controlling’ of the walk of a dear friend, God told me this has to stop. He knows best. As the Bible puts it in Luke 12: 25 “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”.

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Relationship Link Building

2012-01-04T22:10:00.001-08:00

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This is arguably the most powerful linkbuilding technique there is. Having great relationships around you to availably help you out in your linkbuilding efforts is a priceless arsenal to behold for any linkbuilder. The idea is simple.

This entry is part of the SEO Hacker School series: Linkbuilding Techniques

Give and Take

All relationships start with something – usually a conversation. As a linkbuilder myself, I always make it a point to communicate with the thought leaders in my niche – usually just for the heck of it. Talking with a friend doesn’t have to have any motive behind it. And that builds the relationship between both parties.

In the internet, communication can be in a form of various methods. It can be through a Tweet, a blog comment, an email, even a Facebook Page wall post! Believe me, a Tweet can go a long way. Jason Acidre and I started a linking partnership together through just a Tweet – and we got to know each other from there on.

Ana Hoffman, on the other hand, contacted me through email to invite me to guest post in her blog (which I did – about the importance of URL Slugs). This started a series of linking to and fro between us for the different blog entries that we have. It also started a mutual sharing relationship between us with our latest entries.

Kristi Hines has always been a very generous linker. A simple email to her asking about her opinion on using Google+ over Facebook sparked a great linking relationship between us. She has published numerous extremely helpful posts out in the web. She’s everywhere! And I’m ultimately privileged to be mentioned (and linked to) in her Friday roundups.

These are just samples of relationships that I’ve built over the course of my work in SEO Hacker.

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3 Overlooked Problems in Relationships Today

2012-01-04T17:54:00.001-08:00

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“When you’re 15, somebody tells you they love you, you’re gonna believe them.” This is how Taylor Swift put it in her own words. It’s so easy to get into a relationship today. People want to fall in love – to give love and to be loved. Because there is something to give and it feels great to receive. All the while, we leave 3 very important aspects of getting into a relationship unchecked.

This entry has been inspired by the book “Boy meets Girl”By Joshua Harris.

Jump-start my Heart

Lots and lots of relationships today start out quick. And usually they are plagued with impatience, lack of purpose and misguided emotions. As long as you find him handsome, he finds you pretty, and you say you love each other – that’s enough reason to get together. The world and society today definitely advocates these kinds of relationships.

Patience

Most young relationships are formed with impatience. People are anxious to be in a relationship for various reasons. You might feel left out, or you’re getting older, or no one better might come along, etc… It’s not wrong to desire to be in a relationship – but what is your motive? Is it the confidence that you’re ready for marriage and that God has brought someone godly into your life for you? Is it because you want what’s best for that person in terms of God’s Word and you can give it?

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Voltage Protectors Supplier in the Philippines

2011-12-30T02:48:00.001-08:00

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Travel. The movement of people/objects between relatively distant geographical locations through land, air and sea transports. More often than not, we bring bags or suitcases to carry our belongings like clothes, toiletries and electronic gadgets to name a few out of necessity. These electronic gadgets may come in the form of laptops, mobile phones or cameras for adults and ipods, playstation or tablets for kids which come with their corresponding bags, batteries and chargers. Yet there’s one thing that we often neglect to bring: voltage protectors.

Voltage protectors, as the name implies, are devices designed to protect our electronic gadgets from sudden surges or fluctuations in voltage by limiting if not shorting to ground any unwanted voltage to the recommended safe threshold level. A voltage protector is mostly compared to an Automatic Voltage Regulator (AVR ) because of their similar features: protecting the appliance plugged in from faults and fluctuations, built-in delay. Please note however their differences: Voltage Protectors merely cut power supply from the outlet to an appliance while an AVR regulates and continues to provide stable power to your appliance.

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News Release

2011-12-30T02:40:00.001-08:00

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I’m sure along your SEO journey, you’ve most probably already encountered news release. This linkbuilding technique is usually a great way to attract links through other publishers and press release websites. And as you well know, other publishers and press release websites can generate a lot of buzz – and they usually have good PageRank juice to boot!

This entry is part of the SEO Hacker School series: Linkbuilding Techniques

It all Boils down to Content

Again, the thing you need to start with is having a good, solid content that is newsworthy. Usually this content has to be fresh and new in your industry in order to spur interest with publishers. Always remember that in news pitching, you’re not just writing for any ordinary person. You are writing for publishers and other knowledgeable writers in your niche – who are usually as updated as you are!

Obviously, having a content that can be considered a ‘fresh scoop’ SHOULD be worthy of attention and media coverage. Once you have established your newsworthy content, it’s time to spread the word.

Getting it out

It’s not everytime that you publish the news in your own blog. Sometimes it is more strategic for you to publish it in press release websites such as Technorati or The HuffingtonPost.Why? Because they have a good, established amount of readers – some of whom are publishers such as yourself! And if they see you publishing in well known PR sites such as Technorati or The HuffingtonPost, they’re going to have an increased amount of respect for you.

You can either apply to become a writer for Technorati or be a top commenter to be able to write at The HuffingtonPost. Becoming a publisher in either one of these sites can be a good leverage for your news pitching strategy. It’s very hard to become a writer at The Huffington post though. But no matter, there are several other sites you can pitch news in.

Press Release Websites

24-7PressRelease.com – Free release distribution with ad-support

1888PressRelease.com – Free distribution, paid services gives you better placement and permanent archiving.

ClickPress.com – Distributs to sites like Google News and Topix.net, Gold level will also get you to sites like LexisNexis.

EcommWire.com – Focuses on ecommerece and requires you include an image, 3 keywords and links.

Express-Press-Release.com – Free distribution company with offices in 12 states.

Free-Press-Release.com – Easy press release distribution for free, more features for paid accounts.

Free-Press-Release-Center.info – Distributes your release, offers a web page with one keyword link to your site. Pro upgrade will give you three links, permanent archiving and more.

I-Newswire.com – Allows for free distribution to sites and search engines, premium membership differs only slightly in adding in graphics.

NewswireToday.com – All the usual free distribution tools, premium service includes logo, product picture and more.

PR.com – Not only will they distribute your press releases, but you can also set up a full company profile.

PR9.net – Ad supported press distribution site.

PR-Inside.com – European-based free press release distribution site.

PRBuzz.com – Completely free distribution to search engines, news sites, and blogs.

PRCompass.com – Distribute your press release with a free or paid version, others can vote it up ala Digg style.

PRUrgent.com – Not only distributes your release, but attempts to teach you how to write one, and even offers downloadable samples for you to work with.

Press-Base.com – Submit your release for free and get on their front page and the category of your choice.

PressAbout.com – A free press release service formatted as a blog.

PressMethod.com – Free press release distribution no matter what, but extra services based on the size of your contribution.

PRLeap.com – Free distribution to search engines, newswires, and RSS feeds. Fee based bumps get you better placement.

PRLog.org – Free distribution to Google News and other other search engines.

TheOpenPress.com – Gives free distribution for plain formatted releases, fees for HTML-coded releases.

Source: Mashable – 20+ Free Press Release Distribution Sites

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3 Things you Need to do with Bitterness

2011-12-30T01:51:00.001-08:00

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Ever had a time in your life when you got so offended that you were cringing with hateful emotions? Perhaps someone shamed you in public or a younger sibling disrespected you in front of friends with whom you hold good reputation? Or perhaps you are denied something – a material thing that you really wanted, or a relationship you were trying so hard to pursue. Unexpected things in life can trigger anger which can lead to hate – which can lead to bitterness.

“See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” - Hebrews 12:15

The Danger of Bitterness

Almost all murders that have happened in our world today is a result of unchecked anger which planted seeds of bitterness. This bitterness then grew its roots and tightly grasped into its host’s heart and soul – sucking out any good that the host could have done in its relationships with other people.

“Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.” - 1 John 3:15

The root of a plant is something that is usually unseen. It is below the surface of the ground it is on. The root is an anchor for the plant – it enables the plant to take shape and grow. Bitterness has been attributed to a root. It goes deeper and deeper into your heart and emotions. And the more you try to weed it out, the harder it is and the more painful.

The plant will grow thorns in your heart – whenever people try to get closer to you, your bitterness will wound them.

Bitterness is a parasite that rots your heart – but the worst part is, it eats up other relationships too.

Bitterness needs two things to grow:

A hurting host

Time

Results of Bitterness

When you let bitterness grow and establish its roots in you, the plant that results can vary – from murder, slander, gossip, hatred, anger, impatience, divorce, irateness, death, sadness, sickness, depression, etc… Whatever the resulting plant is, it will consequently affect other relationships.

You don’t know it, but bitterness is an act of holding on to a hurt and anger until it has a hold on you. No one wants anything to have a hold on them intentionally – but you won’t recognize that it’s exactly what bitterness is already doing to you.

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Citipointe Live Philippines Concert 2012

2011-12-25T21:30:00.001-08:00

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Citipointe Live, as you well know has been in the Philippines last 2010 with the ‘My Soul’ worship concert. That was a good 2 years ago. And now they’re gonna be back in Manila this February 2012 with the ‘Hope is Erupting’ Tour! It will be a series of worship seminars and concerts held at these venues:

DATE / TIME – VENUES
CONCERT
February 16, 2012 / 7PM – Bren Z. Guiao Convention Center(Pampanga)
February 20, 2012 / 7PM – Phil Sports Arena (former ULTRA)
SEMINAR
February 17, 2012 / 5-10PM – Plenary Hall, Paskuhan Village (Pampanga)
February 18, 2012 / 8AM-1PM – GT-Toyota, UP Diliman (Manila)

The first day at each venue will be devoted to intensive worship seminars, while the second day is for Citipointe Live’s concert. Multi-awarded local artist GLOC-9 will also be performing as the special guest of each concert.

Ticket Prices:
Concert
VIP A (Reserved Seating) – P1500
VIP B (Reserved Seating) – P1200
Ring Side (Reserved Seating) – P900
Lower Box (Free Seating) – P600
Gallery (Free Seating) – P300

Seminar Only
Regular Rate: P1200
Early Bird Rate: P1000 (Until December 31, 2011)

Seminar + Concert (Lower Box)
Regular Rate: P1800
Early Bird Rate: P1300 (Until December 31, 2011)

Aaron & Beck’s Shoutout about Hope is Erupting

Our 2011 album recording is FINALLY upon us. It seems like forever since we last recorded. 2 years to be exact. WAY too long!
This time around, we’re pretty excited and very calm about this project. I believe that’s because we have a killer team running the ship. Big shout out to everyone on our team. You’re the best!

We love what new songs do to the heart of God’s church. There is something powerful about a new anthem stirring and moving people to become so free and vulnerable in their worship to God.

This Sunday night is about common every day people coming together to pour their hearts out in worship to our King and Saviour. We are purposely creating a moment where the truth of Jesus can be revealed. A moment where people of all demographic and backgrounds, can once again allow the hope of Jesus Christ to erupt in their hearts. An experience where the hopeless, the lost and the broken can find refuge in their heavenly Father!

In all honesty, we don’t know what God is going to do on this night, but it’s going to be a life changing experience.
Let’s come together on this evening, hearts full of faith, determined to push the boundaries of our worship to God. Together, standing strong to bring forth the fame of His great and glorious name!

Nothin’ but BIG love
Aaron & Beck

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Why we Need Christmas

2011-12-23T19:45:00.001-08:00

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In history, the ones who recorded events and dates and wrote the stories altogether were mostly people who were hired to write about it. They were employed by generals, kings, queens -powerful people. Of course, hiring a scribe to write your history comes with a special perk. You can SUGGEST things. You can suggest that they downplay your defeats and shameful moments or erase it altogether. You can also suggest to exaggerate and heroize specific moments of triumph and greatness.

Of course, if the Scribe believes in his or her employer, the scribe would have no problem writing the story with the suggestions.

Let’s look at Jesus’ history as written by Matthew.

Genealogy of Jesus – Only the book of Matthew started with a genealogy

This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:

² Abraham was the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
³ Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,
Perez the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of Ram,
⁴ Ram the father of Amminadab,
Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
⁵ Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,
Obed the father of Jesse,
⁶ and Jesse the father of King David.

David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife,

- Matthew 1:1-6

It includes 4 very unpopular women:

Rahab the harlot, Ruth the moabite, Tamar the daughter-in-law of Judah who deceived him and the mother of Solomon who had been Uriah’s wife.

Now why did Matthew had to write about them? Wouldn’t you be writing all the good stuff when you want someone to look good? I mean, this is the Savior and Messiah Jesus Christ we’re talking about!

Two categories of unclean people:

“While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples.” - Matthew 9:10

“Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him.” - Luke 15:1

“When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” – Matthew 9:11

Sinners and Tax collectors – that’s how bad tax collectors were. They had their own category. They were considered traitors to their own nation because they were collecting tax for Rome. And as long as the Romans were happy with the tax, they can add any amount of surcharge they wanted for their tax collecting.

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Mobile Search Optimization (MSO)

2011-12-20T23:24:00.001-08:00

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So I’ve been lingering around with mobile search lately and found out a couple of resources stating that Google will rank websites with mobile versions higher – in mobile search. If this is the case, then we should all be grabbing mobile versions of our sites. You won’t want your competitor to outrank you just because he has a mobile website and you don’t, don’t you?

Let’s go Over the Stats, shall we?

Mobile Web is growing 8x faster than pc based web

70% of the world’s population now has a mobile phone

In 2010, mobile subscribers surpassed 5 billion

85% of children own a phone while only 73% own books at home

Since 2008 mobile data traffic is up 3000% and is expected to increase 40 fold over the next 5 years

January to march 2010, 314.7 million phones were activated

Android is growing at a rate of 886% – 160,000 android phones are being activated everyday

There are Twice as many web-enabled mobile devices today as there are internet connected PCs

Mobile Internet is growing faster than desktop internet ever did.

1,000,000 smart phones are activated every week

Google reports that mobile search volume is up 130% year-over-year

65% online search market share is eclipsed in mobile…where Google owns 95% of search.

A whopping 53% of Bing mobile queries are targeted on local. Meaning searchers in mobile devices are searching for local stuff like restaurants, tourist spots, the best bars, etc…

Ad CTRs on mobile devices were 37% more than desktop

Consumers are 51% more likely to purchase from retailers that have mobile-specific websites.

By 2014, it’s predicted that mobile Internet usage will overtake desktop Internet usage.

One half of all local searches are performed on mobile devices

Reports have shown an increase of 29% of all mobile searches from the first quarter of 2011. The same rise was measured in mobile retail search traffic that saw a whopping increase of 181%; compared to last year’s figures.

via seo-hacker.com

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What to do When you Feel Tired and Burned Out

2011-12-16T21:12:00.001-08:00

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Have you ever felt like you’re really tired – but you’re not? Your body can still take it, but your emotions feel like it doesn’t want to go on. It’s as if you don’t understand yourself. You need to do something to be happy, and yet you don’t feel like doing it? This usually happens when you’ve burned yourself out. And you know, I’ve been there too.

This entry has been inspired by my discipler, Aumar Aguilar – during the time when I felt down and out and I needed help. To you I give my sincere thanks.

There was a week in my life when I was going here and there, doing a lot of things for a lot of people and for my own. I felt exhausted. I also felt weird coz physically, I didn’t feel exhausted. But there was something in me that was excruciatingly tired. What is it?

Deeper Exhaustion

Being tired goes further than physical. I realized that you feel most tired when your emotional tank is running empty in all aspects. Take note, I didn’t say EMPTY – I said RUNNING EMPTY. When your car is empty, it’s alright. Just go stop using it and put some gas to make it work again. BUT when your car is RUNNING EMPTY, not very soon, it will incur some serious damage.

Running an empty emotional tank with work, relationships, and your spiritual walk with God is one of the worst things that can happen to you.

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Yahoo Site Explorer Substitute: Quick Backlinks | Simple SEO

2011-12-13T00:58:00.001-08:00

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Just recently, I’ve been contacted by a handful of SEO tool developers asking for reviews for their new Link Management and Backlink Checking tools. This sudden surge of tools are mostly a result of the shutdown of Yahoo Site Explorer. It’s the perfect time to launch tools that can catch the market that Yahoo Site Explorer has just let go. Quick backlinks tool or QBL by Link Research Tools, is one of these such tools.

I was emailed by Christoph Cemper telling me of QBL’s hot launch just this December 5. He was excited about it and gave me a Quick Account (You can have one too by typing in the coupon code DF0AB20C3F as you sign up).

So I took a look around, and to make the long story short, I really liked what I saw. The data was very polished and it was updated, fresh, and accurate-to-the-minute. I was impressed. I’ve yet to see a tool this accurate when it comes to checking out backlinks. It’s also much, much faster than other backlink checking tool I’ve stumbled upon in search of other Yahoo Site Explorer alternatives.

The Idea behind Quick Backlinks (QBL)

Instead of reporting only 100% validated and up to the minute accurate data as the other reports in Link Research Tools do, the philosophy for QBL is different

via seo-hacker.com

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Mejii Voltage Protector with Timer

2011-12-12T06:31:00.001-08:00

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Hey Everyone! We have heard your requests, we know your needs…

Introducing the latest product of Meiji Electric! We bring you a new addition to the Voltage Protector line! Now with a built-in programmable timer. If you still don’t know what a Voltage Protector is, Why you should have one in your home and How it will be useful in traveling, just click away and let us show you what you’re missing!

Our new addition Voltage Protector with Timer, aka TC-V002, workable at 220V has a 20 ampere load capacity, equivalent to almost 4,400 Watts! So no worries for your high wattage appliance such as air conditioning units, TV, computers and more!

What’s great about it is that it has 8 programmable timer setting options both for turn on and turn off use! Not only that, it also has varied day preferences: whether you want the timer to work daily, weekly, monthly, only on weekdays, only on weeknights, on alternating days, just set it and it’s done! So for all you busy people out there, how great is that? One less task in your life!

Meiji Voltage Protector with Timer also has a universal outlet in front and a a parallel plug with ground at its back, suitable for your needs. It also comes with a manual once you buy a unit so don’t fret on how it is to be set.

Have a practical and hassle-free time whether at home or during your travel. Try out the new Meiji Voltage Protector with Timer NOW!

via meijielectric.ph

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The Common Excuse When Falling into Temptation

2011-12-11T23:58:00.001-08:00

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I’ve been reading Charles Stanley’s ‘Winning the War Within’ and I’ve come across a very intriguing argument in his book. Here’s what he has to say about the common excuse we make when falling into temptation.

One of the most common statements people make to excuse failure in the area of temptation is this: “I’m just human, and besides, nobody’s perfect.” Let’s take a look at that for just a minute.

There is some truth to this statement. Only God is perfect. The problem is that this statement confuses present character with potential behavior. Let me explain.

When people say, “I am not perfect,” they are referring to their personhood or character. They are basically saying, “Since I am not perfect internally, don’t expect perfect behavior externally.” But in a discussion of temptation, character is not really the issue.

The issue is whether or not, at a given moment in time, people (in this case, Christians) have the potential to do the right thing. God says they do.

“No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is fathful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it.” - 1 Corinthians 10:13

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Link Management Tool: Cognitive SEO

2011-12-08T22:40:00.001-08:00

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Recently, I had the opportunity of being invited by Cognitive SEO to review their link management tool. It’s in beta phase and I assumed that it would function somewhat like Raventools. Cognitive SEO tells me that their SEO toolkit is unique and a new development in the area of link management. Let’s take a closer look:

The tool has 5 main parts:

Dashboard

InBound Link Analysis

Link Management

Rank Tracking

To-dos

At the dashboard section of the tool, you can chose which campaign you’d like to check out. Right now I only have 2 campaigns to choose from. And for the purpose of this review, I picked out ‘Search Engine News‘.

As we look into the InBound Analysis section, we can immediately see the summary of your links. It tells you the number of:

Analyzed Links

Live Links

Lost Links

Redirect Links

Supplemental Links

Unique Referring Domains

Unique Referring IP Addresses

Text Links

Image Links

Nofollow Links

Sitewide Links

Abused Linking Pages

As you can see, the SEO Hacker data for this link summary seems a bit odd. There are too many links. I have no idea how they find links and categorize ‘em as supplemental or coming from abused linking pages.

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Lean and Fab Ingredient: Citrin | Lean and Fab

2011-12-08T01:46:00.001-08:00

Do you want to lose weight? Of course you do – everyone does right? But do you need to starve yourself in order to lose weight? Of course not that’s another silly question. Losing weight will make you feel hungry from time to time but it doesn’t mean that you should completely deprive yourself of food. Let’s take a look at one of the Lean and Fab ingredients – Citrin.

You have to train your mind and body to have self-control when it comes to eating. If you can convince your own body that it is “full,” then say goodbye to those midnight snacks and hello to a successful weight loss plan.

The key here is – appetite regulation. That’s up to the brain to decide but you can help condition it. Studies show that there are certain compounds that can aid in suppressing one’s appetite. One of which is called citrin.

Citrin is a trademarked name from Sabinsa. It is an herbal extract from the rind of the garcinia cambogia (also known as Indian berry) plant. These fruits grow in selected regions of southern India. This is where hydroxycitric acid comes from. This is the compound responsible for reducing food intake.

When our body consumes food, it breaks down carbohydrates into glucose. The liver is responsible for checking whether the blood has sufficient glucose. Any excess glucose breaks down into fat or cholesterol.

via leanandfabsupplier.com

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An Antidote for Temptation: the Bible

2011-12-08T00:11:00.001-08:00

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“So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” - 1 Corinthians 10:12-13

Special thanks to Charles Stanley for his ‘Winning the War Within’ book which has blessed me with these insights.

As I have been writing about temptation, this verse above all, brings delight to me. It first of all reminds us of our frailty. By this I do not just mean being weak, but also our tendency to become proud or lenient after being victorious in 2-3 instances of temptation.

It speaks about God’s faithfulness which makes Him the perfect candidate for us to trust. I don’t know about you but in my experience, when I’m most hurt, most sad, most frustrated, there I am most vulnerable to temptation. And as you reflect on God’s faithfulness, does it not give you comfort, and hope that there’ll be a better tomorrow?

And here it begins to get interesting; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. We know God is in control of everything. He is the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12: 2), why didn’t I ever think that He too has a say on our temptation?

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How to Break the Unending Cycle of Sin: Significance

2011-12-07T00:56:00.001-08:00

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You must have already encountered a sin in your life where you felt the weakest? Something you don’t want to get involved into but you can’t seem to get out from its grips? Be encouraged brother/sister in Christ, you are not alone.

Paul says in Romans 7 verse 15, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” And continues on in verse 18 saying, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.”

Special thanks to Charles Stanley who continues to inspire me in his book “Winning the War Within”.

One of the chapters talked about the root of evil. As Christians, we know there are different roots for the varying natures of sin. There is pride, selfishness, greed, ungodliness and the list goes on. In this book, Mr. Stanley tells us that having the wrong source of significance or security can be a cause of the cycle of your sin and mine.

Let’s start by reflecting what sin has a cycle in your life. For exemplifying purposes, let’s say the lack of self-control in the words you say. You’re the type who when hurt, tells your offender his/her faults on why you did a particular thing (tosses blame). Or you may be the one who raises his/her voice in order to prove a point to tell a person you’re certain about something and you’re right about it; Without consideration whether you’re hurting others.

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SEO Philippines: Google Freshness Algorithm Experiment

2011-12-04T00:35:00.001-08:00

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Okay so I posted an entry last night (14 hours ago) about SEO Philippines. The post was entitled ‘SEO Philippines’ and had a good number of ‘SEO Philippines’ keyphrase inside the body of the content. I did this mainly for three reasons:

I was experimenting on how high I can rank for the term SEO Philippines

I wanted to contribute to the Philippine SEO Community

I wanted to let my readers know about great Filipino SEO specialists out there

Of course, I wasn’t targeting to rank for the term SEO Philippines in Google.ph – I was targeting to rank on Google.com as a playing field. I wanted to see how far I was gonna get with the keyphrase SEO Philippines – knowing that there was quite a competition for the term. It’s not really a keyphrase that attracts a lot of searches, but I was trying to experiment on it due to the fact that some of the websites that are ranking on first page have already been there for a while – and I wanted to check out how big of a factor the new ‘Freshness Algorithm’ is.

Turns out the new Freshness Algorithm is a winner. I got to first page (9th place) within 14 hours of publishing my entry. And I’m hoping it goes up some more before 24 hours has elapsed.

via seo-hacker.com

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SEO Philippines

2011-12-02T22:53:00.001-08:00

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SEO in the Philippines is now a REALLY BOOMING industry. Just two years ago I had no idea about SEO or what it’s about. SEO here in the Philippines wasn’t all that popular then. I don’t know if I’m just more involved in the SEO industry now that I find and meet a lot of other Filipinos who are practicing SEO and servicing clients around the world.

Just look at Facebook

I’m currently running a Facebook ad and you’ll be surprised to know that there are almost 50,000 Filipinos who are into SEO. It’s a huge amount. I haven’t really checked how many people are interested in SEO two years before, but I’m assuming that the growth is exponential.

Most of the SEOs in the Philippines are also young. A bulk of ‘em ages from 18-24 years old. Which indicates that SEO in the Philippines is a rising trend among the upcoming generation. I think that the Philippines can be a hub of SEO practitioners and internet marketers in the soon coming years.

Internet Savy and English Mastery

I think that the Philippines is one of the best countries that has grasped the English language both in oral and written form. I also think that a lot of Filipinos are internet savvy (Facebook savvy?) and those two attributes strongly qualifies us to have good reason and interest in web traffic generation. A lot of Filipinos are also outspoken and have their own blogs – which also needs traffic.

A lot of Filipinos also love to work at home (including me) due to various reasons – most of which is family time and financial efficiency. Of course when you work from home, you save money from travelling to your office and you also save money from buying food outside.

SEO is also one of the most in-demand jobs in the internet to date. And it has created a lot of job opportunities for Filipinos who are looking for employment but don’t want to be ‘just another’ employee. They want to feel more special – an employee of their own perhaps? Handling clients makes you feel more significant than just working an 8-hour day job in an office desk.

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The 5 Weak Points of Men:Excuses of Men

2011-12-02T22:04:00.001-08:00

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My special thanks to Charles Stanley’s book of Winning the War Within who has inspired me to share this to all of you.

As mentioned from my previous article on temptation, the first step is choosing to say ‘No’. We ought to remember that inspite and despite the circumstances, people involved, ultimately it is our personal decision to do a certain behavior causing us to sin.

Unfortunately, men and women have the tendency of passing the blame… “I couldn’t control it, he made me so mad!”, “If my parents raised us better, I wouldn’t be this way”; “If only my brother will stop playing that computer game, then I’ll totally quit!” Statements like these may be true but the response of cursing when you got mad, or the choice to follow in your parents’ footsteps and the decision of playing that computer game was YOURS.

Nobody can make you do something you don’t want to do. They can only go as far as to influence, tease, trick and even force you to doing it but not MAKE you do it.But you know, the cycle of tossing the blame to others has originated not from you, your baby sister or even that cheater seatmate. It started way back from Adam and Eve. Remember when God confronted Adam about his sin?

He responded in Gen. 3: 12” The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

And Eve responded, v. 13 ““The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

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SEO Spyglass: An Alternative to Yahoo Site Explorer

2011-11-30T06:30:00.001-08:00

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Looking around the net for a Yahoo Site Explorer Alternative made me stumble upon a lot of different backlink-checking tool. There were some good ones, there were some bad ones, and then there was SEO Spyglass – which I thought is the closest I can get to retrieve the glory that Yahoo Site Explorer basked me with. I was badly mistaken.

Plump backlink data

Blekko can be a good free replacement for Yahoo Site Explorer but if you’re tired with just the backlinks and want more data (you’re forced to transfer anyway coz Yahoo Site Explorer kicked you out when it closed) SEO Spyglass is where you should allow yourself to be kicked to. And for good reason!

SEO is all about Data

Having to go through all the backlinks you find in Yahoo Site Explorer just to check their PageRank, AlexaRank, backlinks, MozRank, and what have you – takes time. Especially since Yahoo Site Explorer shows you up to 1,000 backlinks. You don’t want to be hassling yourself to check each and every one of those links to get good prospects and ideas.

SEO Spyglass pukes out all these data to you and more – and the best part is a cool and neatly designed report which you can export for your clients! So let’s start with the basics…

SEO Spyglass Gets Data from the Best Resources

I’ve mentioned all the great Yahoo Site Explorer Alternatives on the previous post – and some of the alternatives I’ve mentioned are Blekko and Exalead. These two are search engines. They both also provide data about backlinks. SEO Spyglass uses the both of ‘em to source backlink data from and more.

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How To Stop Temptation When It Starts

2011-11-29T20:27:00.001-08:00

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“I’m only human, made of flesh and blood, a mere man…”

One way or the other, you’ve probably heard this song; on the radio, on your ipod, someone singing along… In one circumstance or the other, you may have also uttered this phrase in one of the trying times of life. “I can’t do it, I’m only human!”

This article is inspired by the book ‘Winning the War Within’ by Charles Stanley.

He quoted in his book a passage that struck me: “Opportunity only knocks once, temptation leans on the doorbell.”

Wouldn’t you agree?

Think of just one temptation that you’re really having a hard time resisting: the latest Iphone, that so-worth-it dress, Facebook! Have you ever felt it calling you? Yes? That there seems to be a voice inside your head that says, ‘Well, I can afford it, not that I need it badly, but I want it!’, or ‘What’s so wrong about spending a few hours on Facebook?, or these are just minor issues, why bother, correct? Then this article is just for you.

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Alternatives to Yahoo Site Explorer

2011-11-25T03:43:00.001-08:00

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Yahoo Site Explorer has raised the white flag. Bye, old friend. What now? Well, we look for other alternatives of course! It would be so good if we could get a free alternative to Yahoo Site Explorer since YSE is free. So I looked up some of the free backlink checking tools out there and I’ve listed some of them down. But first, a little scrutiny over Bing.

Bing webmaster tools doesn’t help

Because we usually use Yahoo Site Explorer not for our own backlinks but to check out other website’s backlinks – either for analysis, competition backlink trolling, backlink quality check, and so on and so forth. Bing webmaster tools only makes this data available to the owners of the website themselves by asking everyone to install a piece of code – verifying if you are the owner of the site.

I really don’t know why Bing made this move but it’s clearly unwise. The most obvious reason is that they saw the millions of users of YSE everyday and told themselves “Hey, why don’t we get that traffic into using our Bing webmaster tools?” So they shut Yahoo Site Explorer down. Selfish and sucky move.

It’s especially sucky because I’m using it too! And some of my tools are using it too! Bing has just become a very unattractive brand to me.

So I started looking elsewhere

Obviously, I didn’t go to Bing webmaster tools as Bing most probably had hoped (and I’m sure plenty other SEOs didn’t go to Bing as well). I started looking for alternatives that will give me the data I used to gather from Yahoo Site Explorer. Here’s the easy breakdown of the alternatives to Yahoo Site Explorer that I found:

Blekko

Blekko will definitely rise in popularity. A lot of search engines already knew the shutdown of YSE and yet only Blekko stood up to try and eat up the market that YSE has, in the aspect of its free and quick backlink-spying capabilities. Let’s face it people, it’s a NEED to look at other website’s backlinks. This need has a strong demand – especially for SEO specialists. And that demand has to be met. Blekko’s bandwidth must have spiked up in the shutdown of Yahoo Site Explorer.

via seo-hacker.com

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Lean and Fab Side Effects | Lean and Fab

2011-11-23T01:17:00.001-08:00

Does Lean and Fab have side effects? Have people ever claimed that they got sick with Lean and Fab? Well you can say Lean and Fab has its set of side effects – let’s take a look at some:

Lean and Fab can make you lazy

It’s no wonder that Lean and Fab can make someone lazy. Lazy to go swimming, to go to the gym, to play basketball and to do exercise. This is because Lean and Fab can make you lose weight without having to do the rigid and tiring routine of exercise. It can both be a good thing if you are already lazy in the first place. But it can be a bad thing if you are someone who loves to go exercise and is discouraged to do so because of the amazing effects of Lean and Fab.

Lean and Fab can make you lose too much weight

Of course, popping the prescribed amount of Lean and Fab pills in your mouth 30 minutes before every meal will make you thinner and lose weight. If you have a target weight, Lean and Fab can exceed that. Not everyone wants to be thin – some people wants a little meat here and there. If you’re one of those people and you’re not careful as to how much weight you’re already losing with Lean and Fab, you better watch out and be mindful RIGHT NOW!

via leanandfabsupplier.com

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What Most Love Stories are Missing

2011-11-22T21:08:00.001-08:00

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Sometimes you meet someone, a great person. You’d like to know her more. You get the tingles – and for a while you zoom off having the romance you’ve always dreamed off. Why is it then, that after a time too soon, you find yourself crushed and heartbroken? What went wrong? Or maybe you’re asking “What was missing?”

This entry was inspired by Joshua Harris’ book “Boy meets Girl” Yes I know I’m really late in my Joshua Harris readings but it seems as if God has put this book in perfect timing for me – and perhaps for you too!

The Kite and String

Try to think of romance as a kite. It’s a kite that catches the wind and tenaciously heads for the sky. Often that kite thinks to itself “If this bothersome string would just let go of me, I could really fly high.” But we all know that isn’t true, is it? Without the string holding it in the face of the wind, the kite would quickly come crashing to the ground.

That string is wisdom. That string is also what most romantic love stories are missing because of the tenacious emotions that come zooming of when we’re “in love”.

Wisdom is the string that tugs downward, holding romance back so that it can keep on flying gracefully as it was designed by its Creator to do. There is a real tension between the string and kite. That tension also keeps the kite protected from crashing itself down. It is a healthy tension.

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About Link Building

2011-11-17T19:55:00.001-08:00

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Was teaching about Link building this week to a new batch of linkbuilders and I figured I should make an About Link Building post for any new linkbuilders out there who wants a one-stop resource to guide them. I’ll be focusing on the different linkbuilding factors, linkbuilding methods and linkbuilding results.

Linkbuilding Factors

There are certain things that I look for when checking a link out – and you should too. Here are the factors that count when you’re looking for links

PageRank

This is a metric used by Google to rate the quality and quantity of backlinks of a specific page. When you’re checking a link out, make sure to know what the PageRank of that webpage where your link is coming from. The higher the PageRank, the more PageRank juice it can give you.

Relevance

Read the content of the webpage and you’ll see what it’s about. If you’re trying to get a link from that page, make sure that the content surrounding your desired link is relevant to the page you’re getting it for. If the page is about dog training and you’re going to point it to a plumbing website, things just won’t work out – and your link will most probably get minimal value.

Quality of Articles

There is what we now call “thin content” – which rose to popularity since the Google Panda update. Consequently, there is also what we call “thick content”. The difference between the two is not the quantity of words as if it’s a book. The difference is the quality – which can be enumerated down to at least three nitty-gritty factors:

Usefulness: Are people really getting something valuable out of your content? Are they linking to it because it’s great?

Time on site: Are people really reading the content?Are they bouncing off?

Social Engagement: Are people Retweeting/Liking/+1′ing (if there is such a term) the content?

Anchor Text

Are you looking for anchor text with exact match? Or are you already going to settle for a relevant one? Remember, Anchor text is the biggest signal to a search engine about what the link is about. Having the right anchor text still proves to be one of the best factors around when it comes to links.

Anchor Title

Whenever you mouse-over a link, the anchor title appears in the form of a tool-tip text. Usually, this is left blank. An anchor title helps the search engines too, in regards with what the link is about.

Dofollow/Nofollow

You can check if a link is a nofollow link by using plugins such as SEO Toolbar (for Firefox users) and SEOQuake (for Chrome users). A dofollow links is ALWAYS better because it passes on PageRank which helps your rankings directly. A nofollow link, on the other hand, influences your TrustRank – which does not directly help you but has its SEO perks in some other way.

Number of Outbound Links

If the webpage has too many outbound links inside it, then you’ll probably be just another face in the crowd. The PageRank juice being passed on to you has been minimized by all the other links going out of the page. You should be mindful of the number of outbound links (AKA external links) when looking for webpages/websites to get a link from.

Link Placement

Where your link is placed definitely affects the link. The Click-through-rate (CTR) is almost always higher when a link is in the header or in the upper body of the content – which increases its value as a link. I have a resource about link placements and where you should put your links which you should check out.

Click-through-rate (CTR)

The number of people clicking your link tells Google that your link probably has good relevance, proper anchor text, and perfect placement. High Click-through-rate (CTR) links passes more PageRank juice because of its value to the end-users (if you didn’t know, end-users mean human beings).

Traffic

Is the website drawing in a good amount of traffic? The link that you’re going to get can only have so much visitors as the page it’s on. Knowing if the site has a good amount of traffic can influence your link’s Click-through-rate (CTR).

Linkbuilding Methods

Knowing these factors, let’s move on on how to apply them and what the different link building methods are. There are basically two kinds of methods/approach to linkbuilding: Artificial and Organic

Artificial/Manipulative

These methods deal with processes that can instantly get you links without having to go through much or any human interaction. An artificial linkbuilding approach can fetch you links almost anytime you want it.

Blog Commenting

I think this is the most common way to build links artificially. There are millions and millions of blogs out there with millions of specific niches. Some of those blogs are dofollow, while most of them are nofollow. Leaving a comment in a blog should be a mutual act – the blog owner benefits because of a direct interaction / user engagement that occurred, and the commenter gets a link and some recognition. Unfortunately, it’s no longer the case for most people.

Blog commenting is a simple act of leaving your name, email address (usually for Gravatar purposes), and website to leave a ‘Sean was Here!’ kind of footprint – and getting a link to the website you specified for the blog owner to check out. Most SEOs however, use blog commenting for the website backlink alone.

Directory Listing

This used to be the popular way of getting more visitors. I would compare it to Yellow Pages (which I think it was modeled after) in the offline world. Most directories give out links like no tomorrow. If you’re a website and they have a category for you, you get a link as soon as you sign up. Again, not all directories are like this – but most of them are. There are very few directories left still hold good reputation with the search engines.

Some people still swear that they get rankings through directory listing but I don’t quite believe it. I once read that directories are now considered link farms – and it makes sense considering how directories have no real content except for lots and lots of links and their brief descriptions.

via seo-hacker.com

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Five Effective Ways to Say "I'm Sorry"

2011-11-14T23:43:00.001-08:00

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I’m sure that there was a time in your life when you have offended someone and you didn’t really mean it. Your emotions heighten, you feel some extent of remorse, you soften up and then the hardest words come out of your mouth. “I’m sorry.” The offended person turns to look at you with tear-filled eyes and tells you “I don’t believe it.” What do you do then?

This entry has been inspired by Gary Chapman’s book “Things I wish I’d known before we Got Married”

When you’re out of Words

Sometimes “I’m sorry” doesn’t cut it and I’m sure you’ve had your shares of when that happens. There are several reasons behind why some people don’t accept your apology. But to sum it all up, it’s mostly because you have a different Apology Language. It is something to help you be sincere to the person you’re apologizing to. You can be REALLY sincere but the other person will not see it that way. These apology languages helps you to reach out your sincerity to the person you’re apologizing to.

A Form of Dialect?

You might not know it but there are different means to communicate love to a person. I’m sure you’ve heard of The Five Love Languages. A study by Dr. Gary Chapman also suggests that people also have different means to communicate an apology to a person.

1. Expressing Regret

This apology language expresses itself in such a way that the person you offended should know how much you understand your offense. This apology language is an emotional one and you should express to the person you offended how much you regret your actions that hurt him/her.

Sometimes people want to know that you understand the extent of his/her pain and regret inflicting it – in order for them to more easily accept your apology. Expressing regret usually starts with the words “I’m sorry” and then it should go on to explain to the offended person how you think you’ve offended him/her.

If this is the apology language of the person you’ve hurt, what that person wants you to know is “Do you know how deeply you’ve hurt me?” Any apology that falls short of this will not make the cut.

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How Google+ Pages Affects SEO

2011-11-09T21:20:00.001-08:00

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Google Plus is growing at a high rate. Since its implementation in June, initially on an invite-only basis, it has collected 50 million users; this is a 16^th of Facebook’s users. On November 7^th, Google Plus began allowing businesses to host profiles (i.e. pages), whereas before, it was only individual user profiles. Google Plus is another means, like Facebook and Twitter, for businesses to get the word out about their brand, products, and services; Google Plus’ new business pages means a lot to the world of search engine optimization.

(Heads-up: You can Check out SEO Hacker’s Google + business page and include us in your Circles )

Before explaining how Google Plus pages will affect SEO, it is important to have a general idea of how the +1 button works. Google Plus users can, “+1 the things around the web” that they “like, agree with, or want to recommend to others.” According to Google, when users click the +1 button, they are publically showing that they approve of the brand, product, service, cause, etc.

Sharing +1s is done in the following mediums:

Users’ personal recommendations.
If a user chooses to do so, they can share their +1 of websites, business pages, and Google search results and ads with one or more of their circles and contacts.

Anonymous recommendations.
When anyone is on a website or page that has a product, service, etc., viewers can see how many times said product, service, etc. was +1ed. Additionally, +1 recommendations now show up on some Google search results.

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Web 2.0 Link Building for Branding | SEO in Simple Terms

2011-11-06T01:32:00.001-07:00

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The web is getting better and better at serving users. There are so many websites transitioning to a web 2.0 model of user experience and functionality – and now there is what we call web 2.0 linkbuilding. It’s nothing too complicated – let me show you how.

Web 2.0 linkbuilding has much to do about filling out your profile in web 2.0 websites – especially the ‘links’ and/or ‘websites’ part. Here are some of the sites where you can build your profile/brand in:

(Warning: These pages and links should be used for building brands – not for the sake of just building links. If you want to build links for ranking, this is not the way to go This list is derived from Jason Acidre’s list albeit updated)

Site Profiles

AboutUs.org

PageRank – 6

After making your site’s profile you can email them to request for dofollow links to be allowed on your page

Anchor text for your keywords are allowed

Fast crawl rates

Gains Pagerank when backlinks are built to link to it

The page can be done in just 5 minutes

Alexa.com/siteinfo

PageRank – 8

Dofollow link of the URL of your website

No need to build a page, just search your domain name through Alexa and once you find it, build 1 backlink to direct crawlers to your site’s info page in Alexa, then eventually reach your website to pass through trust

Wikipedia

PageRank – 8

Nofollow link but passes massive amount of trust and authority to your site

Fast crawl rates

Making a company profile page through Wikipedia may only take you 10 – 20 minutes. Just sign up there and write something unique, professional and concise about your website

Web 2.0 Blogs
Posterous

PageRank – 7

Allows dofollow links to your site (URL and/or Anchor text)

Has fast crawl rates and allows you to autopost on different other blogsites such as TypePad, Livejournal, Tumblr, WordPress.com, Blogger, etc…

Setting up for an account is easy and only takes a few minutes, which will include making your profile

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Why Quitting Should Never be an Option

2011-11-04T00:19:00.001-07:00

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Quit – a four letter word that could stir up all kinds of emotions and trigger recall of so many memories; to a mere listener, maybe sadness, sympathy but to the recipient and speaker, depression, emptiness, hopelessness.

Love – a four letter word that could stir up all kinds of emotions and trigger recall of so many memories; to a mere listener, maybe happiness, excitement but to the recipient and speaker, joy, fullness, acceptance.

Isn’t it interesting

How powerful both these 4 letter words are? And how remarkable the difference in reaction it brings to the recipient of the word? In 2 Corinthians 13, the Bible teaches us what love is and how it should be. Verse 7 says, “Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” Do we still see much of this these days? Do YOU practice this?

I didn’t…

Unfortunately, I didn’t practice perseverance, in many occasions. Not that I blame my past but I’ve felt left behind by people I love or worse, unprotected even in their presence. I have stared at them living life daily patronizing the person/s that have hurt and scarred me the most. And so, instead of self-pity, I learned to ignore, to be indifferent.

I felt not fighting for myself, my feelings (quitting) would just make things easier. I thought being indifferent makes you stronger, and quitting spares you and the other person the pain of resolving conflicts.

As I entered a relationship with a God-centered man, together, we enrolled in a marriage seminar class in less than 5 months of being together. We learned how to better avoid and resolve conflicts through the classes and also the book Fit to be Tied by Bill and Lynne Hybels. It was a big news flash for me, requiring a lot of adjustment and understanding. And sometimes, I still find myself doing what I used to… saying ‘I Quit’ but deep down, I don’t really mean it.

“Love ALWAYS protects”. Not just when you feel like it or when things are nice and sweet. ALWAYS.

Do you protect your mom or dad with how you answer them, your gestures and even facial expressions? Do you protect your friend with your responses each time someone gossips about him/her? Do you still hope and pray to God to change your heart to what He desires for you when things don’t go your way? Do you ask your Maker to make you more patient and enduring to your boss/teachers?

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Broken Link Building

2011-10-27T08:02:00.001-07:00

Broken Link Building is another technique that SEO specialists use discreetly – it’s also one of the helpful ones. Why not, when you’re trying to fix a webmaster’s broken link for him?

Broken possibilities

There are lots of things that can happen in the web. A lot of possibilities why a site will go down and incur a ’404 Not Found’ status. Shift happens. And the web is full of it.

Once a site goes down, the links that point to it are immediately invalidated – they become broken links. Not every webmaster is notified when a site they are linking to goes down. The good thing is, you can do the job for them!

The trick behind Broken Link building

First you have to look for sites which might have broken links. You can start off with this type of query in the Google search box:

site:.edu intitle:”Your Niche” -inurl:pdf -inurl:doc -inurl:ppt

What this advanced search query does is find you all the results about “Your Niche” and remove all results that are .pdf, .doc, and .ppt – because we want to focus on webpages where we can get links from. Once you’ve compiled a good list of websites, you can start checking each website with either Xenu Link Sleuth or Screaming Frog.

The results of Xenu and Screaming Frog will show you clearly which of the links have a 404 Not Found status. Checking where that 404 Not Found points to using Webarchive.org’s Wayback Machine can give you an idea what that webpage was about.

Other methods of finding broken links would be:

For Firefox users: You can download Linkchecker to highlight broken links in a webpage that you’re browsing.

For Chrome users: You can download Check My Links Chrome extension to automatically tell you whenever there’s a broken link in a webpage that you’re in.

These methods however, will require you to go through each webpage of the website in order for you to check out all of the possible broken links inside the website. It’s really faster if you use Xenu or Screaming Frog.

via seo-hacker.com

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How does 301 and 302 Redirect affect SEO?

2011-10-24T05:37:00.001-07:00

For the non-technical, a 301 and 302 redirect sounds foreign. Here, we’ll be discussing what a 301 and 302 redirect is, how it affects SEO, and how we can use it.

“Redirect” definition from the web: to direct (someone or something) to a different place or by a different route.

To make it simpler, redirecting a page often means you’re assigning a new URL to it. This is not always the case because sometimes when people use redirection, they also change the design, the coding, the navigation, etc… It depends on what purpose you are redirecting the page.

You usually redirect a page for the following reasons:

The URL is broken or it doesn’t work

The webpage/site is no longer active

You have a new webpage/site that you want people to visit instead of the old one

You’re A/B testing a new webpage in terms of design or functionality

You’re fixing a webpage and you want to temporarily make a detour for your users for continual website experience

You want your users to make the best pancakes (just kidding!)

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Why is God Unfair?

2011-10-21T19:51:00.001-07:00

If you’ve been through life long enough to know that some bad, corrupt people prosper and some good people become poor and miserable, then you’ve already seen life’s unfairness. There is no justice – it has left this world. There is no balance, it has long passed away. And the only one who we can seem to comfortably and perhaps logically cast all the blame to is God.

This entry has been inspired by the message in our Friday nights group in CCF St Francis Square – Love out Loud. I think that the message should have had this part included so I’ll be adding my thoughts here.

God is unfair

That is what we all want to think. Because, who or what else is behind the ‘fairness’ or ‘justice’ of life? After all, if there is a God, shouldn’t it be His responsibility?

Let’s take the first case -what if there is no God? What if we just really came out of the big bang theory? Who do we blame then? Nobody. We have to accept the fact that life’s like that – no greater meaning, no higher reason, no nothing. When we live, we live for 70 good years. When we die, we perish into nothingness. Life’s like that.

But that’s obviously not the case. There is a God – and yes, he is pretty much responsible for everything.

The nature of God

In the Bible God describes Himself as love. He is also found to be patient in many cases. He also says that He is just.

“God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you” - 2 Thessalonians 1:6

Now if God’s nature is to be just – then that must mean He is also fair. Why then is there so much injustice and unfairness in our world today?

If God is just…

Remove from the nature of God patience and love and this is what you get

“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” - 2 Peter 3:9

Everyone will perish without God’s patient and loving nature. The justice of God demands fairness. And fairness means paying the consequences for every action and deed.

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” – Romans 3:23

We have sinned. That is the fact behind the nature of all human beings. And as payment so that justice can be achieved, this is what God’s moral law demands

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” - Romans 6:23

Death.

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How do you know if you're the Best guy in Pursuing your Girl

2011-10-18T08:31:00.001-07:00

How do you know if you’re the best guy for her? Would you feel it? Would you hear it? A whisper perhaps? And once you know it, what do you do? Are you going to wait for more clues?

I posted a short Facebook status saying “If you know you’re the best for her, go for it. You’re not going to make her lose her best man, are you?” – this was sparked by the lyrics of the song ‘Endlessly’ by The Cab as my brother introduced me to it. Funny how life brings back memories in various ways.

It’s been a long while since I posted something about relationships and romance. I guess this is quite a refresher for all of us.

How do you know if you’re the best?

You don’t. There is no blueprint when it comes to relationships. God does not give you a map and leave you to find where the X is. The reason behind that? I dunno. My assumption is that God wants to make it more exciting – and more dependent on Him. The more you seek God’s Will in the aspect of your love life, the more He will reveal it to you.

The only way to really know your love story, is to seek the One who is writing it and ask Him to tell it to you. Our God is the greatest storyteller.

A Simple story

I’ll let you in on a story. There was this guy who prayed for this girl he really liked. One night, he prayed hard. No, he didn’t sweat blood while he was praying. But he prayed hard.

He said “God, if this girl is NOT the one you want me to marry and spend the rest of my life with, please take the relationship away. Cut off everything – even the friendship. Because I don’t wanna waste my time, money, effort, etc… for nothing. But God, if she is the one you want for me, then I pray give me a sign.”

And the sign he asked from God is a dream – that he would dream of her and she would dream of him.

That night, they both dreamt – of each other. And then he thought “This is it.”

A few months after, this guy got busted. WHAT???

There is no blueprint.

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Why it's so Hard not to Give in to Temptation

2011-10-17T21:06:00.001-07:00

“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” - Matthew 6: 24

I found my devotion today interesting and a blessing which is why I have decided to share it with all of you.

Let us note that God did not say you cannot serve God and Satan. He is wiser than that. He knew we could do better than that, can we? We fall short of the little temptations, the small compromises of the pleasures He blessed us with and then we fall off track. It’s the “Okay, I’ll buy it, today’s payday anyway”… Or the “Alright, let’s give-in, we’re truly in love, I’m sure…”

The apostle Paul tells us: “Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.” - Galatians 1: 10

Going with the flow with what ALL our other peers do and say may not necessarily be the right way of doing things. In fact, sometimes you may be the weakest link in your office/class but you have the strongest link to God. Think about it. Our world has now gone far away from purity just compared to our parents or grandparents.

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How important is Anchor Text to a Backlink?

2011-10-16T23:50:00.001-07:00

Linkbuilding is an essential part of SEO. The more links, the merrier. Each link consequently comes with an anchor text. The confusion right now is, does Google still give as much important to anchor text as it does before?

How Google derives a Link’s relevance

Before we go on to conclude the importance of anchor text right now, let’s take a look at how Google derives an individual link’s relevance. Basically, there are three major ways:

Anchor Text

The anchor text is what we want to tackle today. This is the blue underlined text that is clickable and will take you to another webpage to which it is pointing to. There have been many controversies and exchange of ideas surrounding anchor text – some swear by its effectiveness, while others proclaim its death.

Recently, Google has announced that it will gradually reduce its dependence on anchor text until it has minimal effect. Lots of sources have given infographs about the future of SEO factors – and it clearly shows that anchor text is in rapid decline.

Anchor Title

The anchor title is the tool-tip text that appears whenever you mouse-over on a link. The importance and weight of the anchor title is not really as big as the anchor text – but it is one of the most visible factors describing the link and what it is pointing to.

I personally think that Google derives a link’s relevance from an anchor title too albeit not too much.

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Saved Festival Concert Manila Philippines 2011

2011-10-12T11:38:00.001-07:00

The Saved festival 2011 is now here. The Christian concert involving 8 popular Christian artists is going to be held at the Araneta Coliseum this coming November 26, 2011.

This concert is aimed to call all the Christian Churches around the Philippines to a night of praise and worship. Meet new Christian people in the Saved Concert who are gathered there to sing praises to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Concert Date: Saturday, November 26, 2011, 6pm
Concert Venue: Smart Araneta Coliseum, Cubao, Quezon City

Ticket Prices:
VIP (PT 101 & 103) (Reserved Seating) = P1500
PATRON (Reserved Seating) = P1200
LOWER BOX (Reserved Seating) = P1000
UPPER BOX A = P700
UPPER BOX B = P500
GENERAL ADMISSION = P250

Performing Artists:
Parachute Band

The Parachute Band boys spend most of their year living out of suitcases; trekking to churches and events around the globe. Musically, their sound is fresh and experimental – with pulsing drums, angular guitars and the odd synth-breakdown – but spiritually they consistently seek to usher in the presence of God wherever they go.

Frontman Omega Levine and Drummer/Producer Sam de Jong formed New Zealand’s Parachute Band in 2007, picking up from where the original Parachute Band (1996-2006) had left off. Four years on, the five-piece has toured relentlessly throughout America, Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe.

Martin James Smith

Born 6 July 1970, Martin James Smith is an English vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter. He was the front man of the Christian rock and worship band Delirious? He co-wrote three songs on Michael W. Smith’s 2004 album Healing Rain and is going to be collaborating with Michael W. Smith on his upcoming album. Martin also co-wrote two songs on Matt Redman’s 2006 album Beautiful News (” Take it to the streets” and “All over the World”). Some of the most recognised songs by Delirious? include “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever”, “History Maker”, “My Glorious”, “Did You Feel the Mountains Tremble?”, “Shout To The North”, “Deeper”, “Majesty (Here I Am)”, and “What A Friend I’ve Found”.

In 1995, Martin was involved in a near-fatal car accident, and during the weeks of his recovery, he decided to become a full-time musician. This inspired him to write the song “August 30″ which appeared on the King of Fools album from Delirious?. Smith was one of the founding members of Delirious? along with Stewart Smith (no relation) and Tim Jupp, when they formed the band as The Cutting Edge.

Smith also collaborated with the other members of Delirious? for the book I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever.
Quest

A band with Jose Villanueva as the vocalist, Quest is a Filipino Christian band that stands with the slogan:

Faith. Hustle. Believe. Receive. Celebrate. REPEAT… Life of a Champion! Out of the box! Microphone revolutionist!

Citipointe Live

Citipointe Live is the worship team birthed from Citipointe Church Brisbane and have a great passion for the local Church. Devoted to their church vision ‘to unmistakably influence our world for good and for God’, Citipointe Live travel Internationally bringing life changing worship and training to churches and conferences worldwide.

Our heart is to see our God glorified across the globe and see people live in the freedom of Jesus Christ.

Gary Valenciano

Edgardo José Martín Santiago Valenciano, better known as simply Gary Valenciano (shortened to Gary V.), is a Filipino musician, composer, actor, producer, and gospel singer who is best known for many songs, especially those that became theme songs for movies.

Gary V is also widely known for his faith in Christ. He is also known for his Christian compositions and songs which he sings himself.

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Link Placements

2011-10-11T17:41:00.001-07:00

Where you place your link in your website is one of the most overlooked linkbuilding techniques of SEO specialists today. The importance of where your link exists in a page is critical. So what do you need to know about link placements?

Usual parts of a webpage

Upper Body Content

Lower Body Content

Header

Footer

Sidebar

There will always be dispute about whether a site-wide link in a sidebar is better than just a single link from the content. In my personal opinion, having a site-wide link is good IF there are many pages from the linking site to you. But if there are few pages and there are lots of other outbound links in that specific sidebar, forget it.

The genius behind link placements

Google knows that people will put links in their sidebar or that attribution links exists in the footer – such as WordPress links. Naturally, the devalue these links because they might not give any real value or reference to the website that they are pointing to.

Having links inside the body of the content is usually the link with importance and which gives reference to the website it points to. No webmaster just puts in links inside the body of the content without any relevance to the link they are pointing to. It makes the article ugly and it will disappoint the reader.

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What are your Blind Spots in your Christian walk?

2011-10-11T10:59:00.001-07:00

Sometime a few years back some of my friends introduced me to the Johari Window. A Johari Window is a cognitive psychological tool created by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham in 1955 in the United States, used to help people better understand their interpersonal communication and relationships. When performing the exercise, subjects are given a list of 56 adjectives and pick five or six that they feel describe their own personality. Peers of the subject are then given the same list, and each pick five or six adjectives that describe the subject. These adjectives are then mapped onto a grid.

Author’s Note: I’ve noticed that my recent conversations with friends had something to do, to a certain extent, with being accountable – hence, this entry. It’s also a memo to myself.

Among the four quadrants, I was most concerned about my blind spots. These are traits I am unconscious of, yet seem to exhibit from another’s point of view. Left unaware, this hidden persona of mine could be disparaging to the relationships surrounding me.

“The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice.” – Proverbs 12:15

I would often find myself dismissing symptoms of my self-hidden behavior as something “normal” and non-offensive, and even reason out to the point of resistance – justifying such manifestations. In frustration I often retort, “You don’t understand the whole story!”

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How to deal with Guilt and have a Blameless Conscience

2011-10-06T17:58:00.001-07:00

There are those specific moments in your life when you’ve done something wrong. You know it and you feel something tugging somewhere in you – perhaps in your soul. People call it guilt. Most of the time, we don’t want to face it. So how do we deal with guilt? More importantly, how do we achieve a blameless conscience?

This entry is derived from and was inspired by the preaching of pastor Peter Tan-chi on October 2, 2011

Blessed is the one
   whose transgressions are forgiven,
   whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the one
   whose sin the LORD does not count against them
   and in whose spirit is no deceit.

When I kept silent,
   my bones wasted away
   through my groaning all day long.

For day and night
   your hand was heavy on me;
my strength was sapped
   as in the heat of summer.

Then I acknowledged my sin to you
   and did not cover up my iniquity.

I said, “I will confess
   my transgressions to the LORD.”
And you forgave
   the guilt of my sin.

Therefore let all the faithful pray to you
   while you may be found;
surely the rising of the mighty waters
   will not reach them.

You are my hiding place;
   you will protect me from trouble
   and surround me with songs of deliverance.

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
   I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.

Do not be like the horse or the mule,
   which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle
   or they will not come to you.
Many are the woes of the wicked,
   but the LORD’s unfailing love
   surrounds the one who trusts in him.

Rejoice in the LORD and be glad, you righteous;
   sing, all you who are upright in heart!

- Psalm 32 of King David of Israel

In this chapter, we see king David telling his story of how it felt to be burdened with guilt. You see, guilt varies on its heaviness depending on the weight of the sin you have decided to do. Guilt crept on to David as he committed adultery with a married woman, Bathsheba, planned the death of her husband Uriah, and took her to be one of his many wives. Did David love her? Yes he did. But that doesn’t justify anything. Love never justifies sin. Only death does – that’s why Christ had to die for our stead.

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Contest Campaign Linkbuilding

2011-10-04T04:20:00.001-07:00

Contest are one of the most powerful and effective ways to attract people. That’s a simple fact. Who wouldn’t want a free iPad or iPhone? Knowing that, just how do you efficiently use it to attract links to your site?

Get a FREE iPad 2!

Doesn’t those few words ignite some sort of raw excitement in you? Those few words (which we call a ‘copy’) are meant to grab your attention – to what?

To participate.

‘Giveaways’ are never free. They are given in exchange for your participation. They first tell you what’s at stake, and then they’ll tell you what they want you to do. It’s a trade-off. The question is, how successful are you in getting a high participation rate?

There are three factors:

How enticing is the prize?

How difficult is it to join?

When is the contest’s deadline?

Being mindful of these three factors is the determinant between a good contest and a great one. A good contest usually has a few participants and don’t go beyond the first circle of people who joins. A great contest goes beyond that and takes on a viral channel – creating buzz.

The beauty behind a contest campaign linkbuilding technique is that there is a better chance of attaining some sort of virality from your participants. If you can sell the contest to the participants, chances are, they would try to sell it to some degree to their circle of influence.

Take-outs from Contest campaign linkbuilding

There’s more than just one reason to do contest campaigning than just building links. Along the process you also:

Create brand awareness

Create brand loyalty to the contestants

Gather a database of people who might be interested to participate in your future contests

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How you can become Patient with the things you're Praying for

2011-09-30T05:03:00.001-07:00

Often, we ask God for something. And often, we wait for some time before we get it. How do we become more patient towards God especially when we ask Him for something and He doesn’t seem to hear?

This entry has been inspired by past events in my life wherein I prayed and asked God and He answered me with a resounding ‘YES’ and then He told me to wait. I thought I heard His ‘yes’ wrong, hence my series of ‘relationship’ entries such as:

What I think about girls who have had past relationships

How to Surrender a Relationship

3 Steps on how to move on from a Relationship

Why you easily fall in love after a breakup

Five Things I tell singles who asks “Am I ready for a relationship?”

11 Wrong concepts of Love

Why Loving someone too much can be Dangerous

How to Overcome Insecurity when Courting or being Courted

5 Things to keep in mind on how to Love a person of the Opposite Sex

But now I’m so graciously blessed with that which I prayed for. I want you to have the same patience especially when you hear a ‘YES’ from God.

God is the great Giver

Everything comes from God. He is the Maker. Creator. All things come from Him and are created for Him – for His glory and purpose. Everything we have, everything we own comes from God.

“For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.” - Colossians 1:16

“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” – John 1:3

The three Answers

When we pray and ask God, there are only three answers He gives: “Yes”, “No”, and “Wait”. More often than not, we don’t like the latter two. But God doesn’t always give us what we want. He knows what is best for us. He knows His purposes for us. And sometimes, we complain and lose patience with God when we want something from Him really bad – especially when we thought we heard a ‘Yes’.

A man who was very Patient with God

Let’s look at the life of Abraham. His was a life of huge promises. God told Abraham that he was to become the father of many nations – how was that gonna happen when he didn’t have a single heir? Neither son nor daughter was born to Abraham because his wife.

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Make your Friends dictate your Search Results with Wajam Social Search

2011-09-23T23:12:00.001-07:00

Social is becoming more and more powerful in the internet. You can now search through the power of social connections. Word of mouth is still the most powerful way to influence decision making. Wajam makes searching the web through your friend’s word of mouth as a medium, possible.

I’m not going to make this a full review. I’ll just be including what I generally think about Wajam’s tool – purpose, advantages and disadvantages.

Upside: A Great use of Social Data – instead of you asking them for a decision (to buy or to subscribe, etc.), their opinions are readily available

There are so many things that the internet can do with your social data. Wajam is a company that is wise enough to know that they can use your social data for your own informational and/or decision-making benefit. If you have the Wajam tool installed in your browser, you are now able to see your friend’s sharing of information in your Google, Yahoo or Bing SERP (and much more as you can see in the picture below).

You know your friends and they know their stuff

Friends are people you know in real life. These are people whom you have some extent of relationship with – consequently, these are people you have given some extent of your trust. What they say or think has credibility to you and could affect the way you think.

Sometimes you want to ask people what they think about something. You don’t know which friend you would ask because you really don’t know who of your friends know about that ‘thing’ you want to ask about. Well, Wajam checks that out for you as you type in your keywords in the search bar of any search engine.

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The Unexplainable and the Undeniable

2011-09-19T09:01:00.001-07:00

In one of our dgroup sessions, my discipler pointed out the value of one’s testimony. I remember him saying these words: “Testimonies are not only unexplainable, they are also undeniable.”

Author’s Note: I was browsing through my old journal and found some verses that had a “write an article” note on them, but I have somehow forgotten. This is one of them.

The transformed life of the Christian must be characterized as such. At some point we find people who will challenge what we believe, pitting it against their own belief system in a philosophical debate. Whatever the motive, we will often be pushed against the wall; demanded for an explanation for the faith that we confess – that God exists, and that He is good, is a truth that remains unacceptable, even repulsive, to most modern minds.

I’ve read one comment by an atheist in a Christian blog site entry recently. He pointed out in his comment that the God of the bible is nothing more than a fantasy. His contention was anchored at the notion that the bible was written by man, and for one to believe in a God that is found in the pages of a man-made book would imply that he, too, could become god if he writes a book claiming that he is.

He then continues his point by stating that he’d rather believe that which is logical or that which can be proven by empirical evidence rather than something he considers a flight of human imagination. On a separate occasion, I’ve also heard another story of a person who tried to prove the non-existence of God through an experiment – praying the same prayer to God and to a toy dinosaur, and evaluating the results – concluding that the toy dinosaur answered more of his prayers than God, implying that there is no God.

Though we can engage in endless philosophical discussions against such views, we would only find ourselves enraging their proponents by taking an adversarial stance – attacking their philosophy and declaring them wrong in their thinking. I personally believe that living a life pleasing to God is more effective than any theological argument. In one of his messages, I’ve heard Ravi Zacharias say, “The Christian life is the greatest apologetic.” I believe he is right. Those who do not know the God of the bible or refuse to accept that He exists are compelled to explain something inexplicable presented before them.

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Competition Backlinks Link Prospecting Technique

2011-09-19T07:35:00.001-07:00

There are lots of ways to spy out a competitor’s moves in the internet marketing world. All websites are public. All websites are visible. Therefore all public activities of a website can be studied. One of those things are the backlinks of any website. And since you and your competitors are on the same playing field, why not try a little competition backlink trolling?

Getting a Sneak Peak

Of course, your competitors are competitors for a reason – you both have the same target market, the same niche, the same kind of business, perhaps even the same product. Knowing that, you can either lag behind your competition – or you can lead it. But let’s face it, there’s always something you’re competitors have that you don’t and vice versa. There are links that you have that he doesn’t have and vice versa.

Isn’t it easier to just get your link prospects from good ones in your competition’s backlinks?

Yahoo Site Explorer

Free is always good. Yahoo Site Explorer is shutting down on 2012 – but as of now it’s one of the most powerful, comprehensive free backlink explorer tool that’s easily available. You only need to put in the desired site URL in the text area and the tool will automatically feed you with all the backlinks that the specific webpage/website has.

From there, you can follow the backlinks to check if it really is a good website to get a link from. It has its own limitations though – Yahoo Site Explorer can only check out up to 1,000 results. But I’m sure you’ll already be smothered up with a handful of prospects with that list alone.

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How Google plans to Control Black Hat Spam of Google Plus One Button

2011-09-16T04:06:00.001-07:00

The Google Plus One button has been the late craze of both the SEO world and the social network marketers. It works wonders! It shares content and it increases your rankings in the search engines according to the quantity (and perhaps, quality) of the +1 of a webpage. Now that we have that established as a fact, a lot of black hatters would naturally come into play. How would Google control the spamming of the Google +1 button?

Lots of people are taking advantage

Warrior forums is even selling +1's like pancakes.

Why not sell a Google +1 service when it works? And that’s just what’s happening right now as many people try to abuse the ability of the +1 button to increase search engine rankings.

Quality as an indicator

One of the ways that Google claims to clean this up is by looking into the quality of +1′s by the relevance of the user who +1′d a page into all his other +1′s – kinda like Facebook’s Like button. The history of a user’s +1 tells a lot about the preferences and (for a lack of a better word) ‘likes’ of that certain user.

Google can see spam activities either by the rate of +1 a user is giving (and the quality of those +1′s) and by the rate a website is getting +1′s. Google can also make the +1 of all the other people in the Circles of that certain user as an indicator of the quality of that user’s +1. Relevance will set the tone for quality – and quality can set the tone for spam indication.

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3 Huge Benefits of having a Blog

2011-09-07T19:28:00.000-07:00

As a designer you must treasure three things at most: Credibility, Clients and Cash.

While a lot of methods can be done to help boost these factors such as Media Advertisements, Online Portfolio, Attending Social Gatherings, one of the most effective and inexpensive proven way is to create a blog. Creating a blog not only is efficient in providing you more exposure to a broad range of client by means of the internet, it is also cost-effective since the cost that you are going to pay is more or less $35/year. If done right, you can be getting about at the very least, 100 possible prospects a day. That’s a pretty cheap deal for $35 a year don’t you think?

It is actually perplexing as to why a lot of freelance designers choose to overlook this opportunity as it can offer so much. While your portfolios present your works in a very impressive light, what good is it if you are never found? Let’s face it, sometimes companies don’t go for word of mouth, instead they go to Google to find a good designer.

You may have just lost one of your best clients because of lack in internet presence.

Given some of the ideas that I have pointed out, if you are still not convinced I’ll give another three points in detail on why making a blog for career will be a win-win action for you:

1: Instant Marketing and Publicity

When you create a blog post, you make sure you write something about you and/or your work. After all, its focus is to showcase you: who you are, what you are, and how you are as a designer. Your work should be visible, from the design of your blog, to images in your content. Almost everything should speak YOU.

Now as people read, they learn about your work, your life and/or your interest (depending on your chosen theme). You are on-air as long as your website is up. For about 10 to 30 minutes a day depending on how much effort you place, you are to impart something different to your readers, it might be knowledge or entertainment but as long as they get something, they finish your article with you leaving a mark in them at that moment. And that’s what’s important, ’cause when you do, you just got yourself a tribe.

Every person is sure to have friends, sure to have online social networks and social circles to boot. Use this to your advantage. It is highly recommended that you place certain plugins that instantly inserts network sharing in all your posts as it can do a lot of exponential advertisement to your blog if shared. As an example, my twitter followers amount to about 100, while in Facebook I have 570 friends. Now imagine if I share one of your articles through twitter, you have more or less around 100 prospects already which, in turn, may re-share again and give you another number of prospects.

Think about it this way, while in a static portfolio, you work hard in making collaterals, promoting yourself and socializing in an exerted effort trying your best to share your works.

In a blog, people share it for you.

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Three Dangerous Mindsets from the Devil

2011-09-07T01:50:00.001-07:00

There are three dangerous mindsets that the Devil uses to break us down to compromise. These mindsets are an acid to our judgment and ultimately, it can destroy anyone who unconsciously embraces it. So now, I am bringing these mindsets to consciousness to warn you.

This entry has been inspired by the message of pastor Harold J. Sala in CCF Alabang regarding family

1st mindset: Satan will tell you that God’s standards are too high

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” - Genesis 3:1

Satan will tell you that you are not capable of living up to God’s standards. He will tell you it’s impossible therefore you have to be what you are – human. And when you make a mistake he’ll tell you to tell yourself that.Isn’t that why we always say ‘I’m only human’ whenever we fail to reach expectations?

For the world, God’s standards will always be too high. That is because He is God and He is perfect. We are marred by sin and imperfection, but the Holy Spirit enables us to be more than just who we are. We are called to be more than humans.

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” – 1 John 3:1-2

We are called to be children of God. And as His children, we are called to be like Him – in His rulership, in His character, in His love. Just as children imitate their father or mother, so we are called to imitate God. This is who we are. This is what we were meant to be by God. Not to ‘be human’ as the world imprints on you to be.

2nd mindset: Satan will tell you ‘One time won’t matter. One time can’t hurt.’

“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” - Genesis 3:6-7

Adam and Eve disobeyed God. Once. Just once. And when it happened, God didn’t tell them ‘Oh maybe you didn’t hear what I said…’ and gave them another chance.

“So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.” - Genesis 3:23-24

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Keep Walking

2011-09-04T20:46:00.001-07:00

Last weekend I was blessed to be part of a retreat that pushed through despite the bad weather. Retreats are always refreshing. At the very least, they provide a momentary, tranquil escape to the otherwise busy state of the city – away from all the hassles of the daily life we live and complicate. They also pull us aside and give us time to reflect on matters we normally shrug off and discount as irrelevant or least priority. Most importantly, retreats give us the serene opportunity to approach God and be intimate with Him – devoid of all pretenses, open to hearing the Gospel and invite Jesus to reign in our heats as Lord and Savior.

Author’s Note: This is inspired by the recent Singles@Work retreat. =)

For this reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. – 2 Peter 1:5-7

I have heard the Gospel being shared many times over the past years since I have come to know and accepted Christ, but the impact it creates amazes me to this day. To the one who claims that God’s Word is alive and powerful, he has evidence to prove it – the lives being transformed by those who receive it. A full understanding of the good news brings forth not only a sense of unexplainable peace and joy, but a longing to know Jesus even more.

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Why Google+ Wants You to Get Social

2011-09-03T19:20:00.001-07:00

It seems the past few weeks have been abuzz with talk all about that new Google+ thing … what it is, how to use it, and why it will eventually kill Facebook.

Instead of adding to that chatter, I wonder if we might be able to discuss a few other topics.

What will change in terms of the search experience, search engine optimization, and the fight on social spam.

The User Experience of Search

As the web becomes more and more populated with content, the harder search engines need to work to discover what should be prominently positioned. By working harder, I mean including more signals, looking to other sources for insight, and slashing sources that fall short of dependability.

In addition, when the web became a much more social environment, search engines took notice and wanted in. They created Social Search early 2010, which featured content from various networks, including Twitter, but Facebook shut Google out at some point — probably because they heard Google was working on a little project themselves.

So in addition to providing content from the social web to users searching Google for content, Google also wanted to use the information they found to rank pages with better insight. Instead of looking for keywords and meta, Google could use the social information they found, including what’ was being shared and voted up or re-tweeted, and factor it into their algorithm and make a more informed discussion regarding whether or not the page was relevant and worthy of prominent search results.

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Don’t be a Link Stalker, Do Competitor Research and Backlinks Acquisition the Right Way

2011-08-30T21:43:00.001-07:00

Do you know what a link stalker is? A link stalker is a person that goes through your links all the time and ruins them for you. You comment somewhere, a nice meaningful comment and a few days, weeks or months later you see a certain someone’s comment there, great post and stuff. You create a nice business profile page, soon the link stalker has the same profile, you make a donation and have your banner featured on the page, soon you see the link stalkers banner there as well.

We all do competitor research and try to get quality links our competitors have, but stalking someone’s backlinks all the time for a longer period is just pathetic, but most of us have to deal with those link stalkers, so how do we make sure they cannot copy us and how we should do competitor research and backlink acquisition?

The first part is simple in theory, all we need is a backlink profile that is hard to replicate. We can achieve that through real relationships, partnerships and offline connections as well as real online relationships. These can be turned into some links that are specific to your company and your brand, links you can only have as you are partnered with a certain supplier, your competitors can’t just copy that. So these are the link we need to pay attention to if we want to make sure the link stalker won’t be able to follow us. So the basic thing about link building you should have realized by now is that quality links are born from real long lasting relationships, and not comments, paid links or general directories.

That’s it for the frustrations of link building and theory, let’s talk about some practical advice that will help you scan your competitors the right way and get some nice quality links that most link stalkers will stay away from. Why will they stay away from them? Well, the truth is, and this is something most professional SEOs know, that the competition is mostly lazy, so if they can’t get a link in 10 minutes or pay for it they will give up, most of them anyway. And the key to competitor research is getting the good links, and not just copying the easy ones.

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How to Avoid Angry Words

2011-08-25T08:39:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite verses is from James 1 verse 19. It speaks about the defensive side of men and women especially in times of conflicts and disagreements. It speaks about the reality of differences among people of various culture, background and beliefs. But ultimately, it teaches us about humility.

This entry has been inspired by James 1:19 and the book ‘Overcoming Emotions that Destroy’ by Chip Ingram and Becca Johnson.

Be quick to listen

Do you remember a time when you did something good but you were accused of having wrong motives for it? How about a time when you went the extra mile for a friend only to find out he/she will betray you for his/her own gain? Deceived? Hurt? How about angry?

You could be feeling all of the above and with all due respect, I tell you that you have a right to feel this way. But don’t you stop there! The Bible tells us to be quick to listen. As mentioned in my previous article, when we get hurt, our emotions heighten. In this article, may I add the fact too that our memory seems to sharpen.

In my case of being a spewer (read my previous article for further details), there were times when I get upset and hurt with my mom and remember how she had done similar things in the past towards me; or know that she would’ve dealt with things differently with my other siblings. The tendency to recall records of hurts, disappointment, frustration and anger seem to play fast forward in my mind which then translates to feeling more pain, saying angry words and regretting bitter actions towards her.

Whether which type of angry person you are, being quick to listen allows us time to understand better how the other person feels. It buys us time to analyze why someone reacts the way they do. And in addition, lets us examine which type of response to give or to give any at all. For a stuffer or leaker, listening should not only include hearing the other person’s frustration over a matter but should also include acknowledging your personal feelings and hurts.

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How to Make your Blog Design Optimized for Search Engines

2011-08-21T22:35:00.001-07:00

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There are so many different blogsites out there talking about so many different topics and wanting to rank in the big three search engines. Search engine traffic is one of the best ones in any website / blogsite. Design is one of the places to start with your SEO’s On Site optimization. Right now, you might not know it, but your design has a big impact on your website’s SEO effectivity.

So here’s the list provided by Cyrus Shepard from SEOmoz and his wife Dawn Shepard (she designed this beautiful infographic) as they describe how your blog design should be like when you want it optimized for search engine friendliness.

Note: This post is reblogged by my brother Kevin Si who is the chief designer of SEO Hacker. You can follow his rants and tweets here.

1. First Impression is Important

No matter how good your content in the site is, its design will always be the first thing the user sees. When your website looks crumpled and cheap, no matter how hard work and furnished your article is, your credibility loses by a huge amount which might increase your visitor bounce rate instead of getting quality hits to your website.

Today, there are lots of web design services around the block that can give you a good design at a very low price or, if you are using pre-made systems like WordPress, there are lots of beautiful themes that you can use on the internet that can boost up your website’s beauty and credibility – which can attract more readers.

2. Seek and you will find

Don’t rely much on Google to find your articles for you. Your website itself should be self-sustaining in making your readers look through more into your pages. A search feature on your website not only helps your users find things that are more relevant to their interest but also helps you in gaining more traffic for your site. Remember User experience is very important in having a good relationship with your readers.

Another good feature of a search in the website is that you can find which keywords are effective and are being searched for in your website. This might give you ideas on what articles you can write and/or tidbits you can improve on. I believe this is called keyword discovery and user behavior as stated by SEOmoz

3. RSS

RSS is something that has been always overlooked by most blog type website. Not only does this feature help you to earn you avid readers but it also helps the reader themselves get updated as they have found your website to be informative. Tick this feature on, the little effort you give can go a long way.

4. Crumbs, crumbs

It may sound as a little insignificant but breadcrumbs hold a good part in making your website have a better experience rank both to your readers and to Google’s search algorithm. Not only does it help your readers know where they are in your vast internet space, it also helps any search engine to sort your pages in the right category.

via seo-hacker.com

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