Coffee, great food, thought leadership… and more coffee. The SEO Summit 2015 which was held last June 20 was a huge success. The links to view the Powerpoint decks can be found in each speaker’s profile here, here and here. While the videos of each speaker will be available for download some time next year.

This is the second year of SEO Summit goodness. The place was packed but what I’m most happy about is the level of thought leadership that was brought to the table by my co-speakers and co-panelists.

You just can’t substitute the content of your conference with anything else.

We’re already planning for SEO summit 2016 and we’re very much looking into an even better speaker lineup for next year. We have 6 slots – 3 to discuss about SEO for those who are starting out and 3 to discuss more advanced SEO Stuff.

If you know anyone who you think should speak next year at the SEO Summit 2016, please fill up the survey form on the lower right section of the screen.

In any case, enjoy the video and we hope to see you next year at the SEO Summit 2016!

The post What Happened at the SEO Summit 2015? appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

Yep you read it right. This is the topic of our last year’s SEO Summit 2014. It’s been a year since that time and we’re thoroughly excited to finally be able to make the make the sessions of local SEO superstars Jason Acidre, Benj Arriola and Sean Si – public!

Webmaster’s Note: You can download all of the videos, Powerpoint decks and AMA sessions of SEO Summit 2014 (for a Tweet or share) here. Also, I apologize in advance for our readers who are not familiar with Tagalog as some of the videos here are not in straight English.

It was an awesome event with over 200 people in attendance. First off was Jason Acidre with his talk “From Zero to Hero”.

In the video he explains his journey to SEO as a pro gamer, a bum and basically a guy with pretty much no vision in life. Looking back, he says that the first part of his life has molded him to who he is as a business person, strategist and SEO specialist.

He goes on to elaborate how he started as an in-house SEO guy working remotely for a company abroad. At the same time, he works on the side on his own project. The funny thing is, he never thought of starting his own company – much less speaking in front of a crowd.

His obsession with SEO fueled his now unintended popularity in the SEO scene.

Here’s his Powerpoint Deck so you’d get a better grasp of his presentation:

The crowd was also able to ask a few questions towards Jason on the AMA session. You can watch the AMA video below:

After Jason, Benj Arriola stepped up on stage. He was actually the highlight of the SEO Summit since he came all the way from the USA. He spoke on a very interesting topic entitled “A Web Developer’s Journey From Blackhat to Whitehat” which pretty much gripped the audience’s attention.

He goes back to the past and tries to lay out how he learned SEO through being a web developer way back in the year 1994. His technical SEO background led him to explore some stuffs that we now call ‘black hat’ practices.

Don’t take my word for it. Watch the video and see for yourself!

I took the liberty of embedding his Powerpoint deck here in case you find it hard to follow it in the video:

Benj’s Ask me anything portion isn’t any less interesting. The questions range from issues on reputation management, to parallax designs and its effects on SEO, to ranking an unwanted page for a target keyword and so on.

Lastly, I gave the presentation on “I’m not doing SEO” which got quite a controversial discussion. While Benj and Jason tackled SEO on the operations side of things, I tackled the business development side of things and how to make SEO ‘work’ for you in terms of monetization – which is acquiring clients and maintaining clients.

I tackled some things like how I started SEO Hacker as a freelancer, built it to a team of more than 20 people and a brand that is well known in the local SEO scene.

Watching it now, I must say my speaking style has changed dramatically since then. I had the shortest talk at 33 minutes.

Here’s my Powerpoint Deck if you have difficulty following it through the video:

I thought that people would’ve ran out of questions by the time it was my AMA session. So I asked Benj and Jason up the stage with me so that people would be able to catch up on some questions they might’ve missed on the earlier speakers.

Check it out!

That’s a handful – over 4 hours worth of content combined. We’ve learned a lot from the previous SEO Summit (it was our first time organizing an SEO event – ever). And we hope to bring what we’ve learned to the table on this year’s SEO Summit.

Speaking of, we’re at our last stretch of days before the SEO Summit 2015 comes around! Make sure you’ve reserved your slot today!

What: SEO Summit 2015

Where: Alpha Tents, Alphaland Southgate Mall

When: June 20, 2015 – schedule of events can be found here

How: Register here and make sure to be there on the day

Ticket Price: 2,800php

Why: Here are 8 Awesome Reasons why you should attend the SEO Summi 2015

Download your personal copy of the Powerpoint decks and AMA sessions of SEO Summit 2014 (for a Tweet or share) here.

The post SEO Secrets We Don’t Usually Blog About appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

The air was thick with excitement, the crowds were buzzing, you could almost feel the energy of it all. My palms are sweating in giving the opening speech. It was SEO Summit 2014. The first-ever hacker-type SEO conference in the Philippines. That was almost a year ago.

What: SEO Summit 2015

Where: Alpha Tents, Alphaland Southgate Mall

When: June 20, 2015 – schedule of events can be found here

How: Register here and make sure to be there on the day

Ticket Price: 2,500php before May 15 and 2,800php after

In just a little over 2 months, SEO Summit 2015 will open its gates to the next wave of SEO specialists. Here are 8 reasons why you should attend.

Webmaster’s Note: If you want to check out how SEO Summit 2014 went, we have the videos and Powerpoint decks free (for a Tweet or Share) and available for download here.

1) Handpicked Speakers

There is no roulette of “Who’s game?” Rather, we handpicked the speakers we know can bring the best of today’s SEO on the table. There’s just three speakers who will be discussing two topics each. One keynote, and one forward-thinking.

“A whole day event with just three speakers?” Yeah, I now it may sound like overkill on the part of the speakers. Trust me, it isn’t. Grant, Sam and I have coordinated to make our topics streamlined to cover more than enough about SEO to get you home happy with some actionable strategies and tricks to boot.

We’re not claiming to be the ‘know-it-all’ authorities when it comes to SEO but we know enough to make each of our own product-based companies running and raking in revenue.

Sam is VP of marketing for DRI – a company that offers printing products and services online. Sam does a lot of hard-core crazy things when it comes to SEO and digital marketing. The few times I’ve spoken to this guy, I lit up with new ideas and went home to apply myself. He’s definitely a goldmine to listen to.

Grant is the founder of Coops and Cages – a dropshipping site that is generating an unbelievable amount of revenue through Grant’s streamlined strategies on SEO and digital marketing. He also heads up operations for Digital Marketing Group which offers SEO and CRO services. Each time that I’m privileged to exchange ideas with him, I always take home more than I’ve given – and that’s a rare thing for me. He isn’t shy in exchanging notes and giving away valuable strategies that he uses in his own site.

I’ve had the privilege of co-founding and running Qeryz – a SaaS company that enables you to gather 700% more user insights from your website. It’s been 11 months since I’ve started Qeryz and we’re getting good traction considering it’s a fledgling company. The main channel we’re doubling-down on in terms of user acquisition is, of course SEO.

So you see, we’re not just three speakers. We’re speakers that started up our own products-based businesses and used what we know about SEO to catapult our businesses to success.

We’re passing on how we did it in this seminar.

2) The Topics are Streamlined

There is no room for “What do you want to talk about?” for us. I’ve been coordinating with Sam and Grant since January and we have agreed on topics that will compliment each other. Our keynotes will touch on the basics of SEO. I’ll be discussing on-site optimization, Sam will cover analytics and data that we need to prioritze for SEO and Grant will touch base on a different approach to linkbuilding.

What’s more exciting is our forward-thinking topics. I will cover conversion rate optimization and how it affects SEO, Sam will be discussing about niche search engines and why you should start investing time working on them, and Grant will touch base on SEO scalability. Three critical things that will shape the future of SEO in a global scale.

3) The Food is Awesome

I’m not entirely sure if you remember last year’s buffet lunch but I had a really good time chomping down on the Thai Basil Chicken that Josiah’s Catering served up. This year’s menu is sure to be as delicious as Josiah’s Catering will serve another round of buffet lunch for everyone.

Bon Appétit!

4) We’re touching base with both the Basic and Advanced

One big thing we learned from last year’s SEO Summit – it’s a big, segmented crowd. Some attendees were people who were just starting out in the world of SEO. Some were already neck-deep in the trenches of digital marketing. So do we tackle the basics or the advanced?

Why not both?

And that’s exactly what we’re bringing to the table. Our keynote topics will consist of 30 minutes for each speaker. We will be touching base on the basics of SEO – which is actually what advanced SEO is made up of. Our forward thinking topics will again consist of 30 minutes for each speaker. We’ll be tackling the future of SEO and what’s next after a successful SEO campaign.

Now everyone can follow the flow of content in the SEO Summit.

5) Exclusive slots for 250

250 is not a lot for the fast-growing SEO community of the Philippines. Last year, there were almost 250 people who attended. This year, we still only have room for 250 so as not to make the venue too packed.

We want to keep the crowd to a small number this year and perhaps that’s the last year we’re gonna keep it that way. Next year’s SEO Summit may look a lot differently depending on how this one goes. In any case, the 250 slots is fast running out so you better make sure you get yours today!

6) Raffles and Games (Free tools to be given away)

Last year we gave off some goodies – including Epson printer/scanners. This year’s is going to be a lot more interesting. We also have digital marketing software to give out to help you improve your or your client’s site.

7) It’s Easy to Reserve a Slot (outline steps)

You could reserve a ticket for yourself and your peers by following these steps:

1) Go to the SEO Summit site and click on Register

2) If you are paying via bank deposit, make sure to scan the deposit slip, fill up the form and press send

3) If you are paying via Paypal, click on the button, specify your number of tickets and purchase it via credit card or a Paypal account

4) Then send your name and your attendee’s names via email to so we can make the registration process easier for you when you arrive on the day

5) That’s it!

8) Other SEO Specialists to Get to Know

Last year we had A LOT of known SEO specialists join us in the SEO Summit. This year, there will be a lot more of them. I know, because they’ve already registered. Oh, and did I mention that Jon Cooper told us that he’s dropping by ?

(Thanks to the hat-tip @Ven!)

Yep. And he’s guesting for the Q&A section. So make sure you get your questions ready!

They told me that the best part of the SEO Summit last year was the after party. I think that’s arguable. But hey, SEO plus beer = happiness seems about right.

So…

Ain’t that a handful? I hope that these 9 things are more than enough reason for you to join the SEO Summit 2015. All that’s left for you to do is secure your slot and be part of this awesome SEO conference.

See you there!

The post 8 Reasons why you should Attend the SEO Summit 2015 appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

I was nervous the night before. I walked to and fro my workstation – it was 2am in the morning. I was set to give the opening remarks at around 9am a few hours from then. I wasn’t going to have enough sleep.

I haven’t had a good sleep in weeks.

SEO Summit 2014 was my first shot at trying to create a better standard for the hacker-type SEO conferences here in the Philippines. There are three goals to making the SEO Summit come to life:

1.  We wanted this to be a charity event – giving away all the proceeds to the poverty-stricken students of Timoteo Paez Elementary School.
2.  We wanted to be able to organize the first high-quality, hacker-type SEO conference in the country.
3.  We wanted SEO specialists here in the Philippines to be able to get together, learn from each other, have an agreement, share insights and ideas, and ultimately, unite.

There is a rising number of honest to goodness SEO specialists in the Philippines. However, like the early times of China, the practices, agreements, alliances, and overall outlook of SEO companies and freelancers here in the country is segmented and broken. We have to go beyond that.

We want the world to know that the Philippines is one of the best places to go to with your website’s SEO. Right now, we’re not there yet – in fact, we’re near one of the least places to go to for good SEO (probably just one or two steps behind India). SEO Summit is one of the things that will change that.

I plan to make this a yearly event. In fact, we’re already in the early planning stages of next year’s SEO Summit. I’ve learned a lot, you know? And I wanted to share with you some things that I’ve picked up along the way.

1) Plan Early

We planned everything just 6 months before. For an event like SEO Summit which was supposed to house more than 300 people, that was absolutely cramming. A conference with 300+ people, a ticket price of 2,500 per head, three niche prominent speakers, and all things besides, you have to plan at least a year ahead – for the simple reason that this will affect everything else. Especially the sponsors.

2) Get Sponsors Really Early

Newsflash! Sponsors allot budgets way ahead. Usually a year ahead. You can’t just squeeze in and ask them for a sponsorship at the nick of time to get some of that juice. We looked for sponsors just 3 months before the event. It was a grave mistake!

I could say that it’s nothing less than a miracle for us to have closed deals with the sponsors of SEO Summit 2014. Won’t happen again for next year.

3) Document Everything for the Next Event

We can’t go to the sponsors and simply tell them “It went great!” They won’t appreciate that. You have to document as much as you can. We got videographers and photographers to cover the event and the sponsors. SEO Summit is not just a one time thing.

As such, things have to grow and sponsors love to see how the last one went. If they like what they see, chances are they’ll be willing to shell out more for your next one.

4) Pay your Presenters

I’ve been to a lot of events wherein presenters get invited (myself included) and we don’t get anything – not even a love gift of some sort. And that’s fine because those events don’t charge for anything. However, our specialization in the field and the time we take preparing our PowerPoint decks and practicing our presentations is not charity work.

SEO Summit paid its presenters for what they’ve contributed. And this will keep on as a practice. If you’re interested in speaking at the SEO Summit 2015, get in touch with me. Send me an email.

5) Provide a Seamless Experience

Steve Jobs believed in controlling the user experience – and that’s because he sincerely believed that consumers don’t know what they want. You have to give it to them. To some extent, he’s right – but that’s also because he’s an exceptional visionary.

Quality standards are extremely important especially in a big event such as SEO Summit. Providing an end-to-end experience to our audience means getting all your presenters to do their topics and Powerpoint decks ahead of time – so you can align to and reinforce each other’s topics.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if my presentation continued off in some way from where the previous presenter ended? I think so.

It would make the entire experience coherent.

6) Encourage your Speakers to Practice

And practice the hell out yourself! A great speaker’s secret sauce is simple: Practice, practice, practice. I practiced from 12am to 2am – just a few hours before my opening remarks. I didn’t deliver the most stellar of my presentations, but I sure nailed some points down – and the audience took it home. And that’s very important.

7) Haters will Hate

The evaluation forms provided much needed insight to me and the organizing team. There were lots of good comments and some bad ones – but with good suggestions. However, I’ve also stumbled upon hate comments there that had no constructive suggestions to offer at all.

These things are to be overlooked. Haters will hate – let them. After all, they might’ve paid to do just that.

8) Ask for your audience’s Evaluation

We handed out evaluation forms during the seminar to know what our audience thought of the whole thing. As it turns out, it provided rich insights on what to do and what not to do for next year’s. The audience was kind enough to tell us what to do and what to stop doing to make things better. We only got 87 people to tell us their thoughts but the data is more than enough to make us sure of our action points for SEO Summit 2015.

Here’s an overview of what people think of the seminar:

9) Asking Around before the Summit Helped

Using Qeryz micro surveys to collect statistics and gather people’s opinions before the event proper gave me some serious back-end insight. It helped me a lot to get to know what kinds of people are attending the SEO Summit and how I should direct my presentation to cater to that.

Here are some of the questions I asked using Qeryz:

Are you a:

• Small to Medium Business Owner – 26.5%
• SEO Specialist – 43.5%
• Marketing Manager of a Company – 14.2%
• Self Employed – 15.8%

Would you still Attend the SEO Summit Next year even if it’s not for a Cause?

• Yes – 91.3%
• No – 8.7%

Not only did we get insight of who’s attending but we got a boost in making this a repeat seminar since people are eager to attend for next year’s too!

10) There Aren’t Going to be a Lot of Walk-ins

In a niche industry like ours, people who are going to walk in are very few. Only those who told me they would walk-in and pay on the day really did so. For niche events like SEO Summit, strongly encourage your target audience to pre-confirm and pre-pay online so you won’t worry about your attendees on the day itself.

11) Ask the Audience’s Questions in the Website

I think that the questions in the Ask me Anything (AMA) section could’ve been asked through the website using a tool like Qeryz. They could be attributed properly and answered better on the day of the event too! We’ll try to do this for SEO Summit 2015.

I made tons of mistakes trying to organize SEO Summit 2014. The good thing is, I’ve learned and we’re adjusting everything to make SEO Summit 2015 extremely better.

Hope to see you guys next year!

The post 11 Things I Learned Organizing SEO Summit 2014 appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

SEO Summit 2014 was the first of its kind here in the Philippines. It’s also the first seminar-type conference I’ve ever organized with the help of JCI Manila and the SEO Hacker team.  It was an awesome time for SEO specialists, small to medium business owners and marketing managers alike.

A Milestone

SEO Hacker officially started November of 2011. Before that, it was a freelance SEO’s blogsite that had a handful of readers wanting to learn more about SEO. We are no more than 2 and a half years in the SEO business and this is our first event. It is no less than a milestone for our company.

The Backstory

One huge reason why SEO Summit came to be was because I wanted to organize an event that was not too formal and not too casual at the same time. A hacker-type event that would accommodate SEO specialists in all levels. An event that’s too formal is usually unreasonably expensive and is targeting the marketing managers and the SEO team of big companies. While an event too casual would become lackluster and would have serious quality issues especially with the speaker line-up.

My JCI Manila group was thinking of a fund raising for our project which benefits the poverty-stricken elementary students of Timoteo Paez elementary school. So I thought I’d pitch this idea to them. I have to admit, I wasn’t 100% serious when I told them the idea.

To my utter surprise, they didn’t only buy into it, they enthusiastically pushed it to happen. So we set-up meetings, made calls, conceptualized the entire seminar and proposed it to the JCI Manila board as our project.

They loved it!

Event Proper

June 21, 2014 was the day of the event. Spines were tingling, adrenalines were pumping and I found myself waking up to the phone call of my concerned teammates. We were high with stress, nervousness and excitement for the entire day.

Here are some of the photos taken during the summit:

The SEO Summit Venue

Did the Opening Remarks

First up was Jason Acidre with “From Zero to Hero”

Jason Acidre’s AMA Session

Benj Arriola Talks about his journey from Black hat to White hat

Benj Arriola’s AMA session

I talked about “I’m not Doing SEO”

Me, Benj and Jason on AMA

When Being Asked a Question

When Giving the Answer

Awarding Ceremony

Event Sponsors

With some awesome SEO people!

Me, Jason, Benj and the SEO Hacker Team

Aaaaand a Wacky Shot

In all, SEO Summit was more than I could have hoped for. The venue was filled up, the topics covered were noteworthy and the questions from the audience were tough but interesting. To everyone who attended the event, we really hope you enjoyed it. The videos of the topics and AMA, and the decks of the speakers will be out for purchase really soon (hey, we have to have a living too!).

To those who attended the summit, thank you for supporting our event and our cause. We sincerely hope to see you again next year!

The post What Happened in the SEO Summit 2014 appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

So yeah it’s our first time ever to try and organize an event. I realize it’s pretty costly – monetary and time wise. Things can get pretty out of hand pretty quickly. But this is something that we just can’t pass up! So here are the details and reasons why you should attend the SEO Summit 2014.

When is SEO Summit 2014?

June 21, 2014 (Saturday) from 8:00am to 5:00pm. Click here to see the schedule of events.

Where is SEO Summit 2014?

The Alpha Tents, Alphaland Southgate Mall – located at the corner of EDSA and Pasong Tamo. You can ride the MRT to Magallanes station – it is directly connected to the mall.

Why SEO Summit 2014?

I’ve been in SEO seminars and events before. Hell, I’ve talked in more than a number of them. And you know what I realize?

At the end of the day, everyone’s just sitting there with their eyes drooping and their thoughts up in the clouds. Almost nobody is connecting with the speaker and almost nobody is able to take home something new.

Why?

There are a number of reasons:

1) The speaker is freakin’ awesome with his SEO knowledge and skill but is completely crap in public speaking

2) There are so many speakers that you’ll have to cram all those info down your throat – leaving you grasping which is which

3) Crap PowerPoint decks with crappy design

4) You don’t know the speaker and there is not much credential there but this guy’s speaking up front anyway

5) Because of reason 1, 2, 3 and 4 you don’t want to listen anymore and look forward to the networking part – which makes you even less engaged

So we went ahead and formulated a solution against all these. And here’s what we’ve come up with.

Who is Speaking at SEO Summit 2014?

There is arguably little to no reason why you should pass up on the speakers in SEO Summit 2014. My co-speakers are the most renown SEO personalities in the Philippine SEO scene. And if you’re one of those people who live under a rock, here’s who they are:

Jason Acidre

Blogger and strategist of Kaiserthesage, he is one of the most popular SEO personalities in the Philippines and abroad. He’s been featured in popular SEO blogs such as Moz, Search Engine Journal, Technorati, Kissmetrics, Search Engine Watch, and so on and so forth.

He’s a guy I’ve personally worked with and I can attest to his freak of an SEO brain when formulating linkbuilding strategies. You won’t want to miss his talk.

Note: Even though he has not personally revealed the topic of his talk, I assume it’s within the field of link development and outreach.

Benj Arriola

Benj is a guy that all Filipino SEO specialists look up to. He’s out there surfing the web and saving confused and starting SEO specialists who have the guts to post their questions (whether newb or otherwise) in forums and Facebook groups. He’s also the Vice President for SEO at Internet Marketing Inc.

This guy has lots of love in the Philippine SEO scene. And he’s coming home (from the US of A) to be able to speak in this event.

Note: Benj personally mentioned that his talk would comprise of technical SEO and it would go somewhat with a theme of “A web developers SEO journey from blackhat to grayhat to whitehat.”

Sean Si

Of course last but (hopefully) not the least is me

I’m going to speak about “I’m not doing SEO” – SEO Hacker’s Secret to its Growing Brand. I’ll also be introducing our new SEO Hacker series on our journey to $50k a month.

Note: If you want to know what I’ll be talking about in the SEO Summit 2014, click here.

Just Three Speakers?

Yes.

I’m tired of going to SEO seminars and finding out that there are more than 5 speakers. People can only absorb so much so as to apply it when they get home.

And I made sure that the speakers are cherry-picked.

All three of us have had ample speaking experience and a level of presentation showmanship so we’ll be sure to deliver an awesome performance as we give our respective talks.

How do I register for SEO Summit 2014?

Before you register, I want you to know that SEO Summit 2014 is for a cause. We are giving all the proceeds to the poverty-stricken children of Timoteo Paez Elementary school.

These children are from the population of Smokey mountain. They are hardworking children who are striving hard for their own education and future.

SEO Hacker partnered up with JCI Manila to do something to help them achieve their life goals.

If you are interested in the speakers, the topics, the networking, or simply in helping out the poverty-stricken elementary students of Timoteo Paez school, please register here. Ticket price is at 2,500php which includes buffet lunch and merienda.

Slots are limited to 350 only since we have a table and chair set-up for laptops.

Wifi will be included – but for best internet browsing experience, please do bring your own mobile data or mobile wifi device.

3 Simple Ways to Pay:

1) Via Bank deposit or transfer (BPI Savings) – please send us the deposit slip through the form in our Registration page when you pay via bank deposit.

2) Paypal

3) Credit Card (via Paypal)

Rest assured we receive all payments through the payment methods in our Registration page.

Is SEO Summit going to be repeated next year?

Definitely.

We are already scouting for the speaker line-up for next year. Who knows? I may just be the host of the event and we’ll have a whole new lineup. Before I take on a speaker for the event, I make sure of two things:

1) They practice what they preach in SEO and they rank for their own keywords

2) They know how to talk and present their ideas well

Think you’ve got what it takes?

Shoot me an email. Invite me to a talk you are giving soon.

I’ll be sure to attend and listen and decide from there.

The post The Most Actionable, No-nonsense SEO Seminar of the Year! appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

If you’ve been wondering where I went since the last post published here in SEO Hacker, I didn’t pack up on a vacation. I was invited to a talk for SEO Organization Philippines’ SEO conference – Morcon 2013. Here’s where I share my slide deck with all of you.

Morcon is a yearly event wherein practicing and aspiring SEO specialists from all over the Philippines come together to meet-up, listen and speak. It’s an event where knowledge is freely shared and interactions abound. I’ve met a lot of new faces this Morcon 2013. Some of them were:

• Venchito Jun
• Paul Agabin
• Glen Dimaandal
• Grant Merriel
• Hans Koch
• Juanito ‘Cell’ Jacela
• Valerie Deveza
• Jonha Revesencio
• Nikko Marasigan
• Andrea Toribio
• Carissa Coles

It was awesome getting to know new people and people I’ve only come in contact with online. There’s finally a personality to the face and voice of these people.

My talk was about 15 Important Lessons I Learned as an SEO Start-up. It’s a post I published here at SEO Hacker but I figured it would be awesome if I could act it out and share it live to the audience. I also told some stories there that I didn’t include in my article.

The questions that were asked after my talk was very interesting. Questions like:

1) “Have you ever fired a client?”

My answer to the first question is ‘yes I have’. There’s this one client that wasn’t able to pay up until 10 months and a demand letter later. It wasn’t a pretty sight and the negative cashflow almost killed SEO Hacker. We were a young company then and our cashflow was dependent on clients since we didn’t have any financial investors behind our business.

When that company wanted to renew with us, we refused. We didn’t sign another contract with them. So they got ‘fired’ in a sense.

2) “What did you do when you got to pitch against another SEO company 1/3 your bid price?”

I simply went to the prospective client and showed them the other SEO company’s website. Yes they were pitching an awesome price, (they were proposing a contract worth 20,000php per month) while my price was considered crazy (I was asking for 60,000php per month). But when the client took time to go through this other SEO company’s website and saw all the spam and bad practices, they realized that this is what’s most probably going to happen to their site too!

It’s common sense.

How well you take care of  your own site and branding is how you will most probably take care of a client’s website.

I showed them SEO Hacker’s services site. Then I showed them the sites we’ve done for some of our big clients. It’s all it took for the client to agree that they want the quality of work we do instead of going to for the cheap, ‘churn and burn’ (probably automated) SEO that the other SEO company was proposing.

60,000php a month didn’t seem so expensive after all.

3) “How do you post so much in your Facebook / Twitter?”

I use online tools. My latest favorite is Buffer. I signed up for a pro account and have been buffering awesome articles I come across with over the web up in my Buffer queue ever since. However Buffer has 2 limitations that I’d love for them to explore right now:

• They are not able to post a buffered article in your Google Plus profile
• They are not able to post a buffered article in your Facebook Groups

Other than that, it’s all suave.

2 Things that we Missed in the Event

1) Jason Acidre – ’nuff said.

2) All the other people who would’ve attended if he was there

Even so, it was all fun and good – especially the part when the speakers were exchanging tricks while downing drinks. I got a handful of great tips, tools and business ideas there.

Looking forward to Morcon next year. Hope to see you guys there!

The post My SEO Deck and Presentation on Morcon 2013 appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

I had the honor of being invited to speak in the Digital Media Marketing seminar today at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Makati. It was a privilege to talk as a guest speaker there about “Boosting Relevant Online Traffic through Search Engine Optimization”.

The crowd was intimate but intelligent – from CEOs, CIOs, IT managers, PR agents, etc. It was a nerve-wracking preparation for me as I conditioned my mind and emotions to be able to talk to such an audience. I had very little preparation due to the crazily busy schedule I had as of late. Thank God my Powerpoint Presentation was awesome thanks to Angie Reyes of SEO School.

I talked about the importance of traffic today. To brick and mortar businesses and to the web. I highlighted the growth and revenue of Amazon.com as a completely online business model. I talked about some of the little things that makes SEO tick. I also tackled good SEO vs bad SEO and why they should go with the good guys. After that, I talked a little about SEO Hacker, then we had the panel discussion.

I had a lot of fun when I was up talking in front. My nervousness stopped when I held the microphone and started speaking. I usually end up that way. I guess I need to feel the microphone and the crowd to settle my nerves down.

After the talk, we had a very interesting panel discussion especially about mobile SMS spam. Globe (one of the event sponsors) was kind enough to shed light about SMS promotional opt-ins and their no spam policy.

Video clips of the event should come out soon. I plan to upload it here. Meanwhile I want to thank Goldcrest for the wonderful and successful event about digital marketing and for inviting me to be one of the speakers.

My next talk would be in November in London, UK and after that, there should be 2 more talks here in the Philippines before the year ends. I’ll keep you posted.

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The Travel Facilitator’s Market seminar was the first of its kind here in the Philippines. It had a good run last July 5, 2013. I was privileged to be the main speaker for the event. I talked about “Digital Marketing Secrets Most Organizations Know Nothing About”.

The event was held at Crowne Plaza Hotel’s Ruby conference room. We had our own booth and we got to hand out a couple of cards to the attendees. The seminar was about both the travel industry and what technological advances were happening to further improve the travel experience for users and business establishments.

The deck was really meant for beginners – people who are in the travel industry but have little to no idea what SEO is about and why Social Media Marketing is important. The attendees were a broad spectrum – ranging from students, academes, business owners, travel agencies, digital marketing agencies, marketing teams, etc. It was a very interesting crowd.

My next talk will probably be around September or November this year. I’ll let you guys know.

The post Seminar Review: Digital Marketing Secrets appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

February is a busy month. I just finished my talk in UST’s PRISM event while I was preparing for a talk to the new Henry Sy Sr. hall in DLSU. It was the Economics Leaders Congress and I had the great privilege to be one of the speakers there. I talked about How you can Use Social Media to Impact the World.

The event started with a talk from mr. Francis Kong

Then the seminar broke out into groups and the youth leaders went to their respective interests. It was an intimate crowd for me. Intimate but jolly and cooperative.

I talked about who I am and what my skills, passions and profession is – which led me to my influence (God and You blog). I explained that this is my impact to the world. We are unique – there is no other person exactly like yourself. We all have unique imprints in our world today.

Afterwards, I explained the logical outworkings of the social networks to the crowd. I started with Facebook’s EdgeRank, moving forward to Twitter’s TunkRank and lastly, Google+’s impact to the Search Engine Results Page.

If you’re interested to book me for a talk, seminar or event, check out my speaking portfolio here or send me an email through this contact form and let’s see what we can do:

[contact-form-7 id=”6129″ title=”Book Sean Si for a Talk”]

Sincerely,

Sean Patrick Si

SEO Hacker Consultant

The post DLSU ELC Talk 2013: How you can Use Social Media to Impact the World appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.