Learn More About SEO with Janette Toral

essential online learning for the digital entrepreneur, with Renzie Baluyut.

Here's a snippet of a post I wrote up over at another blog of ours, inviting digital entrepreneurs from all over to check out this interesting webinar series on Search Engine Optimization (SEO):

So you have a blog, you got all kinds of social media going on, but why is it taking you so long to get any real traffic coming to your site?

Search Engine Optimization (or SEO), while a relatively young industry, is a very high-demand skill among internet marketing practitioners. SEO involves bringing in quality traffic to a blog or a website from search engines through natural (or more appropriately, “organic”) search results.

Companies and organizations scramble everyday to achieve the topmost spot on a search result page, with the notion that the earlier your site appears on the list of search results, the more visitors you will get from the search engines. In effect, what you’re really after is web presence. SEO helps your blog or website achieve just that. Greater traffic potentially means increased sales, or at least an increased involvement with your target internet audience.

Search Engine Optimization is not only a great internet marketing tool, but is also a highly marketable skill set- sought after much by all kinds of companies, even BPO’s and foreign clients.

The Certificate Course on Search Engine Optimization Techniques will be conducted by none other than Janette Toral, one of the leading authorities on e-commerce and internet marketing in the Philippines. Know more about Janette Toral here.

The course will be conducted as a series of webinars-- online workshops and discussions- which means anyone can register and conveniently join in from just about anywhere in the world, as long as they have a good enough PC or laptop, as well as a reliably stable internet connection.

The hands-on webinar series will touch on tips and techniques to essentially get your blog or site to the top of search engine rankings-- search pages on Google, Yahoo, and Bing- and stay there.

Topics that will be taken up for The Certificate Course on Search Engine Optimization Techniques include:

• An introduction to search engine marketing & optimization
• Identifying niche positioning for products and services that you'll sell, how to target customers, buying frequency and motivation.
• Keywords discovery, attractiveness analysis, and implementation.
• Improving your website structure and navigation.
• Improving your website page titles, description, menus, body text, other assets, and good content (on-page optimization)

The course runs for three days: October 6, 8 and 10- a Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, from 6 to 8pm, local Philippine time (GMT +8:00). October 6 and 8 will focus more on theory, discussions and demonstration, while October 10 will touch more on comments on work submitted to the speaker for assessment and feedback.

More details on the SEO Certificate Course can be found here on the webinar series' event page. Or you can go right ahead and register for the course straight away.

Cheers, everyone!

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The Art of No-Cost Marketing, Part 1 of 2

marketing essentials for entrepreneurs and business-folk, with Renzie Baluyut.

Marketing is something every single entrepreneur has to deal with. Particularly so if you're running the show all by yourself, and you have to wear all kinds of hats in the workplace.

The importance of marketing for small businesses and entrepreneurs? We talked about organic growth last week, the importance of building up and getting the most out of your customer base. Marketing helps you achieve just that. People need to know about your products and services, they need to try it out, and if they do like their experience with your brand, you'd definitely want them to keep coming back.

Usually, however, the challenge is this: most start-up companies and even small businesses have to deal with having a very limited marketing budget. Sometimes, with even no marketing budget at all.

Allow me to share with you some tips on how to come up with a modestly effective marketing campaign with hardly any money shelled out from your end.

The Art of No-Cost Marketing: Ten Tips To Jump Start your Cost-Effective Campaign.

For the first part of two on my no-cost marketing feature, let's focus on building and creating. Before you actually get the word out, you need to have a variety of marketing materials available for your target audience, should they decide to check you out to see if you're worth their while.

1. At the very least, start with a logo. Something that speaks about your company, or your products and services. Yes, you can have someone do this for you, but if you're handy enough with a PC, you can come up with a simple yet effective logo for yourself.

2. Have prepared written blurbs about your company, as well as whatever it is you're pushing at the moment. Write-ups about individual products or services are good, but also have something written up about the company. Take it a step further: figure out your mission, vision and philosophy, come up with a tagline, and even put together a short elevator pitch.

3. You will want business cards. Again, you can make some from home using a PC and a printer, and some board paper. Put your logo on it, the name of your brand, and most importantly, your contact details should potential customers want to reach you and do business with you.

4. Put up a simple website or a blog. These days, with so much free blogging services available online, you can come up with a simple, yet fully functional and interactive website for any customer to check out 24/7. In fact, these days, you simply *must* have a blog or a website. Put everything there: your logo and your blurbs, all the contact details you have, related news and updates, even pictures, video, and podcasts later on.

5. Create other useful things which visitors or potential customers can have for free: a free downloadable list of tips, or a guide to doing something better, a recipe booklet, essentially anything of value to your target market. Even better: produce useful and informative podcasts or videos. Maybe a sample of your product or your services. Get them to try you out and get into the habit of coming back for more.

6. Take pictures and video. You could have shots of your team in action, or you in an event- anything to highlight your products and services, and to show how other customers are having a positive experience with your brand.

7. Social media and social networks: go right ahead and put up your Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages. Don't forget to fill these up with all kinds of useful things (see #5), so not only can your market try you out, they can even tell their friends about their experience with you. Take it a step further: go for Multiply as well, or a photo service such as Snapfish or Shutterfly, try out LinkedIn, or even touch base with potential fans of MySpace and Friendster.

8. Brochures and Flyers. Come up with handy print copies for your clientele. It could be a menu, or a list of products and services you could offer. Don't forget to put all your contact details, including your web address, and the URL's to all your social media services.

9. Come up with a media kit- this is most particularly useful for when you'll be doing all sorts of media placements or strategic partnerships and tie-ups later on. The point is to put everything you have about your company or your product/service line into one convenient kit for potential partners, sponsors, and even customers if you wish. Include samples, as well as your brochures and flyers, and pretty much anything else you'd feel putting in that kit.

10. Put together a database. Sure for now you can probably put together the emails of your more immediate friends and family, but in time as you gain more repeat business as well as more customers, you will find that having a customer database will help you with all kinds of marketing and promotional activities.

That's it for now. Part 2 of The Art of No-Cost Marketing Coming right up, as we talk about Getting The Word Around.

Photo courtesy of our friends over at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Cheers, everyone.

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Webinars Are The Way To Go

new ways to do business with Renzie Baluyut.

I have recently attended some webinars with ProFora Media- a virtual events company based in the Philippines. There are advantages to being able to attend online workshops and seminars right at the comfort of your own bedroom. All you need really is a stable internet connection and a good enough PC and laptop.

There were quite a number of good topics this week: there were talks on social Media, e-mail marketing, setting up Amazon aStores, blogging and others. Our speaker was broadcasting live from Australia, and we had participants from all over the Philippines- Metro Manila, Bacolod and Cebu. The audio was fairly seamless, there was a good degree of interactivity, and all in all, the webinars were executed rather well.

I just realized that, particularly for small businesses and entrepreneurs, there's simply a huge potential for it. Other than the obvious purpose of holding all kinds of online seminars and meetings, I thought this platform can also be used for:

• Managing several branches or outlets all over the country.
• Keeping tabs of your sales team no matter where they are.
• Building yourself as an authority on a particular topic or subject matter, as a means of extending the reach of your blog, website or company.
• Chat party sessions, or town hall meetings- great for all kinds of communities from anywhere around the world.
• A great way for artists and musicians to meet their fans

And any of these can mutate in so many other different ways.

The challenge for webinar event organizers, however, in my opinion, is to get people to try out webinars and experience it for themselves. Webinars are a convenient and cost-effective way to get learning, at the very least. It's still a great way to do networking for those who want it, and I've already laid down some ideas for anyone with a business or organization.

For those who want to give webinars a try, the guys of ProFora Media and Digital Filipino have a series of online talks, in celebration of Digital Filipino's 10th anniversary- The ProFora Media Lightbulb Sessions- on Thursday, 17 Sept 2009. The webinars for the day include:

• 11am - 12nn "The State of E-Commerce in the Philippines" by Janette Toral of Digital Filipino
• 2pm - 3pm "Briefing on the 3rd Digital Filipino Web Awards (2009)", by Janette Toral of Digital Filipino
• 5pm - 6pm "New Trends in Outsourcing", by Gio Carino of Prodigy AE
• 6pm - 7pm "Online Video Marketing", by Mary Tolentino of ClientFirst
• 7pm - 8pm "Blogging For Money: How To Make Money From Writing Blog Reviews and News Articles", by Janette Toral of Blog4Reviews

Interested parties can contact ProFora Media directly, by checking out their Facebook page over here, or emailing them here: info@proforamedia.com.

As a public service, here's a little something about both Digital Filipino and ProFora Media, in the event you'd like to check them out:

Digital Filipino started out as an e-commerce resource website, run by Janette Toral, but has since then evolved into a community of web professionals, online entrepreneurs, new media enthusiasts and educators all over the Philippines.

Digital Filipino also serves as a venue to marketing Janette's books, articles, events, and advocacies. This site started last September 17, 1999 and continues to help a lot of people with their respective e-commerce and internet marketing needs.

Visit the website: http://www.digitalfilipino.com/
Join the community! http://digitalfilipinocom.ning.com/
Check out our blog: http://digitalfilipinoclub.blogspot.com/

ProFora Media is the Philippines' premier virtual events company, providing organizations, professionals and knowledge-seekers with new and innovative ways to learn and do business that are cost-effective and productivity-efficient.

Find out how webinars can work for your company today! Contact ProFora to attend one of our webinar, or arrange for a demo for your organization today.

Our website: http://www.proforamedia.com/
Check out ProFora on Facebook!
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ProForaMedia

Cheers, everyone.

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Online Entrepreneurship with Renzie

With this blog, I formally begin my career as an Online Entrepreneur.

I've been blogging for a little over a year now (as of this writing), but it wasn't until November of 2007 that I have realized the potential for blogging to be a legitimate online business. Later I found out that it's not just blogging: there are quite a number of ways anyone can make money online- legitimately, safely, without having to sell yourself short, or resort to shady dealings or anything of the kind.

That being said, welcome to my latest blog, "Online Entrepreneurship".

Though I admit, I'm learning as I go, just like everybody else- this blog is meant to document my ongoing Quest for Financial Independence. I'm more than willing to share tips and advice to anyone else willing to walk the same path as I am.

So "Online Entrepreneurship" is a learning blog. I'll post my realizations and discoveries as they all happen. There's a lot to be learned out there, and just about any real-life business can translate well into an online asset. And just like any successful endeavor, it's going to take patience, discipline and time.

All this is probably in connection with my desire to start a new life, which I blogged about elsewhere.

So what's there to learn in here?

• Tips on being a better online entrepreneur. Management concepts, time management, marketing, and staying in the entrepreneurial mindset.
• Guides to online learning, recommendations on what podcasts to listen to, blogs to read or websites to visit.
• Building better blogs; how to start one from scratch, how to market it, and make the most out of your traffic.
• Internet Marketing; something every online entrepreneur should know. Stuff on SEO, using social media, buzz marketing, etc.
• E-commerce and the growing digital marketplace.
• And other topics that I haven't thought about now, but may want to dig into much later on.

Feedback is definitely most welcome. I would appreciate questions, requested topics you'd want me to touch on, and opinions on all things Online Entrepreneurship.

Cheers, everyone!

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The Path of the Online Entrepreneur

Online Entrepreneurship seems to be a hot topic these days. With a recent and ongoing shift towards New Media and User-generated Content comes a variety of ways one can monetize any given online effort.

On another blog of mine, I wrote about my so-called Quest for Financial Independence. In early 2008, I figured I had enough of the 9-to-5 workday- and decided to walk the Path of the Entrepreneur. I've been blogging since March of 2007, so I thought, why not make money out of blogging?

It's not easy. There are literally thousands of posts, forums and blogs talking about the pros and cons of making money online, or more specifically, through your blogs. Most of them are all about personal experiences, but there are still many others trying to "persuade" you into signing up for a program you don't even need.

In fact, a lot of people out there are misguided into thinking that it's easy to make money through blogs. Just like any business venture, you have to seriously put time, effort and even money in developing blogs. But more importantly, if you don't have a passion for writing and a discipline for regularly coming up with quality content, then you're just wasting your time.

Online Entrepreneurship is not easy- there's no sure-fire way to success, no step-by-step formula to make lots of money. The truth is, you might even fail in a few efforts before tasting just the smallest bit of success. You have to treat it like you would any other business venture. There will be risks, there will be losses, but ultimately,there will be rewards.

The Path of the Entrepreneur is different for all of us- some do blogging, others do more search engine optimization, others focus on buzz marketing, and you have a whole new set of skills for a digital marketplace- digital photography, digital audio and video editing, graphic design, etc.

Your success as an online entrepreneur really depends on your ability to quickly capitalize on the new opportunities presented by a rapidly growing digital marketplace- both online and off. Your journey begins with a single step: start learning new skills, learn as much as you can about new trends in digital and online media, translate your real-world competencies into online assets.

Your journey as an Online Entrepreneur starts now.

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