Rambling Musings of a Filipino Bachelor (for the sake of posting!)

I haven't had a post since Sunday. Today, I checked my anchor text, Filipino bachelor, and found out that I dropped to #3. Thankfully, I am still on the first page of Google's SERP but I am still nowhere to be found on Yahoo!'s search. Same thing with MSN and Live search.

Not that I was ever on Yahoo!'s nor even on MSN's search radar, but still, I am hopeful that I will land on their search engine results pages one of these days.

It seems that being a newbie blogger, I have to do double time to maintain rank with Google search. Has this something to do with the "freshness" factor?

I started this blog as part of product research on search engine optimization and marketing. I wanted to find out if SEO can be offered to the Filipino public as a short course. At this point, not yet for most small technical-vocational schools.

Perhaps, universities with huge enrollment in their business, marketing and web development degree courses should really get into it. These universities can easily recover the development cost especially if the SEO module becomes a required subject.

I have used Google Lab's search trends, a free tool that graphically shows keyword searches within a period in a given location. I used it to check awareness levels because if you are not aware of it, you can't search it. I also tried keyword selector tool, another free tool.

I used the following keyword / keyword phrases: medical transcription, javascript, java, html, call center, blog against SEO, SEM and Internet marketing for comparison. I also compared medical transcription and call center against Angelica Panganiban, education, franchise business and money.

Judging from the results, there is little or no awareness of SEO/SEM.

A small technical school doesn't have the resources to engage in course development and expect ROI within 2 years.

It is better to offer a Java programming course. Java being a free open source software, has practically no development cost. There are websites that offer free Java programming tutorials.

While the search level for "SEO" or "SEM" is almost nil, "blog" has a much higher search level than medical transcription. In fact, blog has a higher search level than call center. This points to an opportunity to be exploited.

A below-the-line ad campaign, "Optimize to Monetize Your Blog, a Home-based Biz" comes to mind. But, this is purely hype.

One thing I have to point out is that any Filipino who wish to become a SEO or SEM must be proficient in English. In the Philippine outsourcing industry, English proficiency is a core competency.

Better than Java programming, English courses have a bigger market especially an IELTS preparatory course.

This way, a small technical school has a chance to ride on the dominance of the nursing degree program for the Filipino nurse export market.

If you were negatively or positively affected while reading this post,
please tag me. Filipino bachelor. Thanks!

The author is a management consultant for technical, vocational education and training (TVET). He started The Legally-Recycled Bachelor blog as part of product research on search engine optimization and search engine marketing. He is a Filipino bachelor with two children. His wonderful children reside in the USA with their mother.