racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

I was unable to post about the Isulong SEOPH awarding night earlier because of the extended power outage we had in our part of town. I thought power would’ve already been restored, but it turns out we lost power again after coming back home, and it wouldn’t return until two days after.

Caren and I generally had a good time, save for some not-so-pleasant observations of some people (don’t ask). The food and refreshments were okay (Jason treated me to a pre-event beer. Thanks Jason!), but the venue was a bit cramped. I think Marc wanted people to have more intimate space to interact, so he chose not to set the event up at a larger place.

As I write this, there’s only a week and a few hours left to go for the Isulong SEOPH contest. This is basically your usual search engine ranking contest, where the ones at the top of Google search by the end of the duration for a certain keyword would be awarded the prizes.

Not really.

But we do run a blog named Isulong SEOPH, as do perhaps hundreds of other people. Yeah, hundreds of other people who want a bite at that prize money, the honor of being number one, or just a chance to bite each other’s heads off in the heat of the competition. But what’s the difference?

We’re on page one.

And that’s by no means a small feat (remember, big feet = big s____). After all, we’re up against seasoned SEO professionals and enthusiasts. There are, indeed, people who optimize for the good ol’ search engines (Google and what’s-their-names), in order for their pet projects or clients to appear number one, or at least among the search results.

Moreover, Ia, Phillip and I are just enjoying ourselves, basking in the glow of the screens of our spanking new MacBook Pros (or is it MacBooks Pro?) while sipping our favorite cocktails in our respective corner-offices in Makati, which we’ve opened up for our great new startup, Go-Ogle!

Ok, I lie. But not about the page-one part. We rock! We’re about to pwn Isulong SEOPH! And we’re frickin’ n00bs at SEO, for crying out loud!

We do hope our projects would earn us those new MacBooks Pro and those large corner-offices in Makati (while we absolutely shun corporate life, large offices would be cool for frolicking around with expensive equipment in).

Oh, I lied about the alcohol too. No alcohol for you, Ia and Phil. You’re too young!

A bit of help

We need a Link!

So now that that nonsensical thinking-aloud thing’s over with, I’d like to solicit your help. You see, our being on page one is by no means easy and comfortable. We now feel the pressure in a way, because we feel that we’re there by chance. Google must love the fact that we’re calling ourselves Go-Ogle. Or perhaps that’s because of early fluctuations in the rankings. Or it could be due to a host of other factors.

Fact is, we really do hope that our page-one status would be sustainable. We’ve tried to optimize as well as we could on-site, but we need help with off-site optimization, too, which would usually consist about 50% of optimization activities (or about 75% of the effort, I’d say).

So if you have hearts of gold, and would like to see your favorite young, struggling artistes win their share of the glory, do link to our Isulong SEOPH site.

The URL is:

http://www.go-ogle.com.ph/isulong-seoph

And the anchor link text should be:

Isulong SEOPH

Here’s a convenient code you can copy and paste onto your blogs or sites, for those who can access their templates/themes (or who prefer hardcoding their posts/entries or blogs).

Isulong SEOPH

What will you get?

Well, aside from our heartfelt thanks, we will link back to you on our Isulong SEOPH site. And you’ll also have first crack at what we’re developing for Go-Ogle!

There are probably a ton of other things we could help you out with in exchange, considering our interest in a ton of things (ranging from web design, basketball, programming, creative writing, cryptography, accupressure, kung fu, Swahili translation, et cetera). Just drop us a line. We’ve set up a mailing address at mail@go-ogle.com.ph . We’ll also be setting up an email group for discussion, soon.