I expected some students to respond to my call, but I didn’t expect one of them to do this full time. Vernon Joseph Go, one of my students is now one of Cebu’s best known professional bloggers and Social media strategist. He will be conducting seminars on blogging and will teach you how to make money online.

His blogging workshop will explain why businesses or professionals should blog. Why blogging matters and how companies are using blogs to spark conversation, maximize online exposure, interests and increase sales revenue. This workshop is also designed to prove everything you need to know to build a successful blog from selecting your blog platform to planning your blog strategy. Blogging has been considered as the new form of media and this workshop will bring more bloggers in the main stream media and into the World Wide Web.

This seminar is ideal for Website designers, Marketing Professionals, Business Owners / Entrepreneurs, Interested Groups, Stay-at-Home Moms, Freelancers, Virtual Assistants, Students, Individuals who want to set up a blog and drive traffic using search engine optimization and social media marketing techniques.

This module is the first of 4 parts:

Module 1: Blogging 101: Introduction and Opportunities (November 19, 2011)
Module 2: Advanced Blogging (Date to be announced soon)
Module 3: Allied Skills – Reputation Management, SEO & Marketing (Date to be announced soon)
Module 4: Niche Blogging Techniques (Date to be announced soon)

Seminar Location:

Across UP College Campus, 3rd Floor, Cebu Init TBI
Gorordo Avenue, Cebu City, Philippines
November 19, 2011 (Saturday)
1:00PM -5:00PM
email: info@cebudirectories.com

Registration is inclusive of Snacks and Certificate of Attendance. The registration below is only for Module #1

Super Discount – P600 inclusive of VAT (Deadline October 31, 2011)
Early Bird Rate – P800 inclusive of VAT (November 1 – 14, 2011)
Regular Rate – P2,000 inclusive of VAT (November 15 – 17, 2011)

So what are you waiting for ? Instead of wasting your time Facebooking or wasting your money on HCG shots Austin, why don’t you learn more about this opportunity to make money online? Register now ! For more information click here.

My first niche blog was www.stockmarket-investing.com. Stock Market investing is one of my main passions. stockmarket-investing.com, although targeting a very lucrative market, is somewhat technical that’s why I seldom write a post for it. But I’ll do my best not to be lazy and will update it more often as it has somewhat of a loyal following.

I wanted my second niche blog to be a travel blog. So after I put up my stock market investing blog in 2010, I started a travel blog. Traveling is one of my passions and I have traveled so much that I am sure I will have no problem developing the blog. Since I am busy with wearing my other hats, I wanted to pool other travel bloggers to help me put content in the blog. Unfortunately it didn’t work. All of us were too busy writing that the blog only had 3 entries. The domain name is still active, but I will not renew it anymore once it expires.

My travels increase this year, and I was really bothered by not having a travel blog. All those travel pictures, adventures and experiences will go to a waste if I did not blog about it before I forget it and so in August of 2011, www.thebackpacktravelers.com was born.

Admittedly I consider my personal blog as being a poor choice for a domain name. My stock market investing blog is great for SEO purposes but it does not establish a brand name. In thebackpactravelers.com, all of my previous mistakes in the choice of domain names have been rectified. The elements of establishing a brand and the SEO component have been addressed.

I’ve chosen to name the blog backpacktravelers.com not only for SEO purposes but it defines my travel mantra, and that is traveling on a backpack or traveling light. My travel blog is not entirely a budget travel blog although I will feature budget traveling in some post. It’s a blog about back packing travel ideas that will hopefully inspire readers to travel and to give travel tips based on my experiences as a traveler.

This is my latest blogging baby and I am nursing it now. I’ve started several blogs already and I consider myself I veteran when it comes to starting blogs from scratch. Well, I guess my patience will really have to be stretched as I have to go through the whole experience all over again. All my other blogs are already in place and is in some sort of semi-auto pilot save for writing some post, doing some minor tweaks or soliciting ads or being some sort of product reviewers.  But this new travel blog, ? whew ! I have to build it up from the ground up.

I hope and pray that I will have the same if not greater successes with my new travel blog as with my existing blogs. If you want great travel ideas then go visit www.thebackpacktravelers.com now !

Last May 10, 2011, my blogging world almost fell apart when I received this email from Google:

Hello,

During a recent review of your account we found that you are currently
displaying Google ads in a manner that is not compliant with our program
policies
(https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=48182&stc=aspe-1pp-en).

————————————————–
EXAMPLE PAGE: http://www.zdiaz.com/2008/01/(name of post)/

Please note that this URL is an example and that the same violations may
exist on other pages of this website or other sites in your network.

Immediately, I went to work. I knew Google, did not want any blogs to be associated with anything contrary to their terms of service (TOS). Although the above mentioned post does not in anyway violate any of their TOS, the keywords that appeared in the post seemed to violate their TOS. I decided not to take any chances. I deleted the post and all other post with similar keywords.

I won’t mention the post name for the fear of being banned again. It was a well written post and part of an SEO experiment started by the father of Guerilla Blogging, Marhgil Macuha. Over the years, I did not give much attention to the post, but little did I know that my SEO efforts has paid off. I ranked No. 4 in Google U.S for such a highly competitive keyword. (Although this keyword does not earn anything as it is “banned” by Google adsense)

After a week or so, I was surprised that despite deleting the post, Google disable adsense in www.zdiaz.com. My blogging world almost fell apart. Lucky for me (If there is a thing called luck) I have several blogs and other online money making sources. My adsense income was somewhat affected but not entirely. I was also thankful that my entire account was not disabled, only adsense on one of my blogs.

I appealed to google. But I did not get any response. The days, turned into weeks and it seemed like forever ! The only consolation I got was when Marhgil’s site (www.batangastoday.com) of which I am also a contributor also got banned from displaying Google adsense. I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that I was not singled out by Google and that they were getting really strict without discrimination. Marhgil worked hard in appealing to restore adsense to Batangas Today. After several weeks, adsense was restored to the site. I asked him how he did it. He said he just appealed and begged google to restore adsense on the site. He also gave me a URL where I can file an appeal. (https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=policy_clarification)

Meantime I tried looking for alternatives to adsense. I found some interesting ones and decided to use Bidvertiser. After sending an appeal two times. I finally got an email from one of the Google support staff

Hi Zigfred,

Thanks for your email. However, please be aware that because your site was found to be in violation of our program policies, it is no longer eligible for participation in the AdSense program.

AD MISLABELING: Publishers may not implement Google ads in a manner that disguises the ads in any way. For instance, publishers may not place ads under misleading headers or titles as this may confuse users into thinking the ads are actually site links related to that header. To avoid this issue, we ask that publishers use only “sponsored links” or “advertisements” to label ads. More information about this policy can be found in our help center at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=115985.

Your account remains active, and you are welcome to place Google ads on other sites which comply with AdSense policies.

Sincerely,
Andy
The Google AdSense Team

I was devastated. I sent this reply and explained the situation.

Dear Sir Andy,

Thank you for your response. I completely understood adsense policy and I made sure that I have fully complied with them. I just deleted the post just to be safe since Google said to “correct” the problem. Since there was nothing specific as to what the violation was, I decided to delete the post just be on the safe side. Besides, the notice said “You have 3 days to correct.” So my understanding is that if I did something to correct it, then my blog would not be banned. I corrected the problem but after that, my site www.zdiaz.com was still banned. Below is a copy of the post before I deleted it. It did not talk about p@rn@gr@phy. In fact it is an intelligent discussion on pr@stitution and the exploitation of women and children. Perhaps the google bot thought it was something p@rn@graphic, because it contained explicit words due to the nature of the post. But in no way is it p@rn@gr@phic, nor are there any pictures posted in there. Below is the post.

After several days, The Google adsense team replied back:

Hello,

Thank you for making the requested changes to your site in order to comply with our policies. We have now re-enabled ad serving to your site.

Please note that because ad serving to your site was temporarily disabled, there may be a delay of up to 48 hours or more before ads begin appearing on your site again. We appreciate your patience.

Sincerely,

Adam
The Google AdSense Team

I jumped for joy ! I waited for 48 hours. But my ads was still not activated. I decided to wait some more, but after more than a week nothing happened. So I sent them another message. After several days, Viola ! my ads was activated again !

It took almost 2 months, a lots of lost hair, several sleepless nights, broken ribs, a broken heart, blood and tears laid down in a tabletop display and a near suicide attempt before a finally got my adsense back on www.zdiaz.com (None of the above is true except the time element heehehehehe)   And I swear I will not do anything again or even experiment with something to avoid being banned again by Google again !

Nominations and Voting for next year’s 2011 award have already begun The contest highlights the very best blogs about finance on the internet as selected by a panel of 5 judges. The purpose of the awards is to thank blog authors for their contribution toward the world wide web we all use & enjoy. I don’t think there is any kind of material eward for this like a new htc desire,  car or house hehehehe because I have not read it anywhere, but anyway being recognized as one of the best blogs in finance is certainly worth it all.

With your help, I believe my www.stockmarket-investing.com blog will make it to the top. The blog was started way back in August of 2009. I became very active in posting articles in early 2010. Since that time, audience response to the blog has become very rewarding and it has really established itself as a niche site when it comes to stock market investing. This can be seen by the exponential growth and great improvement in its traffic as time goes by, its becoming a P.R 2 site in such a short period of time and its being number one for the keyword “Learn stock market investing” and in the top 20 for they “Stock market investing” keyword among other things. Reader response has been very great and I get several questions and comments from time to time from several readers. I really enjoy writing for this blog as talking about stock market investing is really a passion of mine.

Anyway, visit the blog fist, and I am sure you will find that it is worthy of being nominated to the Top Business Blog Awards (Category: Finance). To nominate and vote, click on the link below. Copy and paste the blog url: http://www.stockmarket-investing.com.

If you have nominated and voted for my stock market investing blog. Thanks so much!

Brought to you by: Online MBA

Anyway, I just signed up. I trusted this friend of mine. After I posted my referral url in facebook and started promoting the service, people were asking me if paybox is a scam. I told them, if it was than nothing would be lost as you are not required to pay anything. You don’t even waste time. (Not unless you are Bill Gates wherein you make $300 per second) All you need to do to earn is refer somebody to sign up using your customized referral url.

So let me address the issue on whether on not Paybox is a scam. Before we can judge if paybox is a scam, let’s get to know what Paybox is all about. According to their site it’s a rapidly growing online currency and payment processing service. The way I understand it they want to be something like Paypal but with the qualification of it being an “online currency.” It’s like they are making their own kind of online money or points if you may.

As of now, no withdrawals can be made to buy a laptop from the site on money you earned. However you can send money you earned from the site to other paybox users. (If you have not plans to go through with this just sign up and send me your $25.00 hehehehe just kidding) According to them once the reach a critical mass of about 2 million to 5 million registered users it will “open the door to be accepted into large payment networks and integrated as a payment option by major merchants.”  They project that they will reach this by mid 2011. Since its launch in September there are already more than 100,000 registered users.

So why are they giving away money away just for signing up ? Well according to them, ” . . ..Instead of spending millions of dollars on advertising, we are rewarding our EarlyBird users for helping us test our payment service as we build it, and only asking that you to share PayBox to help us grow . . . “ Hmmmm…. Kinda of makes sense, instead of giving money to advertisers why not give it to the masses and let the masses promote it. (A kind of online multilevel network marketing)

So is paybox a scam or not ? Well you be the judge. I’m somewhat convinced with the logic that instead of giving money to advertisers they’re giving it to us. Whether or not paybox is a scam or whether or not they will really give us money or whether or not they are giving us U.S dollars or Zimbabwe Dollars, doesn’t matter anyway it doesn’t cost anything so sign up. Nada, zilch, zero. So why don’t you sign up now ? Click here to sign up http://www.paybox.me/r/zigfred

Batangas Today is a news site that provides the latest news happenings in Batangas and around the world. Currently we have 14 bloggers including the editors who are working round the clock to bring the latest happenings around the globe.

Batangas Today does not only focus on news from Batangas. As Marhgil Macuha explains just as the New York Times does not focus one New York alone or the Manila Times does not focus on Manila alone so does Batangas Today which will not feature news from batangas alone. News from all over the world will be featured here.

I just posted my first news article today entitled “Philippine Stocks exchange breaches the 4,000 mark and is at its all time high!” Although I am not limited by the editor as to what to write on, I have decided to focus on business topics more particular finance and stock market investing news. I will from time to time however write on other topics instead of just writing business card printing topics.

I’m excited with the prospects of the site. With some of the best veteran bloggers and SEO practitioners on board, I’m sure that Batangas Today will become the leading fully online news portal in the internet.

What further excites me about the project is the fact that we are collaborating and working on this project fully online from different parts of the Philippines and even around the world!

By the way we need more news staff; of special mention are those people who want to focus on the science category. Take note that this is a “News” site. If you want to join this unique project, click here for more details.

I’ve been starting new wordpress niche blogs since last year with individual domains, but I realized that I am too busy to maintain them, let alone write for my personal blog ! So for some of my blogging ventures, I’ve decided to partner with other bloggers. I have not yet formally introduced my new blogging ventures but here they are, drum roll please . . . .:-)

1.) www.stockmarket-investing.com – This is my first niche blog. The focus of this blog is of course stock market investing. From time to time, I write about personal finance and business topics as they relate to stock market investing. I love writing about how to invest in the stock market that is why I started this blog. Also from a blogging income perspective, writing about finance and investing topics is very advantageous for several reasons. First the pay per click rate is very high, add to that is the abundance of potential advertisers. Secondly, the competition is not very strong because writing about these topics require a certain level of knowledge.

2.) www.guerillablogger.com – Started in 2009 together with my stock market investing blog. The intention of this blog is to start a niche blog on how to make money online. However since I could not take health care jobs of this blog alone, I’ve decided to partner with a blogger for this. I am still looking for additional partners for this blog.

3.) www.ourtravelplanet.com – One of my friends is literally a jet setter. He does this for a living. Today he may be in Manila the next day Mindanao, and the next week abroad! So I got this idea to partner with him and make a travel blog since travel blogs are also said to be lucrative. I’ve decided to move my travel entries to this blog as well. To generate more content, I’ve also decided to invite some close friends to partner with me in this blog. So expect more travel entries and features from other bloggers soon.

4.) www.lexparetonotes.zdiaz.com – This is the new blog/website for Lex Pareto Notes, a 4 volume bar exam based, statistical and codal based bar reviewer. It’s a projected I started with my friends way back in 2005. Now it’s one of the best selling bar reviewer having sold almost 8,000 copies nationwide ! The old blog/website is www.lexparetonotes.blogspot.com. I’ve decided to move it to this new site which is based on wordpress. The old website will be shutdown soon. I will be posting updates on the Lex Pareto Notes, especially now that we are working on the 2010 edition. Bar exam tips and other materials helpful to law students will also be featured here. This blog is still under construction as of now.

5.) www.tmcf.zdiaz.com – This the blog for our church. Last February of 2010, we decided to start a community church in our area and called it “The Master’s Community Fellowship.” Information about the church and  its ministries can be found here.

Whew ! So much work still needs to be done. Hopefully I will be able to accomplish all of this by God’s grace. Let’s keep on blogging !

Anyway, first of all I want to greet everybody a happy near year! What a great time to reflect and look at what we have accomplished in terms of this blog for the year 2009. It is also a great year to look forward and set new goals. This will sort of become my “SOMBA” – State of my blog Address.

As I said in the post entitled “Making an Electronic media kit,” I have somewhat summarized the recent accomplishments of this blog so this SOMBA will be short and so will be the next succeeding ones since I will be incorporating the details of the milestones that this blog has reached or will be reaching in the yearly electronic media kit that I will be releasing.

Looking back, in “Guerilla blogging turns 1,” which I wrote in November 2008, I mentioned 7 goals there that I was planning to accomplish in 2009. Well by God’s grace I am happy and satisfied that I accomplished 4 out of those 7. (Not bad! although I secretly wished I accomplished all of them hehehe… who doesn’t !) Let me give review those goals and give the details on each one.

1.) Break the 100 “resistance level” for ratified.org - At the first part of the year and at least land in the level 50 spot at the end of the year. – I have broken the 100 resistance level. This blog is currently somewhere in the 50 to 70 spot in ratified. There was a time in 2009 that I went below the 50^th spot. Unfortunately, I have not given so much attention to blogging in 2009 so I was not able to maintain it.

2.) Increase daily traffic to an average of 300 to 500 per day – Somehow I have managed to hover over the 300 level with occasional spikes.

3.) Triple current earnings – Well I am pleased that I made it despite taking a long blogging hiatus. This is taking into consideration all online income streams including other blogs.

4.) Update our ebook – Sadly this one hasn’t been accomplished, I had a very busy time during the last quarter of 2009.

5.) Increase P.R ranking to 4 – Nope, I didn’t get this in 2009. But I feel I am going there.

6.) Double number of links – Links have gone down, but I am going back to building it again.

7.) Triple average number of feed subscribers – This has increased 5x !

With that in mind, let me say that I have resolved that 2010 is gonna be different. I won’t be sitting around in comfortably snuggling my patio furniture cushions. I’ll be working hard in my blogging career !   Here are my goals for this blog (unless otherwise indicated) in 2010.

1.) Place in the top 50 for ratified

2.) Traffic target is 1000 per day

3.) Double current earnings (for all income streams and all blogs)

4.) Finally finish our ebook and hopefully write another one (different subject)

5.) Increase P.R ranking to 4 (5 would be good though heheehhe)

6.) Increase back links to about 3000

7.) Reach the 2000 mark for feed subscribers

8.) I also plan to expand my online income stream by opening other “auto-pilot” blogs.

9.) Build up my main niche blog (www.stockmarket-investing.com)

10.) Join more blogging contest ! (I missed out a lot last year !)

Hopefully, I won’t get busy wearing my other hats in 2010. I look forward to a prosperous blogging year 2010 ! Let the Tiger roll out of the cage this year of the Tiger ! GrowlRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrr . . .

According to ehow.com, a media kit, otherwise known as a “press kit” is “a package of news and background information that is distributed to members of the media to build buzz about your product, service or event. The information in this kit will help give a reporter story ideas.”

So basically a media kit is just a marketing tool that will help market your product or service. This marketing tool is directed towards the press.

An electronic media kit is of course just a media kit in electronic format, usually a .pdf file. This is much cheaper, cheaper of course than cheap auto insurance,  as you can just email it. Try checking out the web, you will see that most media organizations have electronic media kits.

Several sites gives ideas on how to make a media kit just try googling it.

For my zdiaz.com media kit, I made one up using open office. I then converted it to .pdf using the Open Office “convert to .pdf” feature. (Click on “File” then “Export to .PDF) I included stuff from Google analytics, wordpress statistics and included some blog pictures etc. I wanted to spice it up more, but I decided to keep it simple. Next year’s media kit will probably be nicer. (Not that this is not nice hehehehe) Hopefully my media kit will help attract more advertisers. LOL

I usually make a “year ender” for this blog, but in this case  since I have summarized it in the media kit it will serve as the year ender.  Starting from this year this will regularly serve as my “year ender.”

With regards to my “goals” as stated in my SOMBA (State of My Blog Address) in the post entitled, “Guerilla Blogging turns 1, ”I have reached 5 out of 7 of those goals. (Not bad !)  I will be giving a full report in my Guerilla blogging turns 2 ! SOMBA.

You can click here to view or download the media kit of zdiaz.com.

I was happy to be invited to lecture on the subject considering also that I am an alumnus of Southwestern University; I did not hesitate to respond positively to the invitation. Too bad I didn’t bring along somebody with me to take pictures of the event. ( I noticed somebody snapping pictures of the event, so if somebody could please email me the picture J) I wish that I have brought an audio recorder in order fulfillment that I could share what I discussed. Anyway I will be featuring the power point presentation instead at the end of the post.

Because of the shortness of time given I only gave an “Introduction” to the subject of blogging specifically on blogging as a business option. The lecture was divided into 4 parts. First I gave an introduction to blogging, secondly I talked about how bloggers make money. The third subject was on how traditional business can utilize blogging to their advantage. On the last part of the lecture I gave a very quick overview on setting up a blog. I only gave an introductory lecture because of the allotted time. Besides, to talk in depth about blogging will probably require a 2 or 3 day lecture.

The audience was mainly composed of students from college of computer sciences and the college of Engineering of Southwestern University. Although the audience was shy in asking questions, I am sure the introductory lecture fueled interest on the subject considering that there are only a few active bloggers in the country and that “blogging” is not an official subject in the college of computer studies or in any college for that matter. (Correct me if I am wrong on this)

I had a brief chitchat with one of the faculty members of Southwestern University college of Computer Science and I was asked to speak on the subject further one of these days. I look forward to that invitation. I’ve always considered myself as a “blogging” evangelist and I am happy to respond to invitations to speak about the subject for as long as my schedule allows me.

Just tonight I got an email from a student of Southwestern University thanking me for the lecture. Anyway if any of you whether you have attended the lecture or not has any questions about blogging I will be more than glad to answer them. If you wish to know more about making money online through blogging get our free ebook “Guerilla blogger’s strategy and tactics on making cash online.”

Here’s the power point presentation of the lecture.