My Key Learnings from Blogger Fiesta Manila

As mentioned in my previous post, I came in late. So I only got to start listening to the third guest speaker of the event. Mr. Jhong Medina talked about Optimizing SEO for Wordpress. Even though I am using Blogger, some of the tips were still useful to me, like editing Meta Tags per page. Now the problem is, how do I incorporate that in Blogger? Hmmm….

Photos courtesy of Azrael Coladilla (check out more photos here or you may click on the photos to redirect to his flickr account :)):

Jhong Medina: "Optimizing Wordpress for Search Engine for Beginners"

Next in line was Jonel Uy of letsgosago.net, BloggerManila.com, and NomNomClub.com.  His topic is about blog branding and he summarized it in four C’s: Character, Context, Content, and Creator.

Jonel Uy: "BBB for B (Brand Building Basics for Bloggers!)"

After that was another Q&A portion for both speakers. I proudly came in front and asked a question that I kept in my heart for weeks now: “Do I need to have my own domain in order to have a successful registration in Google Webmaster?”

Their answer was “No, having your own domain is not needed.”

Mr. Bob Reyes of bobreyes.com came in next. He shared the advantages of having your very own domain for your blog. He started with a very strong statement “Remember: You are NOT buying webhosting space; You are buying PEACE OF MIND.”. It is good to own a domain because you get better customer service. You can contact the technical support directly and voice out your issues, unlike in a subdomain where it is sometimes ignored. Furthermore, Mr. Reyes told us that a domain is like an investment. It becomes valuable with time.

Bob Reyes: "Hosting Your Own Blog or Website"

I didn’t expect that the next speaker was a cosplayer. Mr. David D’Angelo cosplayed as the pro-wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin 3:15 and made a grand entrance! He made me feel that I belong in the event. It was great to see the admin of http://www.otakucosplayph.com as I am an avid reader of that website. :) His topic is about blog personalities and using it according to your targeted audience. And my key learning from his talk is Personality: does it need to fit?

David D' Angelo: "Blog Personalities: Knowing and Writing for Target Audience"

Mr. Carlo Ople talked about making use of social media, e.g. Facebook and Twitter, to increase traffic in our blog. I won’t forget this tip: to post blog entries at 11:30 AM, 4:30 PM, and 7:00 PM. According to him, it is in these times that more people go online.

Carlo Ople: "Blogging powered by Social Media Steroids"

Ms. Jenny Manongdo was next in line and she talked about the Joys and Rewards of Blogging. I like her talk as it was simple and non-technical. She inspired us to be proud that we are bloggers.

Jenny Manongdo: "The Joy and rewards of blogging"

The last two speakers were Marlon Guzman of solidhosting.ph and Marnell Delos Reyes . The former talked about preventing blog hacks and how to handle it if you became a victim. One tip that I liked was about avoiding key loggers. Mr. Guzman suggested in keeping a notepad of passwords so that all we have to do is copy-paste it each time we log in.  Marnell, on the other hand, talked about Resolving Blog Issues 101. His talk was the most technical one for me. I learned a lot of things from him like robots.txt, among others. Hehehe! (^_^)v

Marlon Guzman: "How to Secure your Blog from Hacking"

Marnell Delos Reyes: "Resolving Blog Issues 101"

Whew! It was an afternoon with no breaks. Haha! Of course, I experienced the too-much-information syndrome with it. However, it seemed that the afternoon was not enough to cover all that I needed to learn to have a better blog. Hmmm…. I guess having a great blog requires experience and experimentation –and applying all the things that I have learned in this Blogger Fiesta.