Pinoy Businesses Aren’t Ready For SEO Yet
By the way, you might want to learn FREE Internet Marketing Basics (You know, so you can sell stuff online)
In my meeting with the various Philippine business groups, I’ve come to the conclusion that most don’t know Internet Marketing, Pay Per Click(PPC) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Those who do know about it aren’t willing to really pay for professional SEO work and would rather hire some college graduate to, hopefully, become an SEO expert.
I’ve been doing professional Internet Marketing for almost a year now and I still do a lot of teaching. Fortunately, most businessmen are familiar with Email and the Internet. So I start there. I explain that you can actually do a bit of marketing through search and email. Then I do the whole spiel on SEO and PPC.
Most of them understand it. They like it. Unfortunately, it’s too NEW of a concept for them to actually invest in it.
I know the MyAyala was once criticized for using blackhat SEO techniques. That’s one company who tried a bit of SEO - albeit the non-Google approved way.
Since then, I haven’t heard of any other Philippine company using SEO. And some really need some Internet marketing help.
My boss tells me, “Pinoys want champagne on a beer budget.” Now I think about it - it’s really true. Businesses here are used to ‘cheap’ everything. You can pretty much hire a Filipino Php programmer for around 15 to 25 thousand pesos (roughly US$300-500) a month. In the US, you probably won’t get anyone lower than US$1000. It’s a culture that we are used to.
Same thing applies to services - businessmen want high quality work at the cheapest price they can get it. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. The quality is not always really good. Sometimes they realize this too late and already wasted their money away.
Say these local companies do hire new grads that would do SEO for them. By the time the College grads become really effective online marketers, months have passed. The opportunity to earn real money online will have already gone. What if they just hired an expert an the onset instead?
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Remember Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding) and his family’s slogan? “Show me the money!”
New business proposals fall on the laps of investors every week. New, as in, “new concept.”
If you can show them the money, though, wouldn’t they be willing to invest?
Some still won’t. They say it’s FUTURE money. Hehehe. GO figure.
I agree with you here Jozz. We (at Exponencia Inc.) recently launched a restaurant directory site called munchpunch and designed our product to be PPC. I would say we had the same challenges you pointed out in your post. Hopefully, with people like you, more businesses will be aware of these online business/marketing concepts.
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