(From L-R) Den Macaranas, Ronnie Bernardo, Ross Angeles, Maria Rona Beltran, Rey Estevez and Lawrence Chan.

With anchors Den Macaranas and Elison Barcelo, Vigattin Radio discussed about blogging with esteemed bloggers, Lawrence Chan of renz15.wordpress.com, Maria Rona Beltran of www.mariaronabeltran.com, Ronnie Bernardo of www.heliconprojects.com, Rey Estevez of boyraket.blogspot.com and Ross Angeles of www.jobads4free.com.

To start the discussion, Elison asked of their recent blog updates. Rey told Vigattin Radio that his blog boyraket.blogspot.com is all about his rackets that he shares with his readers and he told us that they were invited in a new restaurant to blog the foods they have. Rey said that blogging can help new establishments to have some clients.

Afterwards, Lawrence told Vigattin Radio about his blog-site, renz15.wordpress.com. It’s a personal and lifestyle blog, he also has an advocacy to promote places that has a negative connotation among the majority. The recent place he visited was the President Corazon Aquino Memorabilia Exhibit at Glorietta, Makati.

Ronnie then told us about the new technology that his company (www.integratedlaser.com) promotes. It is the IV Laser Technology which is very popular in Europe, Middle East and in some Asian countries. It has an anti-aging effect that boost the production of stem cell in our body. “Right now, there was a Filipino investor who brought it here in the Philippines,” Ronnie said.

Meanwhile, Maria Rona fills in and said that she started blogging late of 2009. She resigned in her 8 year old job and focus on blogging where she also has her own business over the internet. She partnered with travel agencies and if she has a client, she redirects them to the agency.

Ross Angeles then talked on Vigattin Radio, he used to be a regional sales manager of a soda company.  He told us that it is his passion to write and because of that he wanted to help those people who love to write but doesn’t generate income at all. So what he did was he created a social media platform (www.jobads4free.com) for writers where they can blog and earn some money.

Later on, they talked about search engine optimization (SEO): “Search engine optimization is a methodology of strategies, techniques and tactics used to increase the amount of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine (SERP) -- including Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines.” (Webopedia)

Maria Rona told us that SEO is about how to put a proper title on your article and the keywords used should be specific to the product you want to endorse. “Example is ‘Ilocos tour’, how do people search it? It can be ‘how to go to Ilocos,’ ‘cheapest package to Ilocos,’ etc.  You should mention all the search terms in your blog post,” she said.

“The most important is what value does your content gives,” Ross added.  He said that if your content has a value, your reader will continue to follow you and will even share it to his friends.  He continued, “They should have some learning on your content and there is a reason that they will refer it to others and the same time you will have a rank on Google.”

Talking about the trends that writers are blogging, Rey said “Currently if you based on  the social media here in the Philippines, the most trending topic is entertainment.” He also agrees with Sir Ross that content is more important rather than having a viral hit just for one or two days. “If you have a useful content, you can have your own identity,” he added.

Lawrence then told us that you must have your own niche. A target market that can add traffic to your website.  In terms of marketing, Ross said that you need to give your readers’ needs first then their wants.

Ross then discussed on how to balance the content that you should put on your blog site: “Number one (1), you should be careful with your title. It is the one that attracts your reader and if you are going to make a content you should focus on their interest in a sway that they will read the entire article. There should also be passion [because], you can’t write good if you don’t put your heart on it.”

“There are also other ways of blogging,” Rey told Vigattin Radio. “It’s not all about writing you can also video blog or vlog. If it’s your frustration to be a documentarist, then you can be a documentarist [through video blogging],” he added.

Before the show ended they gave their parting words to the listeners of Vigattin Radio. You can visit their site at www.mariaronabeltran.com, www.heliconprojects.com and www.integratedlaser.com, www.jobads4free.com, renz15.wordpress.com and boyraket.blogspot.com.

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