The numbers are out. Bakkwa wins over iPhone in bringing more visitors to this blog. Before yesterday, more people come to this blog searching for iPhone. Now, I get more people looking for bakkwa. It’s confirmed that Singaporeans love the sweet barbecued pork more than their gadgets!

Lim Chee Guan and Kim Hock Guan win. Apple loses.

I was quite surprised that people, the non-geek and the non-techies included, are actually searching online for their favorite Chinese New Year food.

Shouldn’t they already known what and where to buy their favorite bakkwa?!

Here’s some of the more popular search phrases used by Bakkwa lovers:

• bak kwa singapore
• best bak kwa in singapore
• duck bak kua

Yes, people are searching for the new Duck Bak Kwa.

Who’s selling this novelty bak kwa?

Fragrance Bak Kwa used to sell them but I am not sure. If you know, write in the comment box below.

I still prefer Lim Chee Guan Bak Kwa & Kim Hock Guan Bak Kwa.

An apparent AdWords campaign went wrong for the Republic of Singapore Air Force or RSAF recruitment drive.

Blogopreneur suggested the probable relationship between MSI Wind and RSAF:

MSI Wind and RSAF Pilot

If this works, an ad for “teddy bears” can be probably selling rare Italian bred spiders!
– Blogopreneur

What’s the chance of someone looking for the netbook – MSI Wind, is also looking to become a RSAF pilot?

I could feel that grimace in my face when I first read about RSAF putting up such an irrelevant ad. Earlier this year, it was google SMU gets NTU AdWords fiasco, now its google MSI Wind, be a RSAF Pilot.

Is it Google’s AdWords is really stupid or the people who manage the PPC campaign?

Someone must have got it wrong – using traditional advertising concept on the Internet and expect Google algorithm is smart enough to relate wind with being an air force pilot.

Here’s what you will see when you click at the “Looking at Gadgets?” sponsored link ad:

Help Save Some Defense Budget for Search Marketing Training

Please don’t go google for “msi wind” and click at the ad so that we can save some of the defense budget and use it to train our RSAF personnel in search marketing.

Methink SEO and beer go well together. And one of the ways to get Matt Cutts to talk is to feed him with jugs of German beer. Is that what happened at Pubcon 2008 when he was interviewed by WebProNews?

You can watch the high-quality Youtube video here.

Cutts said, “I’m not sure I would say ranking is dead but it’s not as important as it used to be. The fact is the smart SEOs are not just necessarily looking at the rankings. They are looking at conversion, they are looking at their server log. It’s great if you’re ranking for a phrase but unless that leads to sales that doesn’t help you very much.”

“The challenge is not to pay so much attention to ranking, pay attention to traffic, pay attention to conversions and keep building good content and don’t worry about ‘can I show people that I rank number one for my trophy phrase.’”

Three days after I wrote the keyword case study on online flower delivery in singapore vs flowers, the blog post made it to the 1st page at #6. So it’s proven that it is easier to get ranked for longer keyword phrase.

Incidentally, the case study article about online flower delivery is also ranked top for the 4-word phrase online flower delivery singapore. In fact, this is a more popular search phrase than the one with “in”.

Search Marketing Expo or SMX Singapore was held on 13 & 14 Oct 2008 at the Suntec Singapore. I was invited to speak on search engine optimized copywriting. Honestly, it wasn’t a difficult topic – just that I’m not used to speaking for only 25 minutes.

What is SMX Singapore?

If you are interested to find out what I thought of the inaugural SMX Singapore, go read it at my SEO Blog – SMX Singapore 2008. You will find pictures of the other speakers and delegates.

SMX Singapore is the conference for search marketing professionals and that will include both SEO and PPC. Search Marketing Expo or SMX was founded by Danny Sullivan of Third Door Media and organized in this part of the world by Search Engine Bootcamp based in Sydney, Australia.

SMX Singapore 2009

Despite the small turnout at this year SMX Singapore, I thought it was good start and set the stage for bigger and better conference next year. Barry indicated that the next SMX Singapore may be held in June 2009 and already major publishers have pledged their support.

I am surprised! People are actually using Rednano.sg to search for information and landed on this blog. Thank you, SPH Search.

Even though the level of traffic from Rednano search is no way near Google, having a couple more visitors to my blog won’t hurt.

You may say I should not compare with Google and you are right. It’s unfair to compare Rednano to Google. But, I cannot help and remember the talk about “supplant the big names of Google and Yahoo as the prime tool for sourcing local information” as reported in the SPH owned The Straits Times on 10 Aug 2007.

So, I must track, monitor and compare the performance of Google vs Rednano and see which search engine is giving more traffic to my .SG blog.

Will I use Rednano to search for information on Singapore?

Probably not.

Why?

I didn’t see what I was looking for and I don’t like to be fed with information that is biased to SPH. I feel that this Rednano thing is just another platform for SPH to sell ad space.

The baby Rednano.sg is only 4 months old, so let’s wait and see what will happen. Meanwhile, it still Google.com.sg for me.

Am really curious to know if cheap divorce lawyer and good divorce lawyer were competitive keywords among law firms in Singapore.

I saw an AdWords advertising for divorce lawyer in one of the Hubpages article about Singapore. The ad prompted me to find out more on the divorce rate in singapore over the recent years.

According to a report by Straits Times in July 2007, the number of divorce cases had risen to 7,061 in 2006. At the same time, the number of marriages was at a six-year high – at 23,706.

Does it mean that as more people getting hitched, the number of divorce cases will increase proportionally?

And more business for the divorce lawyers!

More and more couples splitting up are searching for information on divorce procedure rather than going for marriage counseling to resolve differences and conflicts to improve their relationship.

To those who are looking for divorce lawyer, you may want to visit this site first:

http://www.helpourmarriage.sg

It may be less expensive to mend the relationship than to look for cheap divorce lawyers.

This morning I opened my mail box and found this short but very important note from William Kho(who attended the SEO Workshop in 2006):

“I followed your steps in creating a page on tips on caring for cats on Hubpages and I’ve got it ranked 2nd on Google in less than 30 hours.”

You can view his hub article which is ranked in the top 5 for the search terms – tips on caring for cats – in Google.com:

http://hubpages.com/hub/The-many-tips-on-caring-for-cats

While you are there, please join his fan club and add a comment.

You can also visit my hub page on Vivo City Singapore at:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Vivo-City-Singapore

It is simple and can be quite fun to write a nice little hub page on your topic of interest.

Starting writing now!

Thinking of building Web site to promote your brick-and-mortar business online? Here’s a success story of a Singapore SME specializing in mold release coating.

Web Design Course That Delivers Online Marketing Results

Terence Yap of BPI Technology Pte Ltd attended the SEO Web Design Course on 6 October 2007. He implemented what he learned from the Web design course and completed his new SEO-friendly Web site in November 2007. Within 2 months, many of the targeted keywords were ranked in the first page of Google search results.

With prominent search engine visibility, the new site was generating targeted leads which eventually converted into sales and business expanded. Major MNC’s based in Singapore and around the region found the Web site via Google and BPI Technology had secured several contracts by March 2008.

For more information on the SEO Web Design Course, please visit:

http://www.finggle.com/seo-web-design-course/

I reckon there are already many of free keyword research tools out there but is there a reliable AdWords keyword tool that spys on your competitors’ PPC campaigns?

If you are new to the PPC advertising, one for the smart way of finding the right keywords for your AdWords campaign is to use what your competitors are already using.

Although Google AdWords Keyword Tool can generates a list of possible keywords and related keywords to help you start testing keywords for your new AdWords campaign, it would save you time and money if you know what are the profitable keywords that your competitors are already using.

There are several keyword tools that let you spy on your competitors’ keywords for AdWords campaign, such as:

• Spyfu.com
• Compete.com
• KeywordSpy.com

AdWords Keyword Tools

I tried both Compete.com and KeywordSpy.com. After many hours of keyword research with these keyword research tools, I decided my preference for KeywordSpy.com [aff. link].

Case Study on Vitamin with KeywordSpy.com

Now, let’s use vitamin as an example for our case study.

There are 30 domains using vitamin in their AdWords campaign. You will want to further drill down each of these 30 domains to find out exactly what other keywords to promote their vitamin related product.

Let’s start with the domain that has the most numbers of keywords: vitaminshoppe.com

The free version of the KeywordSpy.com will display only 10 of the 12.785 keywords used by vitaminshoppe.com.

Long Tail Keyword Research

With KeywordSpy.com gold membership, you will see all the 12,795 keywords! You will be able to know what are the highly competitive keywords (more costly) and the Long Tail keywords.

An example of the Long Tail keyword which I discovered using KeywordSpy on vitaminshoppe.com was “magnesium glycinate”.

Further research on this keyword “magnesium glycinate” uncovered the domain organicpharmacy.org which has an inventory of 12,557 keywords!

Both domains are probably manged by professional AdWord campaign managers and you can now tap into their important list of profitable keywords.

You can examine and compare the thousand of keywords from both vitaminshoppe.com and organicpharmacy.org to compile your own list of profitable PPC keywords.

Save Time & Money, Make Quick PPC Profit

With such a powerful and advanced keyword tool, you will save time and money on your keyword research and make quick profit with your AdWords PPC campaigns for your target niches.

Start your KeywordSpy trial now.