Yehey! This Blog is Google Pagerank 4 at last!

Months of hard work, diligence in blogging and a lot of time spent online! This is what it takes to finally get ranked by Google. I'm so happy to find out that my 2 blogs ( CallCenterVet and Olympic Blogger ) have been ranked PR4 by Google. This opens up a lot of opportunities for me.

Why is Google Pagerank important? Well, if you're planning to make some major money online. This is what you need to set your goals on. Pagerank as defined by wikipedia is Google's way of judging a web site's importance on the internet. Google sets and changes it's algorithmic calculations every time it updates Pageranking but the general accepted factors that contribute to a website pagerank is the number of other websites the link back to a website ( in which google figures this is considered a vote of confidence that the site is important or at least relevant. Another factor is content. The number of pages indexed and the frequency of updates are just a few content-related considerations to get a respectable pagerank.

But why is this really important? I guess I didn't answer the question directly. The general notion on the internet especially if you plan to attract advertisers and make some money out of blogging is, the higher your PR the more valuable your website is. When you are already monetizing your website through a pay per post deal, having a decent pagerank such as 3 or 4 can get you bigger deals. For example, some advertisers would love to pay for you to blog about their website or product if you have a higher pagerank. If you have a PR4 like this blog, you can blog or review their website for $20-$50 depending on which amount you want. If you have a PR4, you can also "set the bar" higher at your value just because your blog has achieved a certain degree of accomplishment. Simply put, the higher PR your blog has, the higher it's earning potential is.

I tell you now, a lot of money-making blogs revolve around their Google Pagerank. It is the status quo and it is not going away until Google itself scratches it off. It is what advertisers look at first if they want to advertise or sponsor your blog. In the past few days, the blogging world has gone crazy over the changes that Google made on their Pagerank. Mostly, coming from bloggers whose blogs got it's Pagerank reduced because they violated Google terms.

I really do hope some of you guys try blogging as a hobby first. It's a good way to express yourself. It can be your hobby. It can exercise your writing skills. And with a little time-investment and consistency, this "hobby" can earn you extra cash! This is how major bloggers like Problogger, John Chow, Shoemoney, Joel Comm started out a few years ago. They are now widely-recognized pioneers and more importantly the biggest blogging earners in the world! Go check out their websites. You'll learn a lot from them. I know I did!

If any of you need help in starting a blog yourself, I'd be happy to assist you. And I'll start right now, if you want to blog about something, choose a topic or what they call a "niche" that you love or have good knowledge or have great passion on. This is a very important factor so that you can maintain interest and be motivated to continue blogging.

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Move Over Call Centers/BPO! Here's The New Sunshine Industry!

I knew it all along! But it took somebody else to write about it first but I had the same idea. There's a new challenge to the call centers domination as a premier industry that provides excellent opportunities. The industry is much more lucrative because it offers an alternative and pays A LOT better than working for call centers. It's been around but most people hardly notice it. Sirit?

The work is called Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing. As per wikipedia, Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic for a website through natural or "organic" search results. While Search Engine Marketing is a form of Internet Marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in the search engine results pages. A lot of technical things that don't make sense to the unopened minds I'd have to admit but it's really simple! People who own websites and sell their products on the web are crazy about these! Why? Because being visible on Google and more importantly ranking higher in the search index usually means more SALES! ( or at least more people to see what they got to sell ). But "why is it important"? people may ask. Let me set an example. For a normal person who is very eager to buy something and looks to the internet to find information about that something, he will naturally look it up using Google or Yahoo. For a normal person once he types in that something and clicks on seach, he will click on the first search result on Google's index. He will browse around that website and if he loves it enough, he will buy it on the spot without looking any further. Ka-ching! for the website owner! Now multiply that searcher/buyer in ten of millions times ---> You got a website owner become an internet mogul!

It is no wonder why business people use websites to market their products! Gone are the usual stores or offices to show their wares. Internet Sales is a multi-billion dollar industry. BUT whether their business is Online or Off-line, the same business principle is still followed.... That is "location... location... Location!" For those business people owning stores, it is prime LOCATION that they are willing to pay top dollars for. In the case of internet business people, it is TOP location in the search engines they are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for.

Now for those Filipinos who are into this SEO and SEM stuff, this means thousands of dollars in earnings if they are successfully hired to "optimize" a website owners site. I'm not kidding! I know some Pinoys who are quietly making their fortune through these stuff! In fact, I'm into SEO and SEM myself! I started blogging about the Olympics as a way to capture the huge internet search traffic that the 2008 Olympics will generate for next year! But what's in it for me people may ask? Making money ofcourse! When people visting my Olympics Blog click on the ads I have all over my blog, I earn some money. Every time someone signs-up through my referral ads in my blog, I earn some money. Every time, I write a review for a website or blog, I earn some money. When people buy Olympics stuff I advertise on my blog, I earn some money. Even when people watch celebrity news videos I have on the bottom of my blog, I earn some money! There's a lot of ways of earning extra cash in blogging. In these past few days alone, I have earned 40 dollars just by writing reviews. The best part about it is it only took me a total of 3 hours to do it. Really easy!

Even with the limited SEO knowledge I have, I'm expecting huge traffic for next year. That's because I have high search engine rankings for some good keywords. For example, if people search for the term Olympic Blogger in any search engine, my blog comes on top. It's the same if other people search for best Olympic blog or top Olympic blog, my blog is always on top of the rankings. There are other search terms that my Olympics blog ranks high, but I'll keep that for myself for now because a lot of people have already jumped on the bandwagon and started blogging about the Olympics to profit. In other words, I don't want my competition knowing my strategies.

Admittedly, I'm just a novice in this business compared to the pros I know. But I found a niche that I know has great promise. It's big business for the SEO and SEM people in the Philippines. Too bad there's only a few who actually have SEO and SEM knowledge.

Check out this article about SEO/SEM beating the call center industry in the Philippines soon.

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GENPACT Call Center Agents Openings

Hi there loyal readers! Today I received an email from one of our friends in GENPACT, Hazel Chua, and she says they are now accepting new applicants for call center agent positions. GeNPACT is one of the largest and most financially stable BPO companies in the world. It is very competitive in terms of acquiring new business and expanding existing ones as well. People can check out their website here -> GENPACT to find out more about the company. Interested parties can send their resume directly to Hazel for faster processing at hazelchua@ge.com. She also has a very nice blog about call center life here ->Callwork comics. If you're looking to have fun reading a comic strip of call centers, go check her out!

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Call Center Agents Can Earn More By Blogging

In my last "call center" job, there was a guy newbie who I got to talk with casually and began to get to know him. As he was telling me stories on how he got the job, I became curious as he came about knowing the job opening. He casually said he found a thread by a "call center blogger" who had a forum thread in Pinoyexchange. I immediately knew he was referring to me! Haha! But as I still wished to remain anonymous, I didn't admit it to him yet. But I felt so happy he found the job through me... It's just another day in the office for CallCenterVet!

Tomorrow came and there was no escape this guy because we needed to work with each other. As we took our breaks together, he again brought the same topics on how he was thankful to the blogger who referred him because he couldn't be luckier to get another job with a higher paying salary. When I finally can't hold my tongue anymore, I admitted to him that I was the blogger who referred him here and began revealing stuff to prove to him that I was. He is one of only a handful of people who know my true identity. Haha! I hope he reads this and know I'm talking about him.

We talked about blogging and why I got into this type of business. Well for one, to earn extra cash of course! That's probably 50 percent for the motivation. I told him that I mainly earn through Google Adsense and I was fairly successful at it. He was amazed on the things people could do with blogs and wanted to start blogging himself. But what we both didn't know at that time was there were tons of ways bloggers can blog for money. Blog advertising has been a great source of income for the blogging pioneers who chose to monetize. Companies advertise on blogs so they can maximize the visibility of their products on the internet. It's new age marketing in my plain words.

I recently start to get paid to blog in a blog advertising site I joined a few days ago. As soon as I got approved, I got 2 blogging tasks i needed to write so I immediately got down to business. It just took me less than an hour to compose 2 posts and submitted it. Now I'm just waiting for the approval and it should be an automatic total of US$12 for less than an hour's work! If I can get ten more tasks per day like these and continue to get paid for blogging, I can quit my job and work at home! Haha!

Call Center agents whether the have a blog or wish to earn more can get paid to blog at smorty.com. Smorty is the website where bloggers and advertisers meet and do business. Advertisers chose which blogs they want. All bloggers need to do is follow the simple rules, express their opinions and they are on their way to getting paid!

So you got some downtime at your call center? Don't have anything to do but wait for the next call? Or are you a multi-tasker and can fit blogging while talking with a customer? Whatever you are, you can just blog your way to more money instead of just sitting there! You can't lose!


Blog For Money Smorty

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Very Bad Call Center Experience

I recently had to publish a comment by one of my beloved readers who had something to say about the DELL call centers. It struck me a bit because it reminded me of the same experience I had with one of the previous call centers I worked for. The comment goes like this:

"You better remove Dell on your list CCV. They are the worse not the best! Kapal ng mukha! Una tech support kalang, tapos pag-training ka nila sa sales sabihin sayo di kasama sa metric (totoo naman siguro yung 1st month). Tapos nung una desktop lang ang sinu-support mo tapos mag-training uli pati-ngayon portable kasama na at take note walang nag-babago sa position level mo at higit sa lahat walang nag-bago sa sweldo mo. Grabe kapal ng mga mukha! Palibhasa madaming galing government employee dito kaya diskarting government din . Isip-isip po kayo bago kayo apply dyan. Kung trip mong mag-call ng 2-5hours isang customer sige go at nga pala yung breaks mo di mo na makukuha pag-nalampasan mo."

My team and I were in the same exact situation when we started out the pioneer batch of the now defunct account in my old workplace. We started out providing customer service and tech support for a VOIP account. The call center was correct in hiring tech support and CS profiled agents and team leaders. But 2 months into operations, sudden change in directions started to emerge, most probably because of my old call center's need aching need to impress the client. We were told that our teams must now handle 4 lines of business that includes the previous 2 and Inbound Sales and Customer Retention.

Up to now I believe that was a bad idea for several reasons. For one, the need to take up a new line of business would not fit the kind of skills the existent manpower holds. So there was training... but a person not inclined to sell and does not want to sell WILL NOT SELL. It was frustrating for all, from the managers who can't figure out why agents can't convert down to each and every agent who can't sell or even retain a customer. Then people started to fall off ( resign ) starting with the mid-managers and then the upper managers and then the agents themselves. Less than 9 months in existence, the client announced that it decided to move to another off-shore site where they can cut operations costs further. End of story.

I gave our upper manager a piece of my mind telling him that the account is in grave danger 2 months prior to the client's announcement of pull-out ( 1 month before I resigned myself ) but he was still trying to figure out and work his way out of the bad situation. But the reply I got was disheartening. He was still pointing out that we were not doing enough to increase our productivity and stats. They threw out all kinds of monetary, awards and other incentives they can think of to boost sales and other stats but it had dismal results to say the least.

I could name 2 things where they went wrong in that account:
1. Wrong hiring - they should have anticipated hiring sales people in the first place. If it was not possible, hire sales people before taking on new lines of businesses.
2. They account managers never adapted to the change.
3. No considerable salary increase for everyone since everyone was performing more tasks than stated in their contracts.
4. The managers were not able to anticipate or see the downward trend. Worse, even if they did see it, they didn't react to it appropriately.

The sad fact is, DELL is not the only call center doing this thing. Marami dyang call centers and call center managers na sa sobrang gustong magpasikat, e hindi pinag-iisipan muna mabuti kung kaya ba ng account nila or kung handa ba sila sa bagong trabaho. Worse wala silang Plan B and Plan C. Result bye-bye NZV. ( Hehe... you guys go figure what NZV is and you will know who I really am!!! ) Goodluck!

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Call Center Blogger Is Still alive!

Hello there fellow call center people! Let me start by thanking all of you who continues to read my call center blog despite the fact that I'm not able to update this blog daily. As you may well know, call center life is a totally different lifestyle to others who choose to work in the daytime. I have been busy with my main job and also I have been pre-occupied with my second "baby" which is Olympic Blogger Blog. The reason I'm exerting more effort on my second baby is that I see a huge income potential for it by next year! I hope you do visit the Olympic Blogger blog sometime and figure out why it may earn me thousands of dollars by next year. http://olympicblogger.blogpot.com/

In this light, I will ofcourse not forget my original baby. In fact, I am now looking for a guest blogger for this call center blog for the meantime. If this works, I will be making this blog a group blog wherein it will have several bloggers contributing for our cause. To promote the call center industry and each of our own call centers ofcourse! The ideal person is does not have to be a blogger already ( does even have to be a writer! ). We would want this person to be aware of the current events in his/her own call center primarily and ofcourse a little knowledge of how the call center industry works. Basic knowledge really.

I'm offering this opportunity to all of all me dear readers. There is no strict criteria for selection. Just a simple passion for the call centers! The guest blogger/s can blog about their musings or rants about how their work sucks or how the love their work or almost anything. Only one condition exists, the guest blogger/s shall not use the power of blogging to discredit, undermine, or destroy the reputations of anybody or any call center company they worked for. Guest bloggers also can choose to be known or be anonymous with a chosen alias.

This should be fun! Although there wouldn't be any monetary compensation for this, consider this a baby step for those who want to explore the world of blogging and what benefits it can do for you! What are you waiting for? Email me at callcentervet@gmail.com to let me know if you're interested. To verify your identity, please include your cell phone number and an essay of your work history in the call centers. The employment history is not a qualification. I just would want to see how you compose ideas in describing your work history.

Email me now! :D Many thanks to all!

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