Clearly being late wasn't intentional. I did (kinda) wake up like 7am in the morning. Unfortunately, traffic wasn't in my favour and I got completely lost no thanks to Teddybear.

Sigh. There goes the health points I got from yesterday's meeting. All thanks to my poor sense of direction - 45 minutes odd of walking is unbearable!

(Coming back) I'm attending the MPAS Online Publishing Workshop held at Spring Singapore Auditorium. It's a three days workshop on how to engage online publishing and "making money online".

Before I became a "writer" I was (still am) a blogger. So the methods of having content posted up on a website isn't something new to me (I'm also a web designer previously).

When Don Nicholas started his speech, my brain felt as though it was about to go into standby mode. The thought that pop into my mind was pretty much "what's for lunch?"

As he continued with his presentation, my brain started waking up. What he was saying is starting to make real sense - in a useful kinda way. The web is about hyper-linking. Something that people still don't quite seem to understand.

Now here's something nice – Twitter! Can I just say, "I told you sooo..." And you wonder why I Tweet.

Website traffic is based on three segments - search engines, direct traffic and referral. Twitter happens to be one platform that helps in terms of referral. Then again, back links from other sites also fall into the "referral" segment. This explains why engagement with social media platforms, and social media publishers (e.g. bloggers) are pretty important.

Pardon me, I'm blogging while listening to what Don has to say. It's a little difficult to write and listen at the same time. So, my entry might not be flowing very well. Some sentences might not even make sense.

Don is talking about "keywords". Which got me thinking. What is my blog's main focused keyword? I know "edison chen" and "nyp tammy" happens to be one of my top searched keywords, but it isn't exactly the keywords that I had planned to position my blog.

Shamelessly, the keyword that I actually planted happens to be "princess". If you search on Google (worldwide), my blog pops up in page 2, second place. First on Google Singapore (below images of course).

I guess that's why even my boss refers to my blog as the "princess club". Hurhur.

Anyway. Point is, keywording is essential when we talk about online publishing. And planning what keywords defines your website at the start, helps quicken the process of gaining an identity in this cyber reality. It's like branding, kinda.

Unlike corporate branding, you can (or rather should) use more than one keyword to position your website, in fact you can use thousands. And if all positions you on the first page when searched, we have business! (Am I making sense here?)

Don is starting to go a little in-dept into the whole SEO thingie. It's getting a little complicated if you're not familiar with how Google works. Fortunately, all that he is saying can be found online - with guides.

For those that have no idea what I'm saying right now, search for "Google keyword tool". There are two visible hyperlinks there that brings you to a "guide" to help you understand better (but you might need to read through a couple of times).

I pretty much understand the importance of keywording and etc, and how to work it (kinda). But honestly, the use of AdWords is still pretty much a stranger to me. But it is definitely something I'll be looking into (more) - right after I go home, or the office for that matter of fact.

Don has finally said the magic word, "lunch". This brings me back to the very beginning, "what's for lunch?"

One more thing *ahem* Drupal is under top five for content management systems! Joomla however, is also mentioned. Still not a big fan of Joomla, sorry.

PS: This workshop ends at 4.45pm. Hopefully my brain won't shut off anytime soon.

PPS: Do check out what's new at Gadget3.com. I'm here for a workshop so clearly, I'm not the one posting. Still, it's probably news worth reading.

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