Janette Toral
Digital Filipino

THE DigitalFilipino.com Web Awards ceremony last week allowed me to get to know some of the winners (now posted at http://digitalfilipinowebawards. blogspot.com) and what they have done that contributed to their website’s success.

One of the winners is Hiraya.com’s Didi Lee who shared the challenge of creating a gallery-like feeling to the site and updating it regularly. They put a lot of effort on the exhibit part in order to give the user an update on the works being showcased.

Another winner, KabayanCentral.com’s Armin Santiaguel knew that the site’s primary market is the Filipino migrant, specifically those unable to vi-sit the Philippines as much as they want to. The site sells products that appeal to this market, such as old Filipino movies in black and white edition and Tagalog language courses for Filipinos who grew up abroad.

Gwen Nava of AbsoluteTraders.com highlighted how her group’s site provides value-added service to its members. Those who attend their trainings become lifetime members of the site that provides tips and advice on stock trading technical analysis.

From Cebu, Wesley Chiongbian of MyNimo.com bagged the award for the jobs and employment category. The website’s
simplicity and focus allowed it to thrive and grow online.

Perhaps the person that amazed me the most is Arnold Alvarez who bagged recognition in three categories. He is behind FilipinoFoodRecipes.net, BFHomes.net and PhilippineInteriorDesign.com. These sites have simple interface and have a lot of content. They are optimized such that they get a significant amount of search engine query traffic. Owners of the last two sites that Arnold had developed are getting a lot of sales deals.

No matter how simple a site is, for as long as it has relevant content, is properly indexed by search engines, viewable in most—if not all—browsers and loads efficiently, it can thrive and be profitable online.

Arnold is quite happy with the amount of revenue generated by the site through Google AdSense, the ads that appear on the site.

The whole experience of doing the DigitalFilipino.com Web Awards was a humbling one. It opened my eyes. I am now in the process of updating its content and to make Google AdSense work for me much better, I hope.

For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here.(November 13, 2008 issue)Write letter to the editor.Click here.