Floyd Gumpal Buenavente or Mr. Brown SEO Philippines is a Philippine SEO/SEM Specialist that hails from Manila. He graduated from the University of the Philippines Cebu College with a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication.
Highlights:
- Started learning SEO in 2004 and worked with top internet marketing companies in the Philippines.
- SEO Speaker and resource person for various companies and workshops.
As seen in:
Blog Mo, Karerin Mo! (Your Blog, Your Career)
Highlights of Blog Mo, Karerin Mo! (Your Blog, Your Career)
I.T. Congress of Valenzuela Colleges
Hootsuite Social Media Certified Expert
Member:
SEOMOZ
SEO Philippines Org
Mr. Brown SEO believes that the Philippines is on its way to becoming an SEO capital of the world, as such his vast experience with Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) is a clear manifestation of the growing demand for SEO in the world market.
My SEO Philippines Story
My fateful romance with SEO started way back in 2004 when I worked for an american owned company in Cebu.
I was working the graveyard shift for a really small sum of seven thousand pesos a really small amount of salary that time granted that a lot of call centers already abound.
I guess it was because of the people I work with that made me love my job despite the meager salary.
But don’t get me wrong prior to that I also worked as a call center agent for different companies I was really earning well (despite the insufferable shifting) but I chose to put my money in SEO.
Just what kind of SEO did we practice back then? Well my boss is a slick black hatter so we really siphoned money from Google, we even experienced being called by a Google Engineer and even sent a demand letter for using a copyrighted url. It was that wild!
But that was the place where I get to be exposed in the intricacies of SEO. From affiliate marketing to white hat SEO to gray hat SEO, link building etc.
If you ask me why I decided to stick in doing SEO it is because honestly my gut told me that this is the future, this is where I will belong and I will excel. But alas good things come to an end and eventually I left the company and I also left Cebu for Manila and worked for a television network.
Getting Exposed
Unfortunately the stint with the television network didn’t work out as well. Seems destiny had a way of pulling you out of things. Until now I still can’t understand what really happened back then but what the heck things turned out fine anyway.
I decided to work for another american company and this time I worked with the pioneers of SEO in the Philippines.
I was enjoying my stay until I decided to take an entrance exam in Ateneo Law and resigned from them. But alas I failed the exam so I was forced to find work again.
Leveling Up
For some time I worked with an NGO and helped people find the bodies of their loved ones. (yes we literally dig their bones and sleep beside them)
It was then that I became their official webmaster and that’s where I honed my skills. But again the NGO folded and I was forced to look for another job.
That time I was hired by an outsourcing company headed by a dutch-filipino.
I was handling an account for their offshore client until the client left the company and they eventually decided to hire me for their company website which at that time amounts to nothing.
I personally spearheaded the development of the website along with its optimization and off page linkbuilding until it reached the second page of Google for the term “outsourcing”.
Actually I had a bet with the owner of the company that time and I told him that I will place their website in the first page of Google for that term he said he’d pay me a hundred thousand pesos if I was able to do it.
For some reason he said he didn’t say it when their website reached #11 in the rankings.
Oh well. Shit does happen.
I also worked for other companies after that, sometimes handling clients and so on.
But for some reason SEO keeps calling me, keeps asking me questions, keeps telling me to be better and better (even after this website got slapped by Google Panda and Google Penguin)
So now I am a head SEO Researcher/Interim Off Page Manager/Consultant of a huge and (still growing) SEO Reseller company and I am thirty one.
Update: right now I am not connected with the SEO Reseller Company and I am a full time SEO Student and enjoying it.
Can I say that I am already a Guru?
I still don’t think so.
I always ascribe to that saying of Socrates which is
“I know one thing, that I know nothing”
And I guess I’ll stay that way but till then I’ll keep trying to rank websites left and right. >_O