My eye balls are blood-shot red and their veins are protruding for staring at my computer screen for far too long; a little more than six hours to be exact. But I’m not complaining, because a quarter of that time was spent gazing at our website’€™s rank in Google. I am simply mesmerized by how our URL appears on the 115th position that I often lose track of time. I know the road to the top spot is still a long way to go, but what we’ve accomplished is something worth celebrating. Leona and I have been juggling work, personal issues, writing and optimizing for the last few days that we feel this small victory is worth a few swigs of tequila.

My periodic visits to the Busby SEO Challenge give me a short, much needed break from my mounting work. It inspires me whenever I feel a little dejected or out of focus. This challenge is a fuel for both I and my partner. We will not give up even it will require us to set camp in front of the computer and if it will cause blood to gush out of our eye sockets.

Yes, we have finally landed on Google! It never fails to excite me when a site I’m working on first appears in the search engine. It’s almost the same feeling as when a beloved pet learns how to fetch or roll over. There’s affection there, a great deal of pride, and that sudden rush of blood to do more things. Now, before you guys assume that we’re already included in the leading slots, let me just clear it up now that we’re still far off. Haha. To be precise, we’re placed in the 11th page, ranking #109. See my printscreen here:

This is really something to be proud of because Chiqui and I have only been doing the basics so far (getting a little breezy here…). Wait till we go to the actual strategies (the wind’s picking up! heh). This busby seo challenge is getting to be a real fun pet project for me. Hope all goes well. Good luck to us and to all our competitors!

Bummer! The weekend passed by so quickly I hardly even noticed it. The two days went by like a roaring, out of control locomotive that hit me head-on at the end of the rail. Whaaam! The force was so strong it left me unconscious for two days. When I awoke it’s Monday already. Was I able to finish my household chores? Did I get the extra sleep I needed? Did I even do something fruitful, like finishing the book that has been forever sitting on my bedside table? All these questions linger in my head every start of the week, and I desperately fight them off as they have the propensity to affect my work. This week, however, is different. Why? Well, let’s just say that there is something to look forward to that not even weekend activities can equal. Aside from the new challenge at work - which I will not discuss as it will surely bore many - this week will also set the Busby Challenge in full throttle. So I say forget weekends, and say hurray for weekdays!

How can you enter a contest without the proper regard to its rules? Here are the regulations for the Busby SEO Challenge, and my hopeless comments in between parentheses.

1. Start date is 1st June 2008, 12:00midday, Perth, Western Australia at which point the phrase will be posted on the Busby website. (chiqui and I are really starting a bit late here, but with enough tactics and hardwork, we’re really hoping to push through)

2. End date of 31st August 2008, 12:00 midday, Perth, Western Australia. (2 more months, more than enough time for us)

3. Only ethical SEO techniques may be engaged and the judges reserve the right to review the techniques engaged by the winner to ensure they comply. (is this a strictly white hat seo contest, or can we use a little pink hat techniques of our own there? Heh)

4. No pornography, no discrimination and no illegal behavior permitted.

5. The competition is only open to domain and sub domain names that do not include the key phrase in any form (check!)

6. Only registered entrants are eligible to compete and win the prize. Busby will maintain a list of entrants which can be view on the Entrants List page. (check!)

7. Registration is free, open to anyone of any age, gender, race and domicile and can only be made through Registration Process. (check, we’re registered)

8. All entrants pages must have a visible link back to www.busbywebsolutions.com with the following text (including the hyperlink) in black Arial 10 font: Participant in the Busby Web Solutions Search Engine Optimisation Challenge (check!)

9. Only one prize per person. (whaaa–?)

10. Employees, franchisees and licensees of Busby (and each of their family members) are eligible to enter but are not eligible to win any prizes.

So there, I think our team has covered (almost) everything about the Busby SEO Challenge Rules. And since we’re not employees, franchisees, and licensees of Busby, we’re more than qualified to win the prize. Cheers!

When word got around that there will be a Busby SEO Challenge this June, a lot of SEO enthusiasts immediately armed themselves in joining the contest. The only thing that mattered then was that there’s going to be an SEO challenge (yey!), so never mind that first word of the keyphrase, unintelligible enough as it seems.

However, now that the dust has settled for a bit, there may be some time to contemplate for a bit about this chosen keyword (before going full force into seo tactics, that is). Really, it’s quite silly to be a contender of something you have no idea about, right? So here goes my paltry version of word research…

What exactly is a Busby?

According to my trusted dictionary.com, a busby pertains to the fur hat worn by Hungarian Hussars, as well as certain guardsmen of the British army. Err, okay then.

Going into the encyclopedia mode, there is also the direction of Busby being a city. True enough, Busby is a city in Glasgow.

Further reading will result to various people with surnames and first names of Busby. There’s the football player Matt Busby, choreographer Busby Berkeley, and many others.

So, with all these details gathered, is the Busby in “Busby SEO Challenge” referring to a fur hat (hah), a city, or a person? I got a lot of probable answers here, but with no definite ones.

So I’ll keep digging for more infos, or you could just help me out by pointing me to the right direction.

If you think you have the grit and skill to compete with the best SEO specialists, then this one is for you. Here are the basic details of the contest.

Entrants will be given 3 months to use their best endeavors to optimize a key phrase so that it appears as high as possible on www.google.com, when that particular key phrase is searched for. The winner will be the person whose site is ranked the highest, when that particular key phrase is searched for, on 31st August 2008, 12:00 midday, Perth, Western Australia. The runner up 2nd and 3rd place prizes will be awarded to those two entrants whose site is ranked the second and third highest.

The challenge is great. The competitors are the best. But we are not deterred. We are two budding SEO specialists who will slug it out in the Busby SEO Challenge. Yes, we are women in a profession dominated by men who will prove that grace and wit can win any dog-eat-dog competition.