SEO Hacker Review of 2012

Cheers

So the year is coming to a close. The US have decided that Obama should still be the one making the shots and we’ve survived the Mayan Apocalypse. The SEO Hacker team would like to thank you for helping us grow into a community that helps up-coming SEO specialists learn their way through the slippery road of SEO.

SEO Hacker Highlights of the Year

There have definitely been ups and downs in the business but nothing beats milestones. So for this year, we’d like to share with you what happened with us.

Debut of SEO Hacker school – SEO Hacker school started out as a series of email-sent lessons. There were about 31 emails in all which will be sent in a span of 3 months. There was an enrollment period and the lesson period. I had to answer each question via email whenever there are inquiries by the enrollees. It was a lot of work. There were a lot of people who enrolled too 1,300+ for the whole duration.

We decided to make it an online school with its own website where the students can login and browse through the lessons whenever they wanted. This way, we are not time-bound and the enrollment period is not limited. There is the free 15-day trial period for beginner SEO specialists called the Insider course and then there’s the $30 a month Sterling course for those who are really looking to hone their knowledge in SEO.

We still consider it in the ‘baby’ stage as we’re balancing out working on it while we’re working on all our clients – but we’re hoping that for 2013, it will top our income from SEO services.

Email RSS:  More than a thousand subscribers – We try our best to give you what you need in SEO and we’re very grateful that you’ve reciprocated our content by subscribing to us via Email RSS. For those who don’t know, Email RSS is simply where we send you the latest blog entry from SEO Hacker so you don’t have to keep visiting our website to read what’s new. It’s simple, easy, comfortable and communicative – and the best part is, you can email me back so I get to hear from you!

SEO Hacker Facebook Page: More than 11,000 Subscribers – We don’t even deserve to be in the radar but you guys showed us some love. We’re celebrating our growth in exceeding the 10,000 fan mark this year! Check it out! And you are a part of it. Thank you.

SEO Hacker Google+ Page: More than 2,700 Subscribers – Thanks to you and some Google+ Optimization here and there. We’re looking to at least double it by next year! Check it out here. Oh and no harm done if you’d want to help my personal Google+ profile increase its circles too!

SEO Hacker Top 10 for 2012

Here’s the cream of the crop of SEO Hacker’s articles for 2012. Enjoy!

  1. Top 10SEO Hacker History – April 2010 is when SEO Hacker was born. This is where we laid it all. How we started, where we started and how we got here. Giving credit to whom credit is due.
  2. Content Strategy Guide – Who wouldn’t love a tutorial series on Content strategy? Especially now that content is growing more and more in its importance and weight in the SEO industry. Links are becoming stereotype in its outbound methodologies – blog commenting, forum posting, guest posting even. What’s inbound will always trump what’s outbound in the long run.
  3. Youtube SEO – The best one-stop-guide on how to make your videos in Youtube rank. Remember that Youtube is the world’s second largest search engine, second only to Google. You wouldn’t want to miss being ‘there’. Of course, this is only the technical aspect. If your video content sucks, no matter how good you are in applying my tips here, you wouldn’t be able to rank. Well hey, that’s life.
  4. Human Emotional Filter and its Effects on SEO – Our emotions are a very strong part of our decision making process. Capitalizing on this to direct your SEO can be a very strong strategy to increase your Dwell Time Metrics.
  5. How does the Google Penguin Update Affects SEO and Negative SEO? – An eye opener about how negative SEO can be applied and how Google Penguin has amplified that effect. This article will help you have a better ‘feel’ of how Google Penguin has changed the linkbuilding landscape and how you can avoid being hit by negative SEO in the long run.
  6. The Different Levels of Linkbuilding – There are so many ways to build links. Having an understanding of what makes one different from the other improves your knowledge on what to use under different circumstances. There’s tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3 – which one should you use?
  7. Online Reputation Management – Everyone’s managing their reputation whether you know it or not. The world is watching you. Every move, every statement, every success matters. This is a complete tutorial on how you can effectively manage your reputation online.
  8. How Google’s Authorship Markup affects SEO – No one wants to put their name and face out and tell the world “I’ve just published this content and it’s crap”. Google’s Authorship markup compels you to publicize who you are and directly link your identity to your content. This pushes all of us to publish content that is absolutely great and nothing less.
  9. How to Future Proof your Linkbuilding – No one wants to build links just to have them get penalized or discredited someday. We want to build evergreen links. Links that always carry value and pass on weight to our pages – especially our important landing pages. So how do you ‘Future-Proof’ your linkbuilding process? For those who’ve experienced a Google Penguin penalty, you’ll love this one.
  10. The Less Links, the Better – How SEO Hacker Achieved PageRank 5 – Yes, we are now finally PageRank 5. Thanks to less linkbuilding and more cornerstone content. Here’s how we did it.

Moving Forward

We are going to use SEO School for training our own team and new hires. The quizzes and rating scores will be based on actual performance on SEO – practical applications of the students who want us to gauge how far their SEO skills have gone. This is a huge leap we’re taking and we’re hoping that a lot of SEO school students will use take advantage of this.

We are also still looking at Google+ Communities and how it can affect SEO. This seems pretty interesting. It might just be a rip-off of Facebook groups but if it has some SEO benefits, it makes all the difference. Check out SEO Hacker’s Google+ Community here.

We’re also looking to on-board another publisher here in SEO Hacker to help me out with the load of giving you the best and latest in your way to becoming an SEO Specialist. Look forward to it!

So for all that has happened in 2012, I just want to tell you…

Happy new year 2013

Congratulations for surviving the Mayan apocalypse! Here’s to our third year together guys!

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Sean Si

About Sean

is a Filipino motivational speaker and a Leadership Speaker in the Philippines. He is the head honcho and editor-in-chief of SEO Hacker. He does SEO Services for companies in the Philippines and Abroad. Connect with him at Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. Check out his new project, Aquascape Philippines.