10 Years of SEO 2.0 – The Greatest Hits

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July 20th, 2017 marks a decade of blogging here on SEO 2.0! This blog officially went live 10 years ago with a brief “hello world” type of post.

Of course it took me a few days until I reached my first readers. I didn’t tell anybody until I had a few valuable or intriguing posts up. Then I told my online friends.

This blog got hugely popular within days or weeks

and remained well-known until I started writing for the competition. Then my popularity slowly subsided over the years due to dwindling activity.

Nonetheless there were some pretty successful articles published here along the way. Thus I compiled a greatest hits list of memorable and still relevant posts.

The “Greatest” Hits from the First Decade

2007 – “SEO vs SEO 2.0: Top 15 Differences“.
Originally published in 2007. Translated into numerous languages. Popular ever since.

2008 – “The 7 Simplest Ways To Lower Your Bounce Rate and Get More Conversions“.
64 comments! Given the very geeky niche topic nobody even cared yet about in those days it even bigger.

2009 – “101 Tweets on How to Use Twitter“.
This post went viral on Twitter twice! I wanted people to share the actual tweets but it was long before sharing quotes was wide spread.

Quoting didn’t even happen yet despite me adding a tool that allowed to highlight the tweets and tweet instantly then.

2010 – “Why People Hate Ads and Love SEO“.
People were dumbfounded to hear this. It was long before adblockers were threatening the dominant publishing business model. Also everybody still seemed to hate search engine optimization.

2011 – “10 Fatal Content Strategy Mistakes Most Businesses Make“.
Huge success spawned a whole series. I planned to elaborate on each point made in that widely recommended post. I was able to post a few of the before interest faded.

2012 – “Idiotically Simple Ways to Make Your Crap Content Stand Out“.
This got popular on Inbound.org mainly because I was a hyperactive community member back then and I mentioned some users in it.

The post was also on point at a time when the “content marketing” hype became a plague. Thus people could relate.

2013 – “Quality Sites Are the New Links and Santa Exists“.
Many people agreed. Google nonsensical attempt at degrading link building didn’t work out. Luckily people think for themselves sometimes.

2014 – Guest Post by Matt Cutts on Spammy Link Building.
Obvious satire isn’t it? It was a reaction to Google’s attack on “guest blogging networks” like Ann Smarty’s perfectly legit community.

It’s of course satirical but I didn’t say it so that most people actually thought it’s by Matt Cutt’s himself. No wonder. It summarizes Google’s hypocrisy in an unmasking way.

2015 – SEO Has Evolved – It’s About Popularization Now.
Industry leaders loved it. Even though I rarely published here at that time already this post got shared and recommended widely by some of the industry leaders who actually are doing hands-on work.

2016 – utm_source=crap: How Google Analytics Breaks Links + User Experience.
Dirty marketers don’t share this. It’s too controversial to become successful but it’s the most important post I’ve published last year on this blog.

This Blog is Evergreen and Expanding

These articles were both successful in their day and remain evergreen since their inception due to both timelessness and regular updates. I

• fix
• optimize
• expand

existing content in many cases. I fix broken links and add new ones where it makes sense. I optimize legacy copy for the mobile first age. I add high quality images where needed.

I expand existing content by showing new examples and adapting the language to the current online environment. Thus stay tuned for the next decade.

Do you have any other favorites I published here during the last decade? Of course there were many popular posts I didn’t included in this list. This is a subjective selection!

* Photo by Kristopher Roller on Unsplash