My Moment of 2012: State of Search Bloggers - part 1

2012 is almost over and in the past week we have been looking back at the year. With a great post from Hannah and with several posts with special moments of 2012 from our friends in the industry.

But on the last day of the year there is one group of people we cannot leave out of this series. It is the group of people which I personally cherish very much. Because they are the ones creating all the great content for you. So please take your time (in this post and the one to come later today) to read what the best moments of these great people are.

And while you’re at it, one important thing: PLEASE THANK THEM. Next to the moments you can find a small thumbnail saying “Thank you”. Click on it and you can tweet out a thank you to the blogger. SHOW THEM YOU APPRECIATE WHAT THEY DO FOR YOU!

Sam Noble: “Back at the start of 2012, I launched Digital Females and seeing it grow from nothing has been a real highlight for me. Since the group launched, we have had five meet ups and the number of attendees increases each time. We now have over 300 ladies in the group and one of the recent events attracted over 70 people. What was also really great to see was how many of the ladies in the group attended the last BrightonSEO. Before they joined Digital Females, a lot of the ladies had not been to one of the large conferences so it really gave me a sense of achievement when I saw them there as one of my main goals for Digital Females, is to increase the number of ladies that attend the larger events. I am really excited to see how much the group grows in 2013 as I have lots of ideas for future meet ups.”

Barry Adams: “When Rand Fishkin said he was coming to (Northern) Ireland, we decided to use the opportunity to organise an event for all digital marketers in the country. It turned out to be a great event, with a great talk delivered by Rand and one of the first times so many Northern Irish digital marketers gathered together in one room. The success of the event played a huge part in triggering its spiritual successor – the monthly Digital Exchange events – and it’s great to see the local digital scene so invigorated and enthused.”

Paddy Moogan: “My moment of 2012 has to be the experience of speaking in front of 800+ people at MozCon in July. It was by far the biggest speaking spot I’d ever had and I was speaking about my favourite topic – link building. I was super nervous because it was also my first time speaking to a US audience and I’d always been conscious of my regional UK accent! Being the first speaker added to the pressure but made me really want to get MozCon off to a great start. The talk itself went great and I loved every minute of it, the feedback afterwards was great and it really made all the hard work and preparation worth it.

What also made this special was the reaction I got from the attendees over the next few days. I had lots of people coming up to me and saying they loved my talk and had found it really useful. I got to meet so many new people, share a few drinks with them and it really reminded me how great the SEO community is. I don’t think I had to buy a drink for the whole time I was at the conference or even go to the bar!”

Louis Venter: “My moment of 2012 was definitely celebrating my renewal of vows with Roisin and still can’t believe she said yes, TWICE!! Having all my mates (and my search mates too) made it really special and the fact that no one threw cabbage after I sang was a bonus as well. Has to be the highlight of the year personally.

From a work persective 2012 has been a super challenging year as we changed a lot of the team dynamic to a faster slicker and more responsive unit. Watching people blossom there has been massively rewarding as well as delivering some awesome results which is why we are all in this game really. If I had to choose one moment though it would be the realisation at our recent christmas party that we have the creativity within the agency to achieve anything we set our minds to.”

Neil Walker: “2012 has been such an eventful year for me, it started with a career high when I spoke in Silicon Valley at SMX West on a panel with Vanessa Fox and Duane Forester. Then I made the full move into my own consultant first time (Wow what a year). Then Google rained fire! I saw that many “Unnatural Link Warnings” I lost faith in SEO for a while (It didn’t matter how white something was, it was always open to Google Rules.

However it was a great personal learning curve. I took action to fully understand the unnatural link warnings and 190 manual spam revoked messages later it feels good. I also diversified, I now consult with a PR company, look after a big brand facebook campaign and took one client back to the first page for the term “seo” after being hit by a negative attempt, and finally joined the State of Search Blogging team. Good Year.”

Bastian Grimm: “Probably the biggest „thing“ in 2012 was actually that we finally finished building our very own house out on the country-side in beautiful Northern Germany – just before SMX in Munich took place in April. I prepared my presos in between moving houses, kind of a funny experience. And since we did spent almost a year in planning and another one in building that thing – even though we almost had everything sourced out, it’s amazing how much stuff one has to take care of – it was really a big step to finally move in; almost a relief. And I’m really happy with the result!

From a more professional perspective, I actually find it very hard to really pick out one thing. From a conference perspective, it’ll probably the SEOkomm in Austria again – that show really rocked, again. Just purely looking at Google, I kind of feel confirmed in terms of being an advocate in telling people to NOT believe too much in what they’re officially communicating. I feel that people actually start understanding that there is maybe not only good in what Google does (and how that company really works) but rather look at what they do; and come up with an own opinion.”

Kelvin Newman: “A clear highlight for me was how fortuitously In April news broke about the BuildMyRank blog network being de-indexed a couple days days before BrightonSEO, this was gratifying for a huge number of reasons, first up it lead to some great questions for the Q&A we’d arranged with Pierre Far from Google and Dave Coplin from Bing but it also was a nod from Google that those of us who’d been playing by the rules would ultimately be rewarded. With the benefit of hindsight and seeing the consequences of Penguin we might think Google have gone too far, but at that moment in time, as a good-guy, it felt like validation.

Personally the launch of the Content Marketing Show was great, we’d some how fluked our way into organising BrightonSEO, by launching a new show, on a different topic, in London rather than Brighton was actually a huge risk. Not only could it have all gone wrong but it was proof that we could turn these shows into a business rather than just glorified hobby. Seeing four hundred tickets disappear in just four minutes was proof we might be onto something.”

Gianluca Fiorelli: “Actually I must list a couple. The first one was when I received an email from Jennifer Sable Lopez of SEOmoz, proposing me to start being part of the SEOmoz staff as Associate. It was a very exciting moment, and I cannot deny something I was desiring happening. I felt it as it was a recognition for what I did as a member of the SEOmoz Community, but also as it was a confirmation of how I grew up as an SEO Professional in not so many years. Obviously, when the adrenaline calmed down, I was little scared by the sense of responsibility, being SEOmoz is one of the biggest Brands in our field. A fear that quickly disappeared, but confirmed me that no matter you are, humbleness must always be part of your character.

The second “2012 moment” was when I signed a contract with Emagister, my first “big big” client. Again, a sense of fulfilment and recognition, but of growing responsibility too.”

Hannah Smith: “It’s been a pretty incredible year all round. I was asked to write for both SEO Chicks & State of Search, got to speak at Digital Females, Think Vis & SearchLove. Proudest professional moment was when my client Simply Business won Marketing Campaign of the Year at the UK Broker Awards for their Social Media Guide. Work stuff aside; I’m chuffed to bits to be an Auntie to baby Haley, who arrived on 10th December – a lovely early Christmas present :)”

Claire Thompson: “My moment of 2012 was adopting a stray hound – a lovely little Patterdale terrier cross. What’s that got to do with anything? Photos of the mutt have increased my page engagement levels on Facebook. Roll over cute kittens – prepare for a dogfight!”