Happy Holidays from the Level343 Team!

For the first time since Level343 opened its doors in 1994, we’re closing for the holidays! There won’t be a blog Thursday, but don’t worry. We’ll be back with fresh content, updates and general mayhem, Monday, January 2, 2012. In the meantime, we’ve started a quarterly e-newsletter (first installment went out early this morning). We invite you to view the email in your browser and click on the subscribe link.

Quick update:

Last week, we posted about Gabriella’s run in with the con man operating under New Orleans Computer Repair (AKA New Orleans Apple Repair and French Quarter Repair Services). So far, the post received over 600 views, over 200 social shares and been picked up by news aggregators. People throughout the U.S. have reported the post showing on the front page, between the 2 and 8th positions for new orleans computer repair, new orleans apple repair, french quarter repair services and other relative terms.

If you share the post on your site or across social networks, please remember to include hashtags with one of these terms, and to link the post in content using the title. We want to keep it going in the SERPs. We don’t want this guy to be able to continue what he’s doing – let’s hurt him where it counts – his pocket book!

If you’ve been a victim of a con artist, here are a few things you can do:

• Report them to the local police
• Report them to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the BBB of your area
• Visit 5 Complaint Sites for Pissed Consumers, and report to the listed sites
• Visit Top 10 Complain Sites and report to the listed sites
• Search for review sites where they’re listed and post your reviews
• share your poor experience on social networks

Coming Up for 2012

Although we’re closed for the blog and client work, we’re working hard behind the scenes to bring even better services, experiences and content to 2012. First and foremost, next Monday will bring our long-awaited post declaring the winners of the Top 2012 Women in SEO, as voted by you, the people (we heart democracy), and the new logo for these wonderful, brainy women.

Other plans throughout the year include:

• An updated blog format – we are currently working on a redesign for the blog, to provide a smoother, more pleasant viewing experience
• Streamlining our feed – we will be working on a better way to deliver our RSS feed to our subscribers
• Quarterly newsletter – started today, and we’ll have a subscription sign up form here on the blog
• Level343 blog widgetized – we’ll working on a website widget, for bloggers who would like to share our content with your readers
• Hiring writers – we are currently open to more writers to join the Level343 Team. Please read our guidelines before contacting us.
• Guest bloggers – recently, we opened the Article Archive to guest bloggers. However, as we’re particular about the type of content that goes out on our blog, please read our guidelines for guest blogging before contacting us.
• Content, content, content!

We’re extremely excited about the upcoming year, and we look forward to connecting and engaging for many more years to come. Stay tuned for more from the Level343 Team and Happy Holidays from all of us here!