For almost 20 years, my goal at Hobo Web has been to provide SEO guidance that is, as one reader kindly put it, “conjecture-free.” I’ve always aimed to deliver “boring things but real things,” grounded in deep research and two decades of real-world experience.
The events of the last year – namely, the landmark U.S. v. Google trial and the unprecedented Google API leak – have changed the very nature of our industry. The “black box” has been cracked open, and the foundational rules of search have been revealed.
In response, I haven’t just updated my old guides; I’ve written a completely new, four-part library for this new, evidence-based era. Each book is built from the ground up on a foundation of verifiable, primary-source evidence, designed to provide a complete education for every level of expertise. These works are unique works of mine and a form of logical, creative inference optimisation – where theory and blueprint meet – and build on the seminal leak work of Mike King and Rand Fishkin. I use Gemini Pro 2.5 to complete almost all my writing in 2025 (my spelling and grammar on their own are atrocious!).
As Martin MacDonald of Web Marketing School (WMS) so generously put it, I have a “solid, solid multi-decade history of being insightful, ahead of the curve, pragmatic and good to interact with to boot”.
This collection is the culmination of that history, synthesised for the new reality of search and the first books to do so.
1. Beginner SEO 2025: Your First Step on Solid Ground
If you’re new to SEO, the industry can feel like a minefield of conflicting advice and complex jargon.
I wrote this book to be your safe and accessible on-ramp, designed to start your journey with the correct, durable principles from day one.
- Who It’s For: Aspiring SEOs, small business owners, marketing students, and anyone who needs to understand the fundamentals of modern search without getting lost in the technical weeds.
- What It Does: This guide translates the most complex new realities of SEO – concepts like
Navboostand site-level Quality Scores – into simple, powerful ideas. It provides a clear, actionable framework that focuses on creating helpful, “people-first” content and building a trustworthy brand, ensuring your first steps in SEO are on a path to long-term success.
Get the ebook Beginner SEO 2025 (free to download).
2. Strategic SEO 2025: The Professional’s Playbook
This is the strategic heart of the collection. It’s the definitive playbook for the professional who needs to translate deep technical realities into winning business strategies.
As Charles Floate said, this eBook “looks like an absolute banger,” and for good reason. It’s designed to make, as Daniel J. Pinna noted, “a rather complex situation easy to understand for anyone.”
- Who It’s For: In-house SEO leads, marketing directors, agency owners, and professional consultants.
- What It Does: This book answers the crucial “So what?” question. It takes the hard evidence from the Google leak and the DOJ trial and turns it into a durable, evidence-based framework for making high-stakes decisions. It’s the bridge that connects the deep engineering of search to budget, resources, and business outcomes.
Get the ebook Strategic SEO 2025 (free to download).
3. Strategic AI SEO 2025: A Guide for the Next Frontier
The future of search isn’t about ranking a list of blue links; it’s about becoming the trusted source for AI-driven answer engines.
I wrote this forward-looking guide for the strategist who isn’t just playing today’s game but is preparing for the next one.
- Who It’s For: Senior marketers, brand strategists, and forward-thinking SEO professionals focused on future-proofing their work.
- What It Does: This book introduces a new discipline: Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO). It provides a framework for establishing your brand as a “canonical source of ground truth,” using my own original concepts like the “Marketing Cyborg Technique” and “Inference Optimisation” to ensure your brand not only survives but thrives in the age of AI.
Get the ebook Strategic AI SEO 2025 (free to download).
4. Technical SEO 2025: For the Quantum Thinker
This is the masterwork of the collection – a deep, exhaustive dive into the core architecture of Google’s ranking systems.
It is not a book for everyone; it is a reference manual for the true specialists who need to understand the fundamental mechanics of the machine.
- Who It’s For: The top 0.1% of SEO professionals, technical SEOs, and agency engineers who require the deepest level of understanding.
- What It Does: This guide deconstructs the Google ranking pipeline at a granular level. It connects long-held SEO best practices to specific, named systems and signals revealed in the primary source documents. It is the definitive engineering blueprint for the new era of technical SEO.
Get the ebook Technical SEO 2025 (free to download).
This is my art. Thank you for being on this journey with me.
About the author: Shaun Anderson (AKA @Hobo_Web) is a specialist SEO consultant with a career spanning over 25 years. He began as a website designer and developer in the early 2000s before specialising in SEO in 2006.
As the author of the Hobo SEO Ebooks and consultant at Hobo Web, his professional focus is on “reverse-engineering the principles of search to build sustainable white hat SEO strategies”.
He is the creator of the Hobo SEO Dashboard and the premium SEO Checklist. His recent work focuses on developing new frameworks for the AI-first era, including original concepts such as the “Synthetic Content Data Layer (SCDL)” , “Inference Optimisation” , and the “Marketing Cyborg Technique”.