20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
A really excellent little book
This book is packed full with tips on how to improve your website's success at being found by Google.
It's worth reading it before you register your domain and build your site, because there are useful tips regarding domain names, page titles, images, content, and even where your host servers are in the world.
24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
Some out of date information
This small book is broken down into 52 sections. I'm writing this review after section 6 (I got the book 2 days ago).
I know SEO is moving fast, and that book publishing has a lead-time, but given that this book was only published 5 months ago, in Jan 2008, a lot of the information is already looking dated.
This book is packed full with tips on how to improve your website's success at being found by Google.
It's worth reading it before you register your domain and build your site, because there are useful tips regarding domain names, page titles, images, content, and even where your host servers are in the world.
I have read it cover-to-cover and found it to be really useful. I can now proceed to build a website in the best way to ensure that it does well on Google. The author does take the time to mention throughout the book that Google is not the only search engine, and that it is definitely worth putting some effort into succeeding with those alternatives too.
I am entirely confident that this little book will become well-thumbed. It is not written only for those folk building new websites. You need to keep working on your site to ensure continued search success and I'm sure that I'll keep dipping back into this book and following the tips to improve my site's rating.
It is important to note that, at the time of writing, this book is newly published, and therefore that all of the tips are current and valid to the way that Google's algorithms work right now. Also, that all of the wider references are contemporary and relevant. And, of course, it is important to note that the author has 'got the T-shirt', he has built (and sold) a successful web-based business, and worked on/with many others.
The book is well written in a humorous style which makes what might otherwise be a bit of a dry techie subject very understandable and easy to read.
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This book helps to demystify SEO to a degree. You don't have to be a programmer to understand it. It doesn't get bogged down in technicality. It just gives 52 easy to follow tips on how to make the best on the search engines. It is very quick to read but that doesn't detract on the thoroughness. If you want an in depth book on SEO, this isn't it. But if you want to grasp what it is all about and gain some valuable tips quickly, then this book is fantastic.
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This small book is broken down into 52 sections. I'm writing this review after section 6 (I got the book 2 days ago).
I know SEO is moving fast, and that book publishing has a lead-time, but given that this book was only published 5 months ago, in Jan 2008, a lot of the information is already looking dated.
Section 1 illustrates the popularity of Google by quoting Hitwise Search Results figures from December 2005. On their website the current research date is May 2008 - it appears to be updated monthly, so surely they could have included a figure that is a little more current?
Section 5 advises readers to go to a link for the Overture Keyword Assistant. Instead you get Yahoo's welcome page for their sponsored listings.
Also, Section 6 discusses & recommends Wordtracker and Nichebot without reference to the fact these are subscription services (and the cost is not insignificant - Wordtracker is around £29 per month).
The book is okay, but based on early impressions I think I'll be better served by following some of the SEO blogs.
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Was a bit put out when the book arrived because it's not very big. But after skimming through about half of it and then returning to the beginning, in fairness it's simply concise. No waffle, just one technique after another. Really good stuff. Have tried a few of the keyword analysis tools already and I must say I didn't know there was so much available out there. Searched for the author on Google and he is there repeatedly on page one, just as he maintains in the book. I hope I can do the same with my websites.
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This book contains much good advice and tips on how to improve and optimise your website. I like the fact he recommends you steer clear of unethical approaches such as hidden text, and that you should stick to simple html with a lot of text-based content that can be easily read. The other big factor in this book is it's compact size and straightforward short chapters, meaning you can concentrate on implementing one recommendation at a time.
On the downside, some of the information is very outdated, considering the recent publication of the book itself. For starters, the Overture keyword search helper is overused and therefore very hard to even access nowadays, if at all, and is being phased out. Secondly, some of the items recommended such as Wordtracker are far from free and therefore only relevant for large businesses rather than the one-man band web developers likely to be attracted to a book like this.
All in all, 4 out of 5. Good and worth a read, you will most probably get your money back and more through increased exposure of your website using the suggestions within.
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This is a really easy book to use.
Yes, there are more complex books that go into SEO in greater depth than this but the fact is that if you have a small or medium size business employing less than 10 people, then the really advanced techniques aren't really for you anyway and are really not worth worrying about because you wont have time to implement them, even if you knwo about them.
For people like you, this book is probably all you will need -and it is all very clearly explained in non tecnhical jargon.
I even managed to read it on hols - yes, that's sad I know! But it lends itself to that kind of easy reading because it is explained so clearly in short bite size chunks that take all of about 10 minutes to read and digest.
OK, I found the odd thing listed as free (which now isnt) - and I see another reviewer noticed that too, but given the fast pace of chnage in this area, that cannot really be a serious criticism
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At last! A book that's good for me, but is easy to read and concise and gives me loads of tips every few pages that I immediately bookmark and want to implement. I'm getting teally tired of 'How-to' books that make you wade through several hundred pages of padding: this book is the antidote.
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I was coming at search engine optimisation from an entirely new perspective. I found this book incredibly easy to read with highlighted areas which helps you find the most important things to remember. This gave me a brilliant grounding on where to start with search engine optimisation. It gives a clear step by step guide as to how to improve your rankings. Also I had one question that I needed an answer to and I emailed Jon thinking that it would probably take ages for someone to come back - he emailed me back in 2 mins with really good advice - superb!!
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Some very simple but wise advice. Some stuff that assures you that you're doing the right thing and stuff that makes you feel stupid because you didn't think of it. Nothing is complicated, it just points out all the the things that were so blatantly obvious that we need them pointing out.
Even if you think you know about SEO, it's nice to be be reassured.
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Bought this book last week and got through it quite quickly. I jotted down the important points as I went along and then when I finished I had thirty bulleted points I needed to address on my own website. I spent yesterday updating my site for SEO optimization. It is not rocket science but sometimes it takes someone to point out the obvious. While many people, myself included, design a web site and then optimize for search engines like google. However you will save a lot of time by reading a book like this on Search Engine Optimization before you set out to build a website no matter how big or small. Reccommended.
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