The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization is your complete reference and guide to getting your content to the top of search engines by Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Rand Fishkin and Jessie C. Stricchiola.
Contents 25/25
Ease of Understanding/Practicality 25/25
Pictures/Illustrations 13/25
Additional Features 20/25
Total 83/100
Search Engine Optimization is a tough concept and one that is a very popular topic in marketing, publishing and the internet in general due to its potential for money making so understanding SEO as it’s popularly referred to is important. A book that not only helps you understand and guide you through search engines and optimizing your content and websites to rank higher in searches helps you get your content seen by more people.
Search Engine Optimization is a very slippery subject to many and is one way that people, companies and especially marketing firms work toward getting their internet content and whole websites seen by more people. In very simple terms Search Engine Optimization is maximizing content or even whole websites so that it ranks higher on searches in search engines such as Google or Bing so that people find your content.
The Art of SEO not only uses the popular Google as a main example but shows how people use these search engines in specific terms so you can see how you should be wording and using content so people find it when they search. Search engines are those programs that help people find what they want on the internet: so you can optimize your content, website or shopping pages so that people find your site before others with similar content.
You could see why this topic would be a gold mine for those that have things like search engine optimization down pat and that is what all the fuss about search engine optimization is all about, the higher in rankings your page or website goes the more people see it and the more page views it gets. The book uses a lot of statistics and examples to show you what they mean in a way that is not confusing to really get their point across effectively and show why search engine optimization is important and how you can use it to help you.
Whether your trying to sell things, just have people read an article or your whole website The Art of SEO not only helps you understand what search engine optimization is but guides you through setting up content and your whole site so it gets seen more. The Art of SEO Mastering Search Engine Optimization is worth its weight and then some as it guides you through not only what a search engine is, how they are set up, what search optimization you can do to get your content seen higher in the search ranks but basically how people search for things.
The book starts off with the basics, not what search engine optimization is, but how people search and how search engines work which helps you understand what is going on with searches and really goes to a deeper level of understanding about the whole topic. Knowing how people search for things and how search engines work is a great starter and really helps you understand on a gut level how to optimize your content so people find it faster and more reliably than just hit and miss searching.
Using keywords is not the only part of search engine optimization you need to worry about as just basic layout of your site and content can mean it hits higher in rankings on a search engine as well as makes things easier for readers to view. The book continues after both specifics about keywords and site design to how you can organize and even possibly hire out your SEO to make the most of this web feature for your specific situation.
Statistics are an important part of search engines and understanding how people search for things is an important part of optimizing your content so it ranks higher in search engines, I just love several of the examples they use from studies on searching. One tells specifically for a product and how people search for that product in terms like brand name, model number and more so you can see from a search study the actual percentages of people that used brand name first then model number and then product generic name.
This type of extremely useful information gives you the facts you need for how people search to create content so it does rank higher in search engines that people use to find the content they are looking. Whether you are writing articles, blogs, selling products or just using the web for a family website you can use this information to help people find what you want them to find.
Rankings on search engines are the order that websites and specific pages with content are listed on the search engine results page and if you can get content on the first page of a search you’re hitting the mark you want. If people search for something and you have your article, content or whole website listed on the first page people are very likely to go there so you have completed a difficult part of optimizing your content.
The next thing you need to do is continue to have searches come up with your content ranked higher than others, if you can get one article or page listed after the other in a search people are very likely to go to your site. The more content you have listed on the first pages of a search the more likely people are going to your content over others so getting your content found on a search engine is a major part of optimizing.
The book continues to help you with server and hosting information so you understand any problems you might have with yours as well as things like hidden content, spam filtering and any problems these topics create regarding searches. The book really hits a lot of areas in search optimization, a lot more than I thought was possible and I still have to go back and reexamine a lot of the book and start more of my own optimization procedures.
The Art of SEO continues to help you with understanding and maximizing your content using links, the whole website and even how well your optimization is gong using statistics and traffic to see if people are going to your site through search engines or from other sources. The book really is a great way to help you find out what search engines are all about and help you maximize your content and even whole site to make it found by more people.
One small problem with the book is not content but a smaller one with grayscale of a couple of the graphics and charts but it is not that big a deal as you can still read the charts and graphs, all the pictures and illustrations are in grayscale or black and white. When they transferred some of the graphs and charts to grayscale they left any colors to varying shades of gray which renders a couple of the graphs in the book a little harder to read but still understandable, not a big problem but something they should have considered.
I now have a new book that is a staple of my reading and research diet for getting my content found and understanding how search engines work as well as continuing to work on getting my content and website found by more people. Just writing reviews and using keywords is not enough with the constant and wide ranging competition out there for having the best content that people use for their daily life in so many ways.
Using search engine optimization is how you get people to find your work and read it so a guide with not only general ideas of SEO but specifics to work toward optimizing your whole site is extremely helpful. The Art of SEO Mastering Search Engine Optimization is a hit and has become my permanent copy of helping me optimize my work and site for getting people like you to find my work, this book has told me so much about search engines and how to write my articles for more to find.
The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization is a fantastic book for website owners and anyone publishing on the internet to help you get your content found.
