Search Engine Optimization All-in-One For Dummies

Image of Search Engine Optimization All-in-One For Dummies
Author(s): 
Release Date: 
September 21, 2015
Publisher/Imprint: 
For Dummies
Pages: 
792
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“Want to learn and implement SEO? Read this book. . . . if, like nearly 100% of website owners, you're clueless as to how you build sustained traffic to your site, the lessons of this book are revelatory. No snake oil here. . . . Read Search Engine Optimization for Dummies and be enlightened.”

Built a website and not getting traffic? Hard stop. You won’t get any unless you really know how to optimize your website for search engines—meaning: driving surfers to your site by securing your spot on the first page on Google or bing. If you are reading this review, it’s probable that the search engine optimization (SEO) services offered online have left you dizzy and confused. If so, Search Engine Optimization for Dummies is the antidote.

If author Peter Kent is right, then at least 80% of the online SEO companies and SEO software offerings are totally worthless—or charging big bucks for accomplishing very little. This appears to be a generous number. Among the mass of websites offered, there are few that employ the basic blocking and tackling—not obvious stuff for most—that will make all the difference in the world.

Ignore the testimonials from these companies. Don’t rely on your own intuition. Bypass the urge to implement snippets of random SEO know-how pieced together from the web.

Want to go waist-deep into the river of SEO and get it? Read Search Engine Optimization for Dummies and be enlightened.

If you are a novice, are getting spammed by all the search engine optimization sellers of snake oil nonsense, this is your “Beginner’s Bible.” It would be best if you read this book before you've built your site. But if this book review reaches you after you've been up and running for a while, you'll work hard to correct all the innocent mistakes. And indeed, if, like nearly 99% of website owners, you don’t truly know how to increase sustained traffic to your site, the information provided is nothing less than revelatory.

Search Engine Optimization for Dummies delivers. And it does so using simple instructions—exactly what one hopes for with a For Dummies title. In clear, conversational prose punctuated with gentle humor, Peter Kent provides a complete road map for the uninitiated. One of the author’s strengths is that he is not a tech geek, so that he can’t but help write for an audience, of, well, dummies.

Sure, Mr. Kent provides some technical info, such as where in a web page’s code certain code meaningful for SEO should appear. But he provides only bite-size snippets. For website owners with any intuitive feel or light knowledge of HTML computer language, most of the SEO code in this book can be easily included on your own site. For others who rely on developers to build or administer their site, instructing your techie on how you want your site optimized will rock your world. Mr. Kent indicates that the perfect reader of this book is “not just using some kind of simple Web-page creation program that isolates you from underlying HTML code; and you, or your geek, understand a little about HTML and feel comfortable enough with it to insert or change HTML tags.”

Most website architects, designers, and developers actually know little about SEO and consider it an area of expertise handled by, well, an SEO expert; however, any developer who reads Search Engine Optimization for Dummies will find numerous tips for creating a website that is SEO-friendly without extra effort. For example, by simply internalizing a routine of placing certain code in a specific location on the web page and including a few extra lines of code, developers can assure their clients that their site will go live and garner far more traffic than other websites built without attention to this trivially easy detail. There may be a lot of work to be done to fully optimize the site after the build is complete, but a site built integrating Mr. Kent’s lessons provides site owners with a major head start and a profound advantage over nearly all traffic-seeking competitors for whom SEO is still elusive and exotic.

In a perfect world, you’ll read this book before you have built your website and use its lessons whether you build it yourself or go through “your geek.” If, like most, you have realized SEO is important only after living with your site for some time, it is not too late. Search Engine Optimization for Dummies will quickly enable you to substantially increase traffic to your site. Should you wish, nonetheless, to work with an SEO firm or expert, the book will provide you with more than sufficient knowledge to weed out the frauds and snake oil salespersons—and they are abundant.

With SEO for Dummies, you’ll discover how to look at the code on your web page and quickly discern whether it is optimized—and if not, how to fix it. The value of getting listings in indexes and directories, optimizing keywords and meta-descriptions, and using backlinks are just a few crucial differentiators you will absorb. Indeed, the SEO process will be demystified.

The For Dummies series is a mixed bag. While a certain number of these books may prove disappointing or less than helpful for those with some knowledge of the subject, others serve as very effective and informative guides. Search Engine Optimization for Dummies ranks among the very best For Dummies titles, easily eclipsing other books on the topic with its comprehensive, clear and enlightening instructions, as well its welcome lighthearted prose. In other words, the text is as user-friendly as its lessons.

Go ahead. This book is so worth it. Click on the Amazon link on this page or get thee to a bookstore so that you can turn the trickle of traffic to your website into a tsunami of online visitors.