The Small Business Owner's Handbook to Search Engine Optimization: Increase Your Google Rankings, Double Your Site Traffic...In Just 15 Steps
by Stephen Woessner
If you are looking for a quick yet thorough introduction to Search Engine Optimization (
SEO), then
The Small Business Owner's Handbook to Search Engine Optimization: Increase Your Google Rankings, Double Your Site Traffic...In Just 15 Steps is for you. You won't be an
SEO master, but if you complete these steps, your site should be nicely optimized without much monetary or time investment.
In the first chapter, the author tells how in his quest to educate himself about
SEO, he found that there were tidbits of info here and there, but there was not a step-by-step process on how to optimize a site. He assures small business owners that the steps involved are not so technical that they can't accomplish it and that in some respects,
SEO is more closely aligned to marketing than it is to technical work.
Chapter two provides preliminary steps to take before the actual optimization can be started. The author reveals his
SEO toolkit - websites and online tools for optimizing a website. He provides links and a brief description of what each tool does and the value it adds to the optimization process. The installation and use of these tools is a pre-requisite for the rest of the book.
At first, I thought I shouldn't divulge the 15 steps, but the value in this book is more than just the steps, it's the how to, and the tools, links and resources provided.
1. Make your website Google friendly.
2. Create a Sitemap using XML.
3. Step-by-step blueprint to awesome keywords
4. Create custom page titles
5. Create custom META keywords
6. Create custom META descriptions
7. Put <H> tags to work
8. Do not forget your URLs
9. Write specific content pages
10. Remain within the word count range
11. Manage keyword prominence, frequency, and density
12. Use bullet points, bold, italics, and quotation marks
13. Add anchor text links to content
14. Optimize ALT tags and file names
15. Leverage articles to power up results
1. Make your site Google friendly by verifying that your content and navigation are indexable.
2. Add a sitemap, since Google uses it as a road map to help Googlebot find all of the site's content. Discussed is the difference between a sitemap that is a static HTML page vs. a Sitemap that is created using Extensible Markup Language (XML). A link is provided to an XML sitemap generator, for those who don't know how to create an XML-based sitemap.
3. Pick great keywords. Although this is a single step, Woessner provides a series of sub-steps to select great keywords and a method for evaluating how strong the keywords are.
4, 5 and 6. Optimize the site's code. This includes page titles, META keywords, and META descriptions. For the non-technical reader, the author shows how edit the code in the HTML document.
7. Use headlines. Don't assume that text that looks like a headline, that it actually is. Headline text must be inserted between <H> tags.
8. Use URLs. The author discusses the importance of URLs and describes how Google looks for matches between the Page Title, META Keywords, META Description, domain name, full URL and the content on the page.
9, 10, 11, and 12. Optimize site content. This includes writing specific content, keeping word count within the 500-1000 word range, keyword frequency and text format.
13. Add anchor text links to your content. Anchor links direct visitors to other pages that they may find valuable and help keep your pages content specific.
14. Optimize ALT tags and file names. In both steps 13 and 14, the author provides step by step direction on how to accomplish these tasks in the HTML document.
15. Increase the number of external or inbound links pointing to your website. The previous 14 steps all concentrate on techniques to implement on your site's pages. The final step, 15, is how to use link building to increase your ranking. He covers the criteria Google has established for inbound links to have any value toward increasing your website's popularity score. He also encourages writing articles that are relevant to your industry to post on your site.
The final chapter of the book shares some frequently asked questions by small business owners.
Pros:
1. This truly is a step-by-step book. The author walks the reader through many of the steps, such as how to set up Google Analytics, how to use the Sitemap generator and how to update the HTML document.
2. There are lots of links to great
SEO tools and topics
3. Each chapter provides a final checklist of tasks to complete.
Cons:
1. It's clear the author is qualified to write on this topic, but at times he is a bit full of himself.
Overall, Laserdog gives this book three wags of the tail, an outstanding rating!
The first edition of this book was published in August 2009 and has 288 pages. The price of the book is $15.37. Click here to buy SEO in Just 15 Steps.
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BOOK REVIEW - Search Engine Optimization . . . In Just 15 Steps
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