Search Engine Optimization: Your Visual Blueprint for Effective Internet Marketing

I'm a picker and a skimmer. As unsavory as it sounds, it simply means I rarely read a manual from front to back. I skim and a pick out items that are relevant or interesting to me. This book is perfect for that type of person. Concise two-page explainations, then on to the next subject. I also purchased the "An Hour a Day" book with this one and I have barely touched the other. The "Hour a Day" book is good for someone with a more linear approach to learning. I have a website that was averaging about 20 new visitors a day. I barely registered on Yahoo and Google. After the spiders caught sight of my website, the effect was instant. After two weeks, I am bringing in over 100 a day and I have only applied three of the principles in the book so far. This book paid for itself and much more.

Many SEO books focus on keyword optimization, but this little number is a veritable compendium of techniques. If you applied half of what you'll find in here, your site would be more optimized than you can even imagine. This covers everything from content to links to blogs to micro-blogs to forums to reviews to directories and communities and ad copy and keyword bidding... whew. No other books comes even close to the variety of options that Kristopher's book has. You'll learn more about variations of SEO techniques from this book than any other source. So start here, and if you need to go further in depth on any of the topics, you can branch off into some of the other fine books out there on specific topics like landing page and keyword optimization.

I read Search Engine Optimization: Your Visual Blueprint for Effective Internet Marketing by Kris Jones from cover-to-cover. Go ahead and buy it! It's really a top-notch book! Don't let the title fool you. The book covers much more than search engine optimization. It's really a domain spanning book, and one of the first published works that I have seen to integrate search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), and affiliate marketing programs (AFP). From nearly any perspective, these three areas of expertise all have one overlapping goal --- providing the right content where it will be seen by the right person at the right time. Leveraging support and expertise from Pepperjam, Jones does an excellent job of integrating these three areas into a near seamless package. In this respect, the book is really ground breaking, and a harbinger of things to come in how these areas will be viewed. The 296 page book has eleven chapters, an introductory history of SEO, and a nine page index. Each of the eleven chapters has a standard organization that is clear and readable. Each chapter begins with a two page overview, with each of topics that the chapter covers in easy-to-read callout boxes, along with a larger callout box providing information on some unique concept or tool related to the chapter. The remainder of the chapter is divided into sections corresponding to the callout boxes in the two-page chapter introduction. It is a really neat layout that is effective and efficiency for both a complete read and returning to for a reference. The eleven chapters are: Getting started with SEO, keyword generation, creating pages, basic Website structure, advanced Website structure, creating content, creating communities, building links, using Google analytics, social media optimization, creating pay-for-click campaigns, optimizing PPC campaigns, optimizing for niche search engines, monetizing traffic, and installing SEP plug-ins. As a person active in the areas of SEO and SEM, I was interested in the book's topics but, honestly, really thought that I wouldn't learn much that was new to me. I was totally wrong! The chapters are packed with worthwhile information in a `how-to' format. I learned loads of worthwhile and actionable information. In any book that I review, I try to find something that one could improve upon. One suggestion that I would have is a reference list at the end of each chapter pointing to further reading on chapter topics. This would broaden the audience from primarily practitioners to include also educators, trainers, and researchers. However, this is nick picking. The book is great!

The book was written by Kristopher B. Jones, CEO of PepperJam. Kris is well known in the industry and considered an authority not only in the search marketing community, but among Internet marketers is general, including affiliate marketers and people in display advertising. I think the title of the book was not well chosen, because it is not only about organic search engine optimization, but about marketing your business and website in general. The book covers paid search advertising, affiliate marketing, public relations, web analytics and more, basically everything that is important for a successful online presents. That Kris has experience across the multiple channels of Internet marketing, from his business as fully integrated Internet marketing agency shines through in his book. Unique about the book is also how it is designed. It is geared towards the visual folks like myself and uses a tremendous amount of pictures to show things instead of just using words to explain. Virtually every page has a screenshot or illustration and is an integrated part of the book, beyond the simple use as decoration or reinforcement of the written text.