« Week In Review 4/30 — 5/04 — Analytics Gallore » 7 May 2007

I have always hated books with the “An hour a day,” or “in 24 hours” in the title. Being so nerdy and technical in nature, I sometimes cower in the presence of something too simply explained. However, this wasn’t the case with “SEO: An Hour A Day” written by Gradiva Couzin and Jennifer Grappone. The thing with SEO And SEM, is that once you start learning, you are forever on an upwardly mobile course; learning new and more complicated aspects almost everyday. It isn’t often that you re-read something that is tagged “for beginners.”

If you’re like me, you love seeing how others approach SEO and Internet marketing. That being said, that isn’t likely to be found with this book. It is indeed very beginner oriented, following the common “read this chapter today, and the next tomorrow” format. It’s a little hard for me to be critical of that fact because I assumed this going in. However, there were a few things that I didn’t count on from a beginner book that actually made me very happy.

There are obviously some very tricky aspects to optimization that can not be explained in a matter of a few sentences. I think they were conveyed so easily in this book in fact, that someone who had never heard of SEO would be able to grasp such ideas. With inserts giving real world examples and actual past cases (with identifying information changed, of course) one such beginner could quickly asses some basic problems and find solutions for them.

I also give a very large ‘Kudos’ to the fact that a lot of the book covered SEO in a fashion that wouldn’t make it obsolete next year. It’s difficult to write something, send it to an editor, have it printed, published, and distributed, and still expect the information to be pertinant to such an ever changing world.

I have know read three “beginner” SEO books (In print, not online books), and this one was by far the best. If you are just starting your walk down the SEO road, I really suggest looking into this one. You can get a copy here (Affiliate Link). If you have been reading on SEO or have been involved for any length of time, you may not get a lot of new information from it. However, again, it’s always neat to see how other professionals organize and implement their methods. You may also find some use out of the spreadsheets they provide in conjunction with the book, which can be viewed here.

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