The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization (Theory in Practice) Review

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(More customer reviews)I am one who has been very outspoken about the more shady SEO practitioners and about the ridiculously overprices "courses" that are heavily promoted on the Internet. SEO has acquired some of the taint of huckster marketing because of that.
I hope this book helps eliminate some of that. There's no need to pay some self-styled "Internet Guru" hundreds or thousands of dollars for SEO secrets. There are no secrets: every concept, every "trick", every piece of advice is available on the Internet for free. Of course you have to find it all, you have to learn what things are outdated, what advice doesn't work - or you could find 99% here in this book.
Of course it's not for everyone. It assumes some technical knowledge or at least access to someone with that knowledge. As an example, at several points 301 redirects are used as the solution certain SEO issues. Although some minor direction is given about implementing these, you'd need more than is provided here if you were a neophyte - someone using Blogger or [...] isn't going to become proficient with Apache from reading this.
The only small complaint I can make is that sometimes the authors use too many examples, especially for the more basic concepts at the beginning of the book. However, too many is far better than too few, so I won't complain too much. I definitely can't complain that they left anything out: this could serve as a course book for a SEO class.
I'll be recommending this strongly.

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A well-designed, easy-to-navigate website is useless if no one can find it. If your company is going to succeed in the web economy, optimizing your site for search engine visibility is essential. In this book, four of the most noted experts in the field of search engine optimization (SEO) provide you with proven guidelines and cutting-edge techniques for planning and executing a comprehensive SEO strategy. The authors clearly explain SEO fundamentals, while correcting many common misconceptions. If you are new to SEO, you'll get a complete and thorough SEO education, as well as an array of effective tactics, from basic to advanced. Seasoned practitioners will find this book useful as a complete reference to SEO best practices.

Explore the underlying theory behind SEO and how search engines work
Learn the steps you need to prepare for, execute, and evaluate SEO initiatives
Examine a number of advanced strategies and tactics
Understand the intricacies involved in managing complex SEO projects
Learn what's necessary to build a competent SEO team with defined roles
Glimpse the future of search and what lies ahead for the SEO industry

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HTML Dog: The Best-Practice Guide to XHTML and CSS Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is not a comprehensive encyclopedia of every CSS nuance, but it presents all the main areas in a very clear, but not dumbed-down manner. Basically it answered my three questions:
1. I wanted to re-write an older web site using CSS and modern HTML web stds, so where do I start?
2. What is my best approach?
3. Why would I want to do it that way?
So along the way it clarified for me how I should use divs for page structure, improve my navigation lists, specify font size in the best manner, and most of all how to use css in a structured way with minimal rewriting of styles etc for subtle changes in page requirements.
The book is probably most useful if you want to follow his emphasis and use XHTML Strict with CSS.
Very nicely written, very cleanly laid out. The associated website is useful, but the book stands alone as a very useful reference or starter for someone wanting to design their pages in an effective standards-based way.

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For readers who want to design Web pages thatload quickly, are easy to update, accessible to all, work on allbrowsers and can be quickly adapted to different media, thiscomprehensive guide represents the best way to go about it. By focusingon the ways the two languages--XHTML and CSS--complement each other,Web design pro Patrick Griffiths provides the fastest,most efficient way of accomplishing specific Web design tasks. With Webstandards best practices at its heart, it outlines how to do things theright way from the outset, resulting in highly optimized web pages, ina quicker, easier, less painful way than users could hope for! Splitinto 10 easy-to-follow chapters such as Text, Images, Layout, Lists,and Forms, and coupled with handy quick-reference XHTML tag and CSSproperty appendixes, HTML Dog is the perfect guide andcompanion for anyone wanting to master these languages. Readers canalso see the lessons in action with more than 70 online examplesconstructed especially for the book.

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Hot Text: Web Writing that Works Review

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(More customer reviews)There are only a few books about writing that I consider classics, and despite the relative newness of this one, it qualifies.
First, the advice on writing online text is on the mark, especially with respect to organizing your message and presenting it with impact. Much of the advice can also be effectively used in paper-based documents. I particularly liked the way the authors presented punctuation because in paper-based text a mark such as a colon is easy to spot, whereas on a monitor it's lost. I've since begun using a dash instead of a colon when developing online content and that small piece of advice works where a colon does not. Of course there are literally hundreds of other tips and advice that will combine to make your content readable and understandable.
Second, the way the authors show you how to organize your thoughts, distill them into a coherent and succinct message, and how to present that message is a strategy that anyone who develops online content needs to carefully read and heed.
Finally, this book covers much more than how to write - it also gives excellent advice on a full range of related topics, including search engine placement using meta tags, humanizing the technical nature of web pages (such as making URLs easy to read and remember for non-technical users), and how to structure your content to find items of interest. The latter extensively uses principles from Information Mapping©. One disappointment was the omission of any mention of Robert Horn, the inventor of Information Mapping©, from the extensive list of cited references and recommended reading because the authors' approach is closely aligned to much of Horn's work.
If you're developing online content you cannot afford to pass this book up. Mine is a constant deskside companion and is likely to remain so for years to come.

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