Title: Search Engine Optimization
Subtitle: Building Traffic 
      and Making Money with SEO
Author: Harold Davis
ISBN: 0-596-52786-1
Edition: First, May 2006 
Pages: 48
PDF Price: $9.99 USD,
      $12.99 CAD, £6.95 GBP 

Somewhat Longer Review

Contents

• The Title (Search Engine Optimization, Traffic, SEO)
• About the Reviewer
• What You Get
• Likes
• Gripes
• Who's the PDF for?
• Final Thoughts

The Title

I'll assume you understand most of the terms in the title. You do grok Making Money, right?

Search Engine Optimization

In the first section of this PDF, Search Engine Optimization is defined as "the art, craft, and science of driving web traffic to web sites". Search Engine Optimization may involve such things as:

• getting your site included in key directories
• creating or requesting inbound links to your site
• placing keywords optimally on your pages

If you are a programmer, like me, you might have thought Search Engine Optimization had to do with optimizing the code that implements a search engine. Not in this context.

Traffic

In this context, Traffic is referring to web traffic of whatever kind you want for your site.

SEO

SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization.

I've also seen SEO used as an abbreviation for Search Engine Optimizer.

While reading in this topic area, you may also see SEM which stands for Search Engine Marketing. You could search on define:sem for several definitions of SEM.

Does the PDF Fit the Title?

Yep, this PDF is about getting traffic to your site.

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About the Reviewer

Webmaster

I'm the webmaster of a number of non-profit sites. I am concerned with and do spend time on SEO.

Programmer

By trade I'm a programmer. I've been doing programming for many years.

Operating System Preference

The machine I use the most runs Linux. I also regularly use Free BSD and Mac OS X. My preference is to use a Unix/Linux based OS.

O'Reilly PDF Guide Experience

The only other O'Reilly PDF Guide I've read is "Building Tag Clouds in Perl and PHP".

I like the idea behind the O'Reilly PDF Guides. The idea is to make info on cutting edge technologies available faster. O'Reilly PDF Guides are advertised as "Good. Fast. Cheap." which, based on the two I've read, they are.

SEO Experience

I was not familiar with the term Search Engine Optimization before reading this PDF.

On the other hand as a webmaster I'd certainly spent a fair amount of time dealing with SEO issues. Now I can do that better.

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What You Get

The body of this PDF is about 40 pages long. (I say "about" because I read this PDF on Safari where page numbers are irrelevant.) In those pages you can learn:

• what SEO is
• a number of pointers how best to do SEO
• some SEO pitfalls

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Likes

Generally

I really like that this PDF:

• is short.
• is concise.
• is cheap.
• is easy to read.
• contains valuable information that I've found helpful on a topic that interests me.

Broad View of SEO

As a webmaster I'm concerned with getting traffic to my site; the means by which I achieve this is secondary, though the cost (in time, money, etc.) is certainly relevant.

I like that the author defines SEO broadly enough to include means other than Search Engines. He addresses the problem I actually have!

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Gripes

Well, I don't have any significant gripes, so I'll trot out some I consider insignificant.

Simplification

In the subsection on SEO's Evolution, the author says: "it's obviously better for pages to appear higher up and toward the beginning of the list returned by the search engine in response to a user's query". Personally I think this statement is neither obvious nor true.

However if appropriate qualifications were added, I could be quite comfortable with the statement. I think most readers would find the qualifications tedious.

Sidebar

In the section on PageRank within a block of text that has a border around it, the text refers to itself as a sidebar. But the text is inline and not to the side in a separate column.

However, the text with borders around it is an aside much as you'd expect to find in a sidebar. Moreover, my dictionary's definition of sidebar says nothing about being to the side or in a separate column. My bad! :(

Sections Not Numbered

The main sections are not numbered, though the subsections are numbered. For a while I thought sections 4 and 12 were missing; they were not.

I doubt most readers will notice or care that the main sections are not numbered.

Wrong URL

In the Free Tools section, the Meta Tag Analyzer is given the same URL as for the Search Engine Positioning Tool.

However, by doing a search on meta tag analyzer, I found a Meta Tag Analyzer:

• Widexl Meta Tag Analyzer

Lack of Linux Information

Also in the Free Tools section, I would have appreciated some statement about the availability of free tools for different operating systems.

Some of the Free Tools are accessed from the web in which case operating system is likely irrelevant.

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Who's the PDF for?

Ideal For

This PDF would be ideal for someone who has all the following characteristics:

• is a webmaster
• wants to increase traffic to his site(s)
• has more to learn about SEO

Not For

This PDF would not be good for anyone with any of the following characteristics:

• is just not interested in the Web.
• is unwilling to spend anything at all on documents.
• is confident they already know what they need to know about SEO.
• has no need for, nor curiosity about, SEO.

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Final Thoughts

If you want a short, concise, cheap, easy-to-read guide to SEO that's packed with valuable information, go for it.

Smiley Rating: Excellent. :) :) :) :) :) of 5.

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