After more than 7 month of inactivity due to heavy workload I am restarting my blog.
Last month Sitepoint released “The SEO business Guide”.
SitePoint
For those who do not know SitePoint, it’s a company specialized in publishing guides and courses revolving around web design, web programming, web marketing and many other aspects of online business. The quality of their products makes them a rather authoritative source if you are planning to get any form of education in these fields.
The Book market related to SEO
The SEO book market is crowded with a massive quantity of beginner level books repeating the same platitudes (often out-dated) about search engine optimization. There are few advanced-level SEO books on the market but these are quite a rarity as the topic is moving very quickly. An advanced-level book can get out of date in less than a year.
This SitePoint guide stand out from anything on the market because a large parte of the content is focused on setting up an SEO consultancy business. This is quite invaluable if you feel that your know how on SEO is high but you are afraid to make the plunge and start a business around it.
The book structure
The book is structured around 9 chapters and two appendixes.
Chapter 1. - Search 101: This is a basic introduction or refresher on general principles of SEO
Chapter 2.- Best-practice SEO: This chapter outlines the basic processes for building searchable content, create back links and improving your ranking.
Chapter 3. - Advanced Tactics: More on tools for keyword analysis and for maximizing your SEO results.
Chapter 4. - Enterprise SEO: Here are special suggestions for large sites, multilingual sites, branding and geo-targeting;
Chapter 5. - Paid Search: How to make Pay Per Click work synergistically with your SEO strategy
Chapter 6. - Local Search: Extending your SEO strategy to the local search marketplace;
Chapter 7. - Starting an SEO Business: This is the largest chapter of the guide. It focuses on starting the SEO business, the pricing strategies and how to find clients;
Chapter 8. - Leveraging Technology and Staff: How to automate the repetitive parts of the SEO process, and expanding the business;
Chapter 9. - Value-Added Services: Additional products and services that you can add to your portfolio.
Appendix A – Online Resources: Blog, guides, newsletters and other Resources for the most up to date information on SEO
Appendix B – Documents: This chapter is a list of templates for contracts, service agreements, client questionnaires and confidentiality agreements. All these documents are in soft format in the CD included with the guide.
The two last appendixes are extremely valuable. In particular appendix B is saving you days of hard work (and probably lawyers fees).
Is this book for you?
This book is for you if you are serious about SEO and you like the idea of starting your own business. You will find that the content is really unique and valuable.
This book is not for you if you just want a to do checklist in order to improve your ranking but you don’t have a lot of time or energy to dedicate to the task.
The guide cost $197 with free shipping worldwide. By purchasing the book you will have access to $150 of discounts on the SEO tools recommended in the guide. The book can be ordered directly from the SitePoint website.
In conclusion this guide is a must have if you are planning to set up your own SEO business.
In conclusion this guide is a must have if you are planning to set up your own SEO business.
Hi Luca,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the review. I recently bought this book from sitepoint without having read reviews. I have skimmed over the chapters and I am excited to read further.
My interests in Online Marketing and Web Development has exponentially increased since I quit my previous dream job as a Project manager / Product Developer to further my education.
If you have any tips or suggestions for me, I will greatly appreciate them. Right now, I'm working on several projects and learning as much as possible to effectively and efficiently apply what I've learned in the real world.
Warm regards,
Mark
Hi Mark,
ReplyDeleteIf you are interested in SEO I would recommend to read "The Art of SEO" from Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Rand Fishkin and Jessie Stricchiola. This book is from 2009 (SEO get outdated extremely quickly) but I think it's still one of the best SEO books out there. Other than books there are many interesting blogs, I follow http://www.seomoz.org religiously.
For web analytics, I would go for the "UBC Award of Achievement in Web Analytics" (see my review in January 2010). It's a great education program and it will give you strong foundations. Blogs are here an invaluable source of information. there are many out there and I follow http://www.kaushik.net/
For general Web marketing It's quite difficult to pinpoint a single book. You will be better served by blogs and books on individual topics. You could neverveless have a look at "Online marketing inside-out" from Sitepoint.
I hope this was helpful.
Cheers
/Luca
Hi Luca,
ReplyDeleteI was very happy to see a reply. Thank you.
I knew I should have never stopped tinkering with the web since I started during middle school 12 years ago. I had the bug then, took an extremely long break, now I'm back and I LOVE IT!
I just hope I am not too late... It seems that online marketing has grown substantially over the last few years. The internet has become such viable source of information.
At first, I was a bit intimidated at pursuing the internet as part of my career path this late in the game. But I went ahead and took the plunge and I am learning as much as possible by putting a lot of effort into projects that are finally coming to fruition.
I am about 3/4 through sitepoint's "online marketing inside-out". I am actually most interested in the Marketing aspect of the internet. I know that SEO is an invaluable tool to have knowledge, but I don't plan on being an SEO master. (I do have the SEO business guide)
I'd like to learn as much as possible about online marketing to help grow businesses of all kinds. After reading your background in your about me page, I was so happy I stumbled upon your blog. You're the first person I felt I had to reach out to for information and ask you to help point me in the right direction. I quit my full time job as a project manager to go back to school and pursue my burning passion for the internet. It seems that you've had experience in Internet Marketing on a global level and I am sure you have worked with many individuals in the same field. The company I worked for had many traditional brand marketing managers whom I worked with closely, but I noticed they had not used the power of the web anywhere to its full potential. What are the main functions of Internet Marketing? You stated the web analytics virus has infected you more than two years ago. I am guessing this is a fairly large part of Internet Marketing..
Thanks Luca,
ReplyDeleteCould you expand a little on "access to $150 of discounts on the SEO tools recommended in the guide" please.
Does that mean that SitePoint recommend SEO software which is $300 to buy but you'll get 10% off with their discount? I'm interested in the specifics because I'm pretty close to buying the Guide.
Thanks :)
I am also interested to buy this book as it seems to be a comprehensive guide about starting online SEO business. its obvious that it imparts the sound knowledge of SEO as well. After reading your review I am definately going to buy it. Thanks for your review of the book.
ReplyDeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteDo not forget that SEO is a moving target, as Search engines update their algorithms all the time. Follow few reputable SEO blogs to keep up-to-date.
I think in today’s marketing world search engine optimization marketing is used as an internet advertising strategy. I have also launched the business seo marketing company. So i am collecting some fresh ideas for business seo.
ReplyDeleteAs i am new to this field of seo, i found your blog quite interesting. Thanks..
ReplyDelete