Search Engine Optimization for Dummies
by Peter Kent
Wiley Publishing Inc., Paperback, 374 pp., £16.99, ISBN: 0764567586, 2004
Reviewed by Matt Pearce
For many of us, getting our site ranked high in Internet searches is something of a mysterious art. Worse still, many of us place too much trust in web developers and designers who claim to be search
engine "experts". Well, they might think they know all the key moves: putting in the right meta tags, submitting pages to all the search engines. But does this really work? Probably not, according to
Peter Kent - which is why his new book,
Search Engine Optimization for Dummies
, comes in particularly handy.
Of course, you always know what you're getting with a Dummies book. The formula has been tried and tested a thousand times, and this book doesn't disappoint. Everything is explained in a
plain-speaking fashion and you get a few fun cartoons thrown in too. In fact Peter Kent, author of the hugely popular
Complete Idiot's Guide to the Internet
, is the ideal Dummies narrator. He speaks to you in that friendly yet informed voice that is never patronising, and best of all, he forgives you for any lack of advanced IT knowledge.
Thankfully, you don't need to be versed in HTML to approach this book. Rarely does Kent go deeply into complex code. He expects only a basic level of understanding of the Internet and web site
creation, although inevitably, some knowledge of HTML is useful, and you will need a code writer to complete some of the tasks proposed by this guide.
Better still, this Dummies guide couldn't be easier to use. As soon as you open the cover you have a 'Cheat Sheet' that summarises the whole book. Then you get a detailed introduction, two tables of
contents, section overviews, bullet pointed aims, key icons, an exhaustive index... If only some web sites were as easy to navigate as this book.
The upshot is that this is not a book you need to read from cover to cover. It's effectively a manual, and many chapters work well as stand-alone guides. But if you have the time, I highly recommend
that you do read the whole of this guide. It provides a great way to work through your site and really recognise its strengths and downfalls, and you'll happen upon many useful tips.
Contents
It's worth knowing exactly what's inside this guide, as there's so much of it. So here's a summary of each of the five parts:
Part 1: Search Engine Basics
Chapter 1 provides the low-down on search engines and hits home that they are the most important source of new visitors to a site. You finish knowing the difference between an engine and a
directory, and more importantly, you have a clearer idea of the task in hand. The good news? You won't have to register with a multitude of search engines after all - just a few key ones.
Next comes 'Your One-Hour Search-Engine-Friendly Web Site Makeover'. Read this chapter and you can test whether your web site is indexed, and determine whether your pages are search-engine
friendly in the first place. You'll find excellent advice on cleaning up your URLs, and on dealing with dreaded frames and Flash intros. Chapter 4 - 'Picking Powerful Keywords' - is just as useful. It gives
great practical advice on coming up with and using keywords, as well as showing us how to use a keyword tool.
Altogether, Part 1 is a book on its own, packed with information, and accessible to virtually everyone. If only by telling us how to get the Google and the Alexa Toolbars, Part 1 makes itself
invaluable.
PART 2: Building Search-Engine-Friendly Sites
As you guessed from the title, this is the section everyone wished they'd read before they developed their sites.
First we are tutored in 'Creating Pages that a Search Engine Loves', and learn what a search engine 'sees' when it looks at the site. The importance of details soon becomes apparent: keyword density,
file naming and directory structure are all important factors when it comes to pleasing search engines, as are title and description meta tags.
Next the book takes the opposite approach, telling us what to
avoid
when creating new pages. Amongst other things, Kent advises on sites using Java applets, JavaScripts and Flash, providing source code to make pages search-engine friendly, and he gives wise
counsel on the use of cookies.
'Dirty Deeds: Facing the Consequences', talks about ways of cheating to climb the results ranks. The gist of this chapter? Don't do it. The next chapter provides a better strategy: 'Bulking Up Your Site -
Complete with Content'. We're reminded that what a search engine craves is lots of (text) content.
You might think that because this section targets those who have yet to construct their site, it is no good for those of us who have inherited one. But don't be fooled. This section contains many
problem-fixers. As a diagnostic tool for your site, it's great.
Part 3: Adding Your Site to the Indexes and Directories
This is probably the bit most people will want to get to. Providing all the advice you need to get your pages into the search engines in the first place, this section also gives you leads for submitting to the
main directories and a number of specialised directories.
Most importantly, however, this part emphasises the fact that if you want to get ahead with the search engines, what you need is the power of linkage...
Part 4: After You've Submitted
...and it's the importance of links that is fully explored in Part 4. You have to use link popularity to boost your position, it's as simple as that, says Kent. Thus he provides some essential link-building
strategies and a few useful hints on linkage. For instance, did you know that you should put keywords in those links so that the searchbots can guess what your page is about?
Interestingly, Part 4 part provides the lowdown on PageRank - that cryptic value Google assigns to a web page to order its search results. It also contains information on making the most of shopping
directory and retailer links if you have an e-commerce site, plus it tells you everything you need to know about Pay Per Click - that guaranteed way of getting your link on the list.
Part V: The Part of Tens
Finally, inevitably, you get the tip-lists. There are three in this final part: 'Ten-Plus Ways to Keep Up-to-Date and Track Down the Details', a fantastic little resource for on-going action; 'Ten Myths and
Mistakes' that lists the main problems with sites; plus 'Ten-Plus Useful Tools for Search Engine Optimisation', which does what it says on the label - a great tool. At the back, you also have an Appendix
containing information about copyright, a thoughtful and genuinely useful addition, although rules about copyright on government materials might not apply in the UK.
Verdict
Search Engine Optimization for Dummies
should be required reading for anyone with a presence on the Internet, it's as simple as that.
Ideally, of course, it would be studied before a web site is built and developed, so that the result would be super-friendly to search engines. But this is unlikely to be the case. Luckily, then, the book
also works extremely well when applied to an old site. Certainly, after you've read this book, you'll know exactly why little traffic is coming via the search engines to your pages. And you'll also have a
good idea of how to remedy the situation.
If you want to do the search engine work yourself,
Search Engine Optimization for Dummies
is a thoroughly usable guide that is easy to follow and pitched at a level that will please many. Spend a few hours working through the book and you can formulate a simple plan of action to get traffic
to your site. Spend a little more time and you can begin to cover all bases, building up those links and improving the very content and structure of your site.
But
Search Engine Optimization for Dummies
is also important for those who don't deal with search engine traffic, or have anything to do with marketing and maintaining the site. If you're paying your web developer/designer to submit your pages
to search engines and improve your rankings, this book will give you the knowledge to monitor what they're up to, and to find out if - as is often the case - they really don't know what they're doing. It will
also give you the confidence to tackle the techies who think that blinding you with the science of meta tags gets them off the hook.
On saying that, I would also advise that you hand this book over to those techies who profess to be experts. To say the book is just for us 'dummies' is to undersell it.
Search Engine Optimization for Dummies
contains much of the coding needed to rectify search engine-shy sites. It's nothing if not comprehensive.
What really makes this book better than the rest is the way it is made as user-friendly as possible, and the way it functions as a resource you can return to. This book will serve you for years to come,
and get this: there's even a companion web site that has links to registration sites, and that links to other articles.
Better still, in the course of reading this book, you learn more than just to optimise search engine traffic. Because the chapters deal with what makes a site attract users in the first place, there's plenty of
more general, common-sense advice about what makes a web site a good all-round performer. It's all valuable stuff, and highly readable.
All this for a mere £16.99? It might be the best investment you ever make.
Links
More information on the book and its author can be found at
www.dummies.com,
and you can visit the search engines resource at
www.dummies.com/go/seo .
Click here to visit Peter Kent' s site on Search Engines at
www.SearchEngineBulletin.com
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