Customer Reviews

Outsmarting Google: SEO Secrets to Winning New Business (Que Biz-Tech)

5 star:		(54)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Many people have a website, an ecommerce site and a blog or two. But how do you get the attention you want and need? You especially need search engine attention if you are using your website or ecommerce site to earn money. If you aren't getting noticed (i.e. you aren't showing up in the first page or two of the search engines), you may be blaming the economy, the war, politicians, PMS or the phase of the moon. But really when it comes down to it, are YOU doing what you need to, to receive search engine attention and especially Google's attention? This book tells you what to look for in your site and how to correct things so that you can progressively increase your ranking when someone searches for one of your keywords. This is a very practical book written for normal speaking people as opposed to a book written in techno-geek-speak. After reading the book, I immediately sat down to figure out what I could do to further the cause of my website, store and blog and you should too.

My only problem with the book itself was that the examples/illustrations were too small and I needed a magnifier to see and understand them. I would have also liked to see a simple step-by-step "to do" list at the end of the book as a easy guide to be sure you are doing what you need to do and keep your priorities straight. Then I realized that the Table of Contents takes care of that need fairly well.

This book is great! If you are looking to get your page ranked #1 with out paying some crazy amounts of money this book is for you. He covers a great deal of information that will help everyone from novice to expert.Strictly White-Hat SEO that won't get you banned.

I own a business that relies on having excellent search engine optimization (SEO). I'm anything but an expert in search engine optimization, but others in my company are. I read this book so that I would better understand some of the techniques and so I can understand the answers to the questions I ask, those answers that make my head swim and usually make me really sorry I ever brought up the subject. I don't talk the language even though I know a little.

I hear stories about how people have tried less than ethical techniques and temporarily raised their rankings, before getting booted. I wanted to understand that better, and this book does a good job with that.

The first few pages of the book had me thinking that the author sees things the way I do. Then, I just had to check out some of the many links. Fascinating! In fact, my plan for the day changed because I got caught up in exploring some of the ideas.

The tech people that I know tend to debate things. They like to blow each others theories and techniques out of the water, just for fun. They get great joy in finding a hole in someone else's theories. There's plenty of opportunity for debate and discussion here for those who want to do that. For me, I read the book with an open mind, knowing that we are doing many things right, and wondering if there is new information available or if maybe we need to review some things that we haven't looked at for a while.

Some of the content of the book just reaffirmed what I already knew, some of it made me rethink some things, and a couple of ideas were brand new. There was one that I intend to pursue, and if it works out, it will be well worth the time I spent reading, even if some of it did make my head hurt.

The relentless and elusive pursuit to reach the top of Google's search engine rankings for popular keywords has always fascinated me. I've read and studied many search engine optimization books over the years. I've spent a lot of time reading and posting threads in several popular online webmaster forums as well. All of that information (and mis-information) was swirling around in my head. So, when I found this book, I couldn't resist buying it. Especially with a title like "Outsmarting Google".

I'm glad I bought it. I couldn't put it down after I started reading it. The first five chapters alone helped me to better understand the "big picture". I was already familiar with a lot of the terminology and even some of the concepts that Evan Bailyn discusses. But for me, it was the WAY he presented the material that really helped to connect the dots. I'm about to launch a new website using the techniques I've learned in this book, and I'm really excited to see the end result. This one is going to be a nuclear football!

Perhaps the biggest compliment I can pay the author is that I've never reviewed a book online before. I have to say that this one is a "must have" for your SEO arsenal.

I just noticed that Evan has another book titled "Outsmarting Social Media" that is scheduled for release in June 2012. I'll be buying that one as well.

A Little on Links, a Lot on Conclusions without Facts

The SEO industry is plagued by know-it-all SEO's who conclude that they know this or that about Google, or who prophesize that this or that strategy is the best way to succeed at Google. Remarkably, the real 'secrets' of SEO are actually well known: good keyword-heavy content, well structured tags, and lots of links. Beyond that: hard work. And don't think that you know it all, because you (and I don't). We see through a glass, darkly.

Outsmarting Google: Can it be Done?

Evan Bailyn - Outsmarting Google I bought this book because I was intrigued by the title: Outsmarting Google as well as the authors, Evan Bailyn and Bradly Bailyn, who have run some very successful websites. I teach SEO online and in San Francisco (Google Jason McDonald to find me), so I am always trying to stay up with the industry trends, looking for books like this, for those hidden nuggets of knowledge I can share with my students.

These are smart guys who definitely do know what they are doing. Unfortunately, they are in the geek group of SEO people: too smart for their own good, and not necessarily the best at explaining to others what can and should be done to get to the top of Google, for free.

The book's tone, starting with the title, is very smarty-pants. The authors tell us some secrets about Google, but upon closer analysis, the secrets really boil down to what everyone already knows about how to get to the top of Google - namely:

o Identify your best keywords, especially long tail, high value keywords.
o Write good keyword-heavy content.
o Use the proper tags, beginning with the TITLE tag.
o Get links.
o Emphasize links from high PageRank sites, or as the Bailyns emphasize high TrustRank websites.

Leaving TrustRank aside for the moment, the most useful part of this book is the discussion of link building. Some of their ideas are:

o Systematic emailing (a.k.a., asking others for links).
o Press Releases
o Create Funny or Ridiculous Content
o Create Interesting Content
o Top 10 Lists
o Compendiums
o Contests
o Widgets
o Social Media (namely, profiles with links)
o Awards
o Advertising (a.k.a., surreptitiously buying text links)
o Guest Posts
o Research bulletins
o Link Reverse Engineering
o Link Only Photos
o Wikipedia

What concerns me about the book is the lack of attention to detail. For example, the authors correctly point out that a link with the REL=NOFOLLOW attribute fails to pass link juice, but then argue that you should seek out links on Wikipedia, all of which are REL=NOFOLLOW. Another example: in the discussion on AdWords, the authors talk about match types, but fail to distinguish between BROAD MATCH and BROAD MATCH with MODIFIER, a critical, money-saving way to better focus AdWords.

Throughout, they also make assertions such as Google does not care about word order in terms of keywords in a TITLE tag, or that Google (unlike Bing) does NOT pay much attention to the H1 family. None of this can be substantiated through actual searches, and actual results. The authors fail to point out that we really do not know what we don't know about Google, and some factors (such as H1 / H2 tags) may correlate strongly with SEO success, but that of course does not mean that we know FOR CERTAIN that they help.

That said, why shouldn't you use them? They clearly do not hurt, and the probability that they do help is very high - as you see them again and again on successful websites. We see through a glass, darkly, with respect to Google. That fact should be acknowledged by all SEO's, in my humble opinion.

TrustRank, PageRank, and Links

TrustRank is an appealing, interesting concept in terms of links and link building. Essentially, Evan and Bradley Bailyn hypothesize that Google has a hidden factor that ranks sites it trusts more than sites it does not trust. Clearly, new sites on the web are valued less than older, established sites. Sites with many inbound links from other high quality sites are valued more than other sites.

So the authors make a distinction between PageRank and TrustRank, but throw the baby out with the bath water here. They argue, cynically, that PageRank on the Google Toolbar is a Red Herring designed to throw us off Google's trail, whereas the top secret TrustRank is the critical factor. The distinction is spurious. Again, if we acknowledge that we see through a glass darkly here, the game clearly becomes -

o Solicit links, as many as you can.
o Don't pay for links; don't participate in link farms.
o Try to get links from authoritative websites in your keyword families, as measured by their PageRank and by their position on searches that matter to you.

Duh. This isn't really rocket science. It's just common sense. Get links, lots of them. Links help with SEO. Clearly yes yes yes yes.

Nuclear Football: Keyword-heavy Content for the Long Tail

Finally, the authors give some secret advice which they term the The Nuclear Football. Beyond the hype this is basically advice on focusing on lots of keyword-heavy content, that focuses on the long tail of your keyword searches.

Blogging is one way to generate such content. Another is user forums. All of this is great advice, but not really that revolutionary. So, in sum, the book is a good one. But there are many other better books out there for SEO (my favorite: Peter Kent's SEO for Dummies), and this book just disappoints at providing new insights into how to outsmart Google.

Ultimately do we really want to outsmart Google? Or just provide to Google what Google really clearly asks us to provide: keyword heavy content, structured well through HTML tags, with inbound links from quality websites? It's a lot of hard work, but there just isn't any magic nuclear football.

After reading this book my ranking went from the seventh place on google to the first by using just a few of Evans strategies. This is one of the best books I have ever read on marketing on the internet. Extremely helpful, well done Evan!

When I started reading Outsmarting Google I knew very little about SEO. I guess I knew the general idea behind Seo (link building, long tail keywords, etc) but I didn't know where to start in implementing something that would work. I own a pest control company and our website is now 4 months old. I have been using Outsmarting Google as my personal SEO bible, my copy has notes all all over it, highlighted words, paragraphs, etc. Our site has progressed dramatically since starting implementing Evan Bailyns simple methods. When I started reading the book, our site was not listed in the top 100 listings on google for our main keywords, now OUR SITE IS LISTED 12TH, and soon I feel we will crack into the top ten. We are also closing a lot of accounts via our Adwords campaign which we have transformed according to suggestions in Chapter 6. Even if a businesses owner doesn't plan on doing SEO him or herself, I would still recommend this book to give a base knowledge of the subject, that way at least one will be able to hold a somewhat intelligent conversation on SEO(I have since spoken to many Search Engine Optizmizers and it was clear that their knowledge about the subject was far inferior to Bailyn's). Its also important to learn what types of things to stay away from, detrimental "black hat" SEO methods that seem to be thrown in one's face all over the internet. As a small business owner, who spends money into many different forms of advertising/marketing, the best 25.00 i have spent so far was purchasing this book. Highly Recommend!

Outsmarting Google: SEO Secrets to Winning New Business is much more than an SEO manual. It gives the inside scoop on Google and explains it in much more manageable terms than other books. This book is packed with details about the ins and outs of getting your website noticed, monetizing it, and not pulling your hair out in the process. The authors write in a clear, concise manner, making the book accessible to all. I found it one that people with websites or blogs or shops on the web will find not only helpful but a necessity. Get it.

This is a fantastic, hands-on book, clearly written with great tips and pragmatic advice to get your name in the public's hands.

Evan Bailyn is a super star and knows how to create business success. He is teaching others how to do it. Step by step. So now, what's the excuse. Evan also has lectures and workshops all over the country, offering more advice on business.

He's young, dynamic and a business leader to watch. His method for Outsmarting google was brilliant, and efficient.

Kudos to anyone who buys this book and uses the principles in it, to get their company or their client's company on the right track!

When I first picked up this book, I knew nothing about SEO, and I'd never written a line of code. I'm not a computer/internet expert in any sense. I ordered this book, and two others. Although the two others were decent enough books, it was this one that gave me every tool I could possibly want. Evan Bailyn is clearly an expert in his field, and he gives you some of the best advice out there.

What I loved most about this book however, is not the copious amounts of relevant and useful content that fill every page, but the way in which it is written. He uses understandable analogies and explanations which make everything so much clearer. The book feels like somehow it is written for absolute beginners and experts at the same time; quite an achievement.

I couldn't recommend this book highly enough, if you're thinking about investing in your SEO knowledge, this is THE book to own. Don't miss out on it.