Customer Reviews

SEO Made Simple (second edition): Strategies For Dominating The World's Largest Search Engine

5 star:		(115)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I think it's time that someone gives this book something other than a five star review which, in my opinion, it doesn't merit. Toward that end, here's my take:

Judging from the content of the many laudatory reviews, this book's primary audience is among people who are amateurs or noobies in the field of website design and functionality. If your experience in designing a webpage is limited to a WYSIWYG editor, if you don't understand XHTML, you're not sure what tag, element, attribute or "meta" mean, then this book is probably appropriate to your level of knowledge.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with being inexperienced. Everybody has to start at the beginning. However, if you are an experienced website designer who, hopefully, hand-codes your pages in XHTML and CSS, makes an effort to comply with current standards for the separation of structure and presentation, and are making more than a formal bow to the need for accessibility, then there is likely to be little of interest to you in this book.

To be fair, there are certainly many good pieces of advice here, despite the author using the first 20% of the ~100 pages to toot his own horn. However, there is little information that could not be found by spending a couple of hours searching the internet for SEO topics; i.e., almost all of what the author "reveals" is rather common knowledge. Again, in the interest of fairness, the author readily admits that he is not a code expert. As a result, there are very few useful examples of actual HTML markup code. The snippets that do exist would be old news to a real developer but, occurring without the context of a real document, would be of little use to a novice designer.The glossary at the end of the book, which takes up about 10% of an already suspiciously short volume, is the last place I would turn for a cogent definition of many of the terms he includes; e.g., "Cascading style sheets (CSS) - used to manipulate and easily manage the design of a website." Hmmm...perhaps that definition could be improved and expanded a bit for the next edition.

As an ex-professional printer (many years ago), I was disappointed with the design and typography of this book. Besides coming across with too much similarity to the "Get Rich Quick with Real Estate Foreclosures" and "Dr. X's New Wonder Diet" genre, the book is poorly edited (too many typos) and composed in a sans-serif typeface (alright, I admit to being biased against that), making it difficult to read for long lengths of time. Also, many of the screen capture illustrations are so small that I needed a magnifying class to read them. I applaud the quite-readable choice of a large point-size for the body type, but that also helps pad out to about 100 sparse pages what should have probably been nothing more than a pamphlet half that size.

To his credit, the author seems to have adhered to the pre-eminent rule of the medical profession: "First of all, DO NO HARM!" His advice is all good, if not exhaustive, and there is certainly something here for any newcomer to website functionality. He also does a good job of steering the reader away from the "black hat" techniques that may have been effective in the not too distant past. Kudos to him for that. But, in contrast to the many other reviews declaring this book as the be-all and end-all of SEO advice, I beg to differ. There are other books on the subject as good, or better, than this one. Given the short length, the sub-standard physical design and production, the pretty well known nature of most of the advice given, I suggest it is over-priced; a price more like $7.95 would come closer to the real value of this tome.

However, if you are a noobie who is being pressured by some self-proclaimed SEO expert, who is promising to get you on Google's first page for the mere sum of $695, then buying and reading this book at its current price may very well be a real money-saving bargain! Bottom-line: it's not a BAD book; it's just not that GOOD! Caveat emptor!

This book is very practical. It tells you exactly what to do. I'm not a pro but I'm not a novice either and I have found this book a perfect guide that serves as a reference book for me to refer back to as I build more sites. It's straight forward and the author makes it clear that SEO is not hard but it does take work, there is no lazy way to do it, you have to put in the work both on your site and off site. I give it 5 stars as its delivers what it promises.

I have been assisting clients with web marketing for a number of years now. I bought SEO Made Simple because even as a professional you never stop learning and as I am committed to my continuing education as an SEO professional I was extremely pleased after I read SEO Made Simple. Any SEO pro who wants to learn more as a means of providing additional value to their clients MUST read this book ASAP. It is very well written, concise and to the point. The book can easily be read in one sitting as the author didn't fill the book with a bunch of unusable information; he gets straight to the point on everything you need to get your sites ranked fast. You get everything you need and nothing you don't here. The author also wrote the book from a perspective of all learning levels. If you just want to crack the code on how to get sites ranked on the search engines or are a seasoned SEO expert, you will find many points of value in this book.

As soon as you start reading from the very first page, you know you are in for a real treat and are going to come away "smarter" in the SEO businessSEO Made Simple: Strategies For Dominating The World's Largest Search Engine (Volume 1). If you need a competitive advantage on the real SEO secrets and what the search engines are really looking for, it is revealed in these pages. It should be a staple on any SEO person's library.

I highly recommend it and look forward to reading it again to gain additional insights.

I can't recommend this book enough. As promised, it specifically outlines the steps needed to improve your PageRank. I heard of this book through a friend and his results are unbelievable.

Frequently while reading this book my eyes begin to glaze over because it is anything but simple. It is filled with many examples of what a great job the author has done optimizing his own web sites but races past much of the detail of how to improve your own site.

I have had a chance to read all of Michael's books on SEO and have yet to be disappointed. This one is no exception. Michael clearly outlines the steps needed to search engine optimize your website. I have recommended this book to many of my friends and business contacts who are interested in learning about SEO. If you are a small business owner or a blogger and would like to get more traffic your site, this is the book you need.

I bought this book on the strength of its Amazon reviews. When I got to the end of the book, I found a paragraph that explains why this book has so many good reviews: The author actually extorts Amazon reviews from the reader right in the book!

In a carefully-worded final paragraph, he says "If you feel this book has provided value, please visit Amazon.com and write a review". He says "I will provide anyone who completes a review with access to my SEO training videos (a $297 value) absolutely FREE! Simply send a link to your review once posted on Amazon.com to <his email address>."

That is incredibly scummy. The guy asks for Amazon reviews "if you feel this book has provided value". Technically he didn't say he wouldn't give you the "$297 value" if you wrote a bad review, but since you have to send your review to the author before he can approve it, he knows that very few people will give him a bad review.

What's worse is that the book spends so much time promoting his website. He references his website all throughout the text, and he actually printed his web address as a footer on each and every page of the book! When you go to that web address, it tries to sell you training, consulting and tools. Unbelievable!

This kind of thing is the reason the public craves authenticity today. We have all dealt with BS telemarketers and used car salesmen who "have to run your offer past the manager" and we're tired of it. Nobody likes a swindler claiming they are giving you a FREE "$297 value". We know you just made that number up. You aren't fooling anybody.

Look, I already bought the book. Stop selling now and just give me the information that I paid for.

I am really very disillusioned by the author's tactics, and I think that Amazon should go so far as to remove the book from its site.

The book had some useful SEO ideas, but nothing that anywhere near merits the type of delirious reviews that I see here. This is NOT "the best SEO book around". It is the best *HYPED* SEO book around.

The book was an easy read, very easy to follow. If you have any computer knowledge or a bit of experience on the web then you would do well with this book. The author put together some excellent strategies in this book, made simple. a great read and recommended. Another book I recommend is SEO Ultimate 2012 Report: Search Engine Optimization for Today's Internet this was one of the most informative books I read yet, it's a must buy!!!

This is the best and most legible book on SEO. I am not a programmer nor web developer but just reading the book, I can right away apply Michael's seo techniques. Why the ONE STAR? For the past 3 or 4 days, I have been asking the help of AMAZON (and they have been terrific) as I have read only 24% of the digital kindle fire version and I have already encountered a number of missing sections, paragraphs or sentences (see location 328-329, 166 or 175 note: the loc numbers tend to change each time i re-read the book). Amazon has sent me an update which I sync and still the errors are there. I dont want to return the book (the tips I have gotten todate are excellent) but I cant help getting peeved not knowing what am missing. MICHAEL HELP. PLEASE SEND AMAZON AN UPDATE SO THAT I CAN DOWNLOAD AND DELETE MY ERROR COPY.

This book was just long enough to convey the necessary information to begin optimization. This book was very helpful for people of all SEO experience.