Search Engine Optimization (SEO): An Hour a Day [Paperback]

Jennifer Grappone (Author), Gradiva Couzin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 11, 2011 | ISBN-10: 0470902590 | ISBN-13: 978-0470902592 | Edition: 3

The third edition of the bestselling guide to do-it-yourself SEO

Getting seen on the first page of search engine result pages is crucial for businesses and online marketers. Search engine optimization helps improve Web site rankings, and it is often complex and confusing. This task-based, hands-on guide covers the concepts and trends and then lays out a day-by-day strategy for developing, managing, and measuring a successful SEO plan. With tools you can download and case histories to illustrate key points, it’s the perfect solution for busy marketers, business owners, and others whose jobs include improving Web site traffic.

• A successful SEO plan is vital to any business with an online presence
• This book provides strategies for setting goals and gaining corporate support, developing and implementing a plan, and monitoring trends and results
• Offers hints, tips, and techniques for everyone from one-person shops to Fortune 500 companies
• Companion Web site includes downloadable tracking spreadsheets, keyword list templates, templates for checking rank and site indexes, and a calendar with daily SEO tasks that you can import into your own calendar system

Fully updated and expanded, Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day, Third Edition will help you raise your visibility on the Web.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The Ultimate Do-It-Yourself Guide to SEO!

A Step-by-Step Guide

More timely than ever, this comprehensive, can-do book offers expert advice, practical instructions, and smart tools to help you increase visibility for your website on Google and other major search engines. In this new edition of their bestselling guide, veteran search marketing consultants Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin give you the very latest SEO and social media strategies and tricks of the trade in a workable, day-by-day plan. Perfect for busy self-starters in organizations large and small, this book will quickly help you increase your visibility and presence on the web.

• Develop and implement an SEO strategy using the winning An Hour a Day approach

• Discover how search engines work now, and make them work for you

• Optimize your site so you can be found, then make the sale

• Use Facebook, Twitter, and other sites on the Social and Mobile Web to put your site in the spotlight

• Find out what "link juice" is, and start making your own

• Get visibility in local, social, shopping, and other featured search results

You'll also find:

• Essential hints, tips, and techniques for everyone from one-person shops to Fortune 500 companies

• Engaging right-brain vs. left-brain sidebars, where the authors discuss key issues from their unique perspectives

• Real-world "From the Trenches" case studies that illustrate successes to learn from and mistakes to avoid

Praise for Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day, Third Edition

"From strategy to implementation and optimization, this valuable resource gives you easily digestible, bite-sized nuggets containing proven, field-tested principles—it's SEO done right."
—Amman Badlani, Manager, Online Marketing and Analytics, Planned Parenthood Federation of America

"Tightly written and to the point, it gives you the knowledge you need to make a big difference in how your site appears in search engines."
—Rafael Baptista, SEO Specialist, Tripadvisor.com

"SEO: An Hour a Day is an immediately actionable guerilla field guide. Gradiva and Jennifer have a terrific grip on what real SEO practitioners should undertake short, mid, and long term."
—Marty Weintraub, President, aimClear

"If you read even half of the book you'll be an SEO star. Imagine what will happen if you read the whole thing!"
—Avinash Kaushik, Author of Web Analytics 2.0 and Google Analytics Evangelist

About the Author

Search marketing consultants Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin have improved the Internet presence of Fortune 500 companies and other firms in the media, entertainment, software, retail, and nonprofit industries. Jennifer, a former web project manager and corporate video producer, began focusing exclusively on SEO in 2000. Gradiva, a programmer and civil engineer, has been working in SEO since 1999. Together, they deliver a well-rounded, left-brain/right-brain approach to successful search engine optimization and social marketing.

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Sybex; 3 edition (January 11, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470902590
• ISBN-13: 978-0470902592
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 0.9 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #53,991 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #16 in Books > Computers & Technology > Internet & Web Culture > E-Commerce
  • #20 in Books > Computers & Technology > Internet & Web Culture > Search Engine Optimization
  • #45 in Books > Computers & Technology > Home Computing & How-to > Online Searching

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 40 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars All you need to know about SEO... June 8, 2011

By Finn

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

As an seo consultant this book has played a HUGE role in helping me acquire the knowledge of seo i have today. I was a virtual seo newbie when i got this, my job requirements as an internet and ecommerce manager had been changed to include seo techniques and practices and i was more than a little worried that my ignorance of the subject would be found out, but by the time i'd read this twice i practically felt like i'd been involved in seo for years (yes, the transition was that smooth).

Here are my thoughts on this book.

Search engine optimization: an hour a day is a great read for anyone who wants to know all about SEO. It's a well structured book that takes you by the hand, one step at a time, and leads you through everything from the basic fundamentals to the most advanced SEO techniques used by seasoned professionals. It's incredibly detailed, maybe too detailed, from the fundamentals of keyword and website analysis to paid advertising, so much that at times it seems it's a little more information than you can handle all at once(especially for an seo newbie).

I've read reviews that said it was too wordy but i think the book was meant to be taken a little at time, especially by newbies, not just rushed and digested in a single reading. You need to practice the techniques a little at a time to really grasp the importance of each. The fact that the book uses scenarios from real businesses as examples for readers to follow helps to give people who are unfamiliar with the whole SEO concept a clearer picture of what the authors are talking about.

The text and language of the book is easy enough to understand. The tools and resources mentioned throughout the book and especially at the end are very useful for anyone who's interested in keeping up to date with the ever changing rules of seo.

Another invaluable resource that really makes me feel this book is worth it's weight in gold is the third part which outlines a detailed 3 month seo plan to get your website to the top of the search engines for your chosen keywprds. Believe me it works! I know because i use it all the time for many of my clients. If you want to get your website to the top of the search engine rankings, "Search engine optimization: an hour a day" is all you need.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Learning The Black Art of SEO September 18, 2011

By irishetcher

Format:Paperback

As said by other reviewers on this page, SEO: An Hour A Day is a must have.

I first heard about SEO last year. After having had my own site for my art, for many years, I was pressed into action to build a new site for a new family business. Thats when I started hearing about a lot of new jargon and things that made my poor little artist's head ache. I had all sorts of strange people emailing and phoning me offering to sell me services to improve my SEO? What's that? I though they meant that they could make me the CEO. It was then that I was then told that SEO is some kind of black art so I knew then that I had to find out more.

I agree that if your are completely new to web development and business some of the buzz words, marketing and technical speak can seem a bit foreign, but coming from a world where art speak prevails, I have managed to wade through these to get to the practical instructions. As an old colleague said to me years ago: "if fine art printmaking was easy everybody would be doing it". I would say that the same is true with a new subject such as SEO, making this book a great guide in deciphering the black art.

Not only does SEO: An Hour A Day explain how to use keywords and meta descriptions, it also encourages the use of better copy, therefore making your website (and the web in general) a more interesting and user friendly place to visit.

Stephen Vaughan

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Open, Grounded Explanation of SEO April 16, 2012

By VickiL

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Really liked this book. It was written so even a non-programming novice can grasp the concepts of SEO. I especially liked the approach: to keep quality content the number one focus, and not write specifically to SEO.. and the explanation on why that is a better approach. The search engines are a constantly changing dynamic, and this book does a great job explaining why, and what direction they are moving in, as well as tips, guides and tools on how to maximize search engines finding your own site.