One of the biggest issues for the publishers in the SEO industry is the difficulty there is to capture a snapshot of the industry that can stand the test of time. The industry is very dynamic and is changing on a consistent basis. So books that are more than a few months old are often outdated and not worth your while, especially if you have some experience in SEO. But the past couple of months have been great for SEO students. There are plenty of new books that let you catch up with the latest developments, so you can implement the latest strategies before they become old. You still want to keep up with the blogs and forums, but these books should give you a head start:

The Art of SEO (Theory in Practice): any book that has Rand Fishkin as an author is worth reading. I have been a big fan of SEOmoz for quite a long time. This book is not something you can read over a few hours. It’s a lot of theory and material that can make anyone dangerous in this field.

Web Analytics 2.0: it’s really surprising how many SEO professionals don’t pay enough attention to traffic analysis. This book will open your eyes and show you what you have been missing all along by ignoring your analytics software.

Joomla! 1.5 SEO: Joomla! is one of the best content management systems around, especially if you are into developing portals. This book shows you how you can go about optimizing your Joomla portals to get more free traffic from search engines.

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A lot of people have asked me in the past to provide them with some foolproof methods to get ranked high on search engines such as Google. A lot of people tell you that all you have to do is have a great title tag, and you are all set. I don’t dispute the fact that your title tag is your best bet in getting ranked higher on Google. But in most competitive markets, you are going to have to work on your link building and social media campaigns to increase your incoming links and climb your way to the top of the search engines. But if you are in an emerging market, there are plenty of simple ways that you can get your pages to the top of the engines. And best of all, all you have to do is conduct proper keyword research to find keywords you can get ranked for. You won’t have to beg others to link to you, and you won’t even have to give something away out of your pocket. Now you may want to try other tactics to maximize your search engine traffic, but the below methods are the easiest ways to get started with the process:

• EzineArticles: everybody has heard of EzineArticles. It’s the best article directory out there, and you’d be surprised how easily you can get ranked for some highly competitive terms by writing a few articles for EzineArticles. Your title does matter a lot here, so don’t ignore it.
• Hubpages: hub pages are great to get ranked for those long-tail keywords. Your hub-page can show up in the first couple of pages of Google easily as long as you choose the right keywords.
• Clipmarks: a wonderful service that gets ranked high on the SERPs as well. Many have used Clipmarks to increase their presence on search engines, and you can too. Just have to be a bit creative.
• YouTube: having your own YouTube channel is the best way to dominate the SERPs. The videos are the future and many search engines are integrating videos into search results. The way to go is to optimize your video page for your top keyword terms. Don’t forget proper tagging and titles for each video.
• Twitter: having a Twitter username with your core keyword can pay big time on search engines. Unfortunately, there are a lot of spammers out there who use the same approach but don’t provide any value to the community. So please don’t use this approach to spam Twitter.
• Facebook Page: creating and optimizing your page for the search engines can pay big time in the long run. It’s much easier getting indexed and ranked with the help of Facebook than without it.

There you have it. 6 specific ways that you can enhance your presence on the SERPs. There are plenty of other tactics that one should use, but these are a good start, and you don’t have to be a SEO genius to get them done.

When it comes to search engine optimization, we have two kinds of books. One group of books are designed for people who have no idea what search engine optimization is and how search engines works. These books are great for those who want to know enough to be dangerous. The second group of books is written for more advanced search engine optimizers. They are designed to teach the pros how to optimize sites based on certain technologies for search engines. Technologies such as PHP and Flash are not that difficult to optimize for search engines, but things can get a bit technical. No wonder these topics are not covered in beginner books.

If you have gone over your beginner SEO book or just want to learn more technical SEO tricks, here are 4 killer advanced SEO books you should read:

Search Engine Optimization with PHP: a wonderful book that teaches you how to optimize your PHP side for search engines. In case you haven’t noticed, software packages such as Wordpress are based on PHP, so this book is a must read if you have a PHP site or a Wordpress blog.

Search Engine Optimization for Flash: a lot of SEOs tell you that you can’t optimize Flash for search engines. Things have changed in the recent years, and Adobe is working hard to make it possible for developers to optimize Flash for search engines. If you want to learn the latest wasys to optimize Flash for search engines, this is the book to read. (more…)

The field of search engine optimization is one of the hottest fields in the search engine industry. Whether you are looking to get more traffic for your blog or drive free leads to your business, search engine optimization is one of the best way to go. But learning the art of SEO and keeping up with the latest developments can be sometimes a hassle. It’s not that easy to keep up with such a dynamic field. Google changes its algorithm on a consistent basis which means you’ll have to read on to keep up. And I am not talking about reading classic books. Reading the most recent SEO books and supplementing it with what you learn from blog and forums can help you stay up to date in the field of SEO.

If you have fallen a bit behind as far as SEO is concerned, you should read these fairly recent books to get back on the right track:

Search Engine Marketing, Inc: a great book that helps you find out about the latest developments in the search engine industry. Great for SEO directors and the higher ups.

Search Engine Optimization for Dummies: you can’t really argue with the quality of this book. Bruce Clay has written one of the most comprehensive books ever written on search engine optimization.

Search Engine Optimization Bible: another great book that gets you familiar not only with the latest developments in the field of SEO, but it also shows you how to get the best out of the social media.

The Findability Formula: a high level book that is written for those who don’t have the proper technical knowledge when it comes to search engine marketing. This book shows you how to use search engines to drive lead to your business and take your brand to the next level.

There you have it. I am sure these books will be outdated in their due time, but right now they provide you with the most up to date information to enable to keep up with the latest in the field of SEO.

Bill Hunt’s second edition of his popular book, Search Engine Marketing Inc., is out. I remember reading the first book like it was yesterday. Search Engine Marketing Inc. does not claim to be an advanced search engine optimization book, but it is not a crash course to SEO either. You are going to learn techniques and concepts that you can apply every day to drive more traffic to your small business site. Whether it’s social media optimization that you are after or you want to figure out what works the best these days, you can get it all in Search Engine Marketing, Inc.

I like Bill’s book as it’s less about “cute” subjects and more about the underlying concepts behind everything we do in the SEO world. It’s surprising when search engine optimization professionals can’t tell you why they are suggesting what they are suggesting. They would tell you that Google “likes” those techniques. But there is a logic behind most things Google does when it comes to organic search. Knowing the logic can help you formulate sophisticated action plans for your clients (if you a pro) or your own small business. I highly recommend Search Engine Marketing Inc. for folks who want to know enough about SEO to be dangerous.

I have seen and read many SEO books in my short SEO career. The books by Peter Kent, Aaron Wall, and Bill Hunt. But until now, I had never read a book that was so focused on the practical side of things rather the theory side. There is no question in my mind that Aaron Wall’s SEObook is the most comprehensive SEO resource in the market. But Building Findable Web Sites is a unique SEObook that could be a perfect companion to SEObook. Building Findable Web Sites is not about teaching you how important web directories are or how you should distribute press releases to gain links back to your domain. It is more way more practical than that. This books comes with code inside that shows you how to optimize your htacess file or how to make your Wordpress blog more SEO friendly. Rather than focusing just on theory, Aarron Walter decides to share how things get done in this business.

Overall, I was very impressed with Building Findable Websites. It was one of only books that gave me goosebumps as I had a few chapters of material to learn. I don’t know about you but I am not impressived with all the repititve content that is available on some of these “great” search engine optimization books. But Building Findable Websites’ practical approach to SEO simply impressed me. But don’t take my word for it. Take a peek here.

The book that I had been waiting for a quite a while has finally been released. I was afraid that the book would be delayed yet again but Amazon now has this book in stock and ready to go. Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day is the newest social media optimization book that show you how to take advantage of social media in conjunction with SEO to drive traffic to your website.

The author talks about the early days of social media and the challenges that the marketers faced then and now when it comes to promoting products and services on social media sites. What I like about this book is not how it goes about defining what a social media is and delving deep into theory, but rather the effort that has been made to provide readers with means to create business case for using the social media to drive traffic. At the end of the day if you are working for a company that is not using social media to its advantage, you need to be able to make a case for using sites such as FaceBook, and … You can’t just say it’s “cool” or “everybody’s doing it.” Social Media Marketing An Hour a Day provides you with a template that you can use to build your own business case.

The book has just been released to Amazon and is a good complementary source to all traditional SEO Books on the market.

I posted a link on ABCSEM on the deal that Joel Comm offer on his best selling book “Adsense Secrets.” He is pretty much offering it for free hoping that you wouldn’t cancel your subscription after the first month. But even if you plan to cancel it after the first month, you should try this book. It’s good for Adsense and tying everything with SEO tactics too.

Search Engine Marketing, Inc. – Driving Search Traffic to Your Company’s Web Site, 2nd edition will finally be released in less than a week. Bill Hunt’s first book was a huge success and needless to say, it was one of the best search engine marketing books in the world. Now the new book will have content on Social media, widgets, and other new media channels. The table of content for the new book is finally available on Amazon, and the book does look promising. But I guess we will find out in a week how valuable these 672 pages are.

Finally, after two years of waiting, Search Engine Optimization For Dummies (third edition) is out! Believe it or not I ordered this book a year ago and received an email today that the book has finally shipped. When it comes to SEO, there are only two real books that you need to read to get started. Forget about all the hype and other fancy books with fancy titles and even fancier authors. Peter Kent and Aaron Wall are the best teachers when it comes to SEO.

Aaron’s SEOBook is still the top everyday resource for all your SEO needs. He is truly one of the few guys who provides you with information that you can use on an everyday basis to optimize your site and improve your rankings (check out his videos for a taste of his training material).

But Peter Kent’s book is the best book out there for the starters and for those who have some experience with SEO but want to be in a position to become an advanced level SEO professional. Keep that in mind that you don’t become an Aaron Wall by reading this book. When it comes to SEO, you should also check out the blogs and forums on an everyday basis and never stop learning. Having said that, if you don’t know the basic and intermediate concepts, you can’t build a solid SEO foundation and that could be problematic for your SEO efforts.

I personally can’t say good enough things about search engine optimization for dummies. The latest and best book on SEO is finally out. Now here is the challenge… Can you finish up reading it by the end of this week!?