For some reason Search Engine Optimization has developed the reputation of a bad scary boogeyman among non-technical folks. I can’t tell you how many talks folks come up to me and talk as if I am a rocket scientist (don’t get me wrong, I am not going to pretend I am not). Whether you are absolutely new to SEO or know just a bit about it, you should first try to put your fear aside. Search engine optimization is not rocket science, and it’s definitely not the exclusive knowledge of super geeks. Search engine optimization is a set of practices that you can use to put yourself in a better position to get ranked high on the search engine results pages. No black magic involved.

Google, as always, is your friend if you are just starting with SEO. You should definitely read the Google Webmaster Guidelines (or what I call SEO bible). Google pretty much tells you what it expects you to do. Now, advanced SEOs disagree on a few things, but that just comes down do different interpretations for the rules set by Google. You should also try to learn the basics of HTML. You don’t have to become a programmer, but it does always help when you know what a title tag is (I do recommend studying W3C’s HTML tutorial).

Perhaps the toughest part of getting started with SEO is putting things into practice. A lot of us keep reading and reading and reading, but when it comes to actually putting things into action we either procrastinate or just talk ourselves out of it. Of course, if you own a small business, you are going to have to do what it takes to succeed, and SEO is a must do. SEO Book by Aaron Wall is one of the most practical courses on SEO that teaches you exactly what you need to do to get yourself ranked high on search engines. If after watching Aaron’s videos, you still feel overwhelmed, then I do recommend you logging on to rentacoder.com and hiring a SEO expert to do the job for you.

I am not going to pretend that everyone is going to do SEO by themselves. Some folks just won’t feel comfortable tackling SEO challenges, and that is just a fact. You can still use services such as rentacoder to outsource your SEO for cheap. Either way, search engine optimization is one business process that you can’t ignore.

Just had a chance to browse Amazon for the latest SEO books, and SEO Bible seems to be the latest SEO book available on Amazon.

The funny thing about this book is that it was supposed to be released on December 13th, but Amazon claims that there is one more left in stock! I am not going to get into the conspiracy theory that is behind Amazon’s timely stock related alerts. But this book seems to be a decent search engine optimization book. I haven’t read the book yet (which is why I don’t post a full review of it today), but here are the topics that search engine optimization bible promises to readers:

• How Design and SEO go hand in hand.
• How Behavioral targeting can help your SEO efforts to drive more acquisitions.
• How Web 2.0 and Social Media could help your search engine optimization efforts.
• Yahoo, Google, and MSN search engine specialization tactics

There are also some interviews with industry experts that I find extremely helpful, but overall this book seems to have the right topics. I have not read this book and until I read it (wish the author was kind enough to send me an evaluation copy), I can’t judge how well the book is written. A full review will be on the way in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned!