In July, I was approached by Andy King to see if I’d be interested in reviewing his new book from O’Reilly titled “Website Optimization: Speed, Search Engine & Conversion Rate Secrets“.
If you don’t know who Andy is, go read his resume….I’ll wait….OK…you back?   Great pedigree right? Been involved in the web since 1993. Founded WebReference.com and Javascript.com in 1997. It’s safe to say he knows his stuff.
When Andy approached me, I was skeptical initially….could I do this book justice? I’ve got a technical background and have been around the web since 1995 but I know very little about Search Engine Optimization…then I look at the synopsis of the book and realized that this is about much more than SEO.
This book does more than talk about the basics of SEO. It dives into topics that go well beyond the ‘technical’ aspects (e.g., keywords, titles, etc) and talks about persuasive language, fast load times and engaging websites. Once I saw this, I was very intrigued and told Andy that I’d be happy to review the book.
I’m glad I said yes. The book is excellent…and from what I’ve seen, it is THE book on Website Optimization. Gone are the days of scouring the web for bits and pieces of info on how to optimize….this book contains it all.
Unlike most other books in this genre, this book is much more than just an overview of the concepts of website optimization. Detailed descriptions, case studies and in-depth discussions of the ‘why, what and how’ of optimization are provided to allow the reader to immediately take action with their own websites.
For those of you interested in the entire spectrum of website optimization (i.e., page load times, search engine friendliness, optimization techniques etc), this is the book for you. I expect that this book will be THE website optimization book for years to come.
Now….I need to start using the recommendations from the book on my blog! 🙂
NOTE: This book was provided by the author for review.
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32 responses to “Website Optimization”
[…] Original post by Eric D. Brown […]
[…] Original post by Eric D. Brown […]
[…] scouring the web for bits and pieces of info on how to optimize….this book contains it all. from Eric Brown Website Optimization is a book that makes a business case for a company’s web presence and […]
project management resume…
I found your post interesting and share most of your views, but just dont get your second point….
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That's a really awesome book. I recently moved to WordPress from blogger and really am amazed with it. Regretting the late move. article like this showing resources are really helpful for me. Thank you. Cheers
Hi Eric, have just ordered the book today. I must say initially I am sceptical. Have read so many crap books on SEO and they either reiterate what we all know, or tell you what the outcome should be without any real info on techniques to use to achieve these outcomes. It appears however that it devles more into using SEO in a holistic way, ie seo, coding, sales and leads, which obviously interests me so I have just ordered a book from amazon and will go through it and tell you my thoughts.
Kindest Regards
Chris
Hi Eric, received the book today and it's OK. Have only scanned though it briefly but again like other books on the market, they skim and try to cover far too much without really going into detail. I was hoping to find some new and enlightening stufff. As I was skimming through it I also felt like I had read some of this stuff before. Such as the keywords in reference to dogs etc and blue widgets which made me grin.
I thinks it's probably a good enough book for people who want to understand what their SEO team is upto and can help improve communication levels with them. Even possibly for small site owners in niche areas. Anything more competitive than that, I would have my reservations.
As I say only skimmed but will keep you informed as I progress through it in detail.
Chris
Thanks for the review – will definitely take a look at this book in the library and might buy it if it's as handy as you say! Could be useful to give to clients, too, because sometimes it's very hard to explain SEO.
This book is great for people who want understand how to improve SEO techniques, we found it useful anyway.
It is a great book….glad you like it. Thanks for stopping by.
Hi,
I asked this before already, but I don't seem to get any answer; is the book being updated? what is the publish dat?
Hi Michiel – the publish date of the book is July 15, 2008. You can find it on amazon.
Hi Eric…nice to run into you. Thanks so much for the book review, I am definitely going to have to take a long lunch at Barnes and Noble!! As difficult as it is to explain SEO to clients, it is more difficult to explain to people I randomly run into, friends, family. I think I just assume that everyone knows what Google Ranking is and how important it is to increase this!!! It would be great to have a book on "how to explain SEO to non-internet users"!! LOL
No matter what your Internet level is, education is so important even if its redundant. All of the SEO leaders have a different spin on optimization and marketing, that its fun just to read and learn with variety!!
Thanks again Eric…looking forward to learning more!
Extremely important book for your internet sucess, a "must" for all seo
Thanks for the info on this book. It sounds pretty good in the sense that it tied everything together regarding optimizing websites…not just SEO. Very important! I'll be sure to check it out on Amazon…cheers!
Thanks for the information covering this book. I have recently read the book and thought it was a really good book if you are a beginner to SEO, but if you have done a lot of research on SEO, you might already know most of the information presented in the book. I will admit that SEO is very tough to explain and to learn, so overall I think the book does a good job on the general topics of SEO. thanks.
Hi Eric,
I've heard about Andy king as I use http://www.websiteoptimization.com for speed optimization currently. Thanks for reviewing his book, I guess it's worth buying a copy if only for his an insight into his experience.
Just for interest sake, how does this book compare to other recent SEO books that you've read?
I am a firm beliver in organic seo, put in the leg work…nice article…I will link out to this.
Thanks, Eric! I would probably get this book at the nearest bookstore. How much does it cost?
Hey Eric,
Interesting book, I'm going to give it a read and see if there is anything i haven't picked up on before. I will give you my feedback when i finish 🙂
Jenny x
What template are you running on this site ? I really like it. Could you post where you got it from ?
Thank you for your review. I think I'll get one from Amazon.
Thanks for stopping in. This is a great book and is highly recommended.
[…] A Book Review of “Website Optimization” […]
I have been a web designer for many years now and have only just started to look at the minefield that is off page seo. I am really confident with on page factors but have been looking at a book for the whole spectrum of SEO, I will certainly look this one up and have a read. I like that this book has specific case studies to explain the process of these techniques too.
Thanks for stopping by. As you said, it is a great book for looking at all areas of website optimization.
This is a really good book. I have recently considered is to use WP or ZBLOG to build my blog, like this article shows that resources are indeed helpful to me, I think I should do a good job site before take a look at this book.
I got a hold of a copy of this book some time ago and I loved it. Although I'm a professional SEO, I did find some useful nuggets in this book. That's more than what I can say for a lot of other SEO books I've read. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to know a more about SEO. Thanks for the review.
[…] The book is excellent…and from what I’ve seen, it is THE book on Website Optimization. Gone are the days of scouring the web for bits and pieces of info on how to optimize….this book contains it all. from Eric Brown […]
Great read, I am going to take the knowledge I have found and put it to practice.