Since early in my humble blogging career I have been down on three things; SEO, Google and hyped but useless web services. Down on SEO because it was and sometimes is about “gaming” the system, Google because it could be great but is resigned to being good enough and worthless sites for obvious reasons.
SEO done as it should be is a very helpful tool for developers. I recently reviewed an SEO primer in the form of an eBook that is superlatively helpful and most of all honest. Search engine optimization, at least the honest and professional version, helps not only site developers and users but the search engines themselves obviously. Though content is still king, if no one sees it, it is nothing.
- SEO Book for WordPress 2.5 Blogs
This latest free eBook (in PDF) by Mihaela Lica – online PR and SEO – is particularly helpful to people just getting into the game. Bloggers in particular will benefit from this iteration as it is iterated around the popular WordPress V 2.5 platform. Everyone, even old hands like me, can benefit from a few honest tips from top professionals, and this primer is a must for new bloggers.
SEOs Are Editors
In Mihaela’s opinion professional SEO is not about gaming the system, but about editing a site to prepare it for the public. She compares the work of an SEO with that of a book editor. SEO is about structure, navigability but most importantly it is about quality. An SEO’s moral obligation is to ensure that the site adheres to these principles. Although most of the tips in this book are technical; like installing SEO plugins, optimizing permalinks, pinging and etc., many basic SEO techniques are made drop-dead-simple (they had to be or I would never figure them out).
Beyond SEO
Lastly, the book is replete with illustration to guide the “would be” Blogger/SEO through the steps described. It is also a rather extraordinary –yet simple – guide for other helpful conjunctive information like: journalistic techniques, keyword integration, and an effective blogging primer as well. Not sounding my own horn, but my site’s page rank reached level 4 in 5 months, and it wasn’t because of my “Hemmingway” writing skills or a zillion links. Put bluntly, it is there because Mihaela Lica made the site and taught me the SEO techniques in this book. Check it out, it is free and it will help.
Note : Don’t confuse this eBook with Aaron Wall’s SEObook or the Blogger’s Guide to SEO, but it makes a great compliment to the mix 🙂
