was hoping for basic book to explain things to new employee. however it was typical SEO garbage.

I believe this is my first review on Amazon, but please dont discount me as a newbie. I've been a customer here for many years. I also own a web development studio & business consulting company - and I've been involved with ecommerce for about 12 years...including owning a well established & well performing ecom site for 12 years. I am also a voracious reader, and I appreciate the advanced as well as the basic stuff.

When I found this title on Amazon, I ordered it, and frankly expected a dissapointing pulp about Google basics. While I did get the basics, I was very pleased to find a clear, concise instructional manual of best practices - online resources included.

A few of the other reviews mention the authors continual prodding to visit his website (and consequent promotion of his site)...but after reading the book and visiting (and taking advantage of the resources), I am a believer. The book (after all) is about "promotion," and the author does it well.

While any experienced webmaster, designer, developer (et al) should not be shocked or surprised by any of the information provided in this book, it is a great, all in one resource of the basics - and some things that are easily missed.

I would love to see the author put out a version dedicated solely to the US audience with updated web resources geared specifically towareds us hosted sites.

David - thanks for a good book! I recommend this and will benefit from the information you've provided.

This is a seven step guide. Get to the top on Google will help you get your site to the top of the rankings - large or small, your business will show a greater increase in visibility, accessibilty and sales conversion. Although the book doesn't go into the deepest of details, it remains a pretty decent book.

If you truly are an expert in search engine optimization (SEO), this book may not be of much value to you. I don't understand why an "expert" would even purchase this book (or any other SEO guide). Personally given the frequent changes of search engine methods and criteria, I don't believe there are any true SEO experts out there. There is always something new to learn.

All authors face the challenge of keeping their content current as they're trying to finish writing their book. It takes a while to get a book from start to on-the-shelf. I think this author has done a great job in this respect.

If you are new to SEO or have not been successful in achieving high search engine rankings, I think you'll find this book extremely valuable. Although I am familiar with SEO strategies and techniques, I found this book to be very well written and contains useful information.

Use a lot of outside vendors on SEO and I got a better education about "the complete SEO world" from a weekend spent reading this book than from hours of powerpoints and conference calls.

This book is spectacular, clearly written, and you have confidence in the author from the beginning that he is an expert. The book clearly shows you the current "Best guesses" of what to do in order to get to the top of Google, or if not the top, appropriate places to maximize your ROI.

I give this book only 4 out of 5 stars as I felt the author could have done with a bit less self promotion of mentioning his website's entire URL several times per chapter. His website is a SUBSCRIPTION service making it feel a bit tacky. What he was saying essentially is that "This is the way things are now, but things could change any moment, and you can get the most updated list of X, Y, and/or Z at my site..." It's definitely very true what he was saying and if his website was free, (Even though a 6 month subscription is free with the purchase of the book), I don't think it would have appeared as shameless.

That really is just a small knock on an otherwise spectacular book that I feel could benefit most SEO specialists/entrepreneur's/or even just web site hobbyists. The book is cheap, and at 220 pages can be easily read by even the busiest people in under a week.

Also, the author is from the UK, and gives plenty of information on how to rank well in other countries, and really focus's on the globalization of your website (Well, as much as you can focus in a few dozen pages). For people who live outside the USA I would think this book would be ESPECIALLY helpful for them as this section is certainly something that is not found in most SEO books that I am aware of. Being from the USA as I am, I found the section interesting, but not necessarily useful for what I was looking for however.

I wanted to use the structured approach to SEO presented in this book but it was mainly a waste of my time. The system is based on the frequency of searchs for your keywords but can not be used since the suggested tools are no longer available and/or based on very old data. SEO changes rapidly and I was hoping this recently published book would be more topical. Frequent plugs for his website are a distraction and the book is unnecessarily jargon heavy. It did get me to follow through on some things so I'm giving it 2 stars.

The book repeats the most common SEO techniques and repeatedly promotes the author business and web-site.

May be I am already sufficient at SEO, but I could not find much new information that helped me improve my web sites. It also seems that this book is geared towards getting more customers for the author's web site (monthly subscription, readers of the book get the first 6 months for free). There are references to his web site all over the book, usually with a remark in the nature of: "I will not explain all details, but check out my web site".

This book is put together very well. it flows great and gives readers a very comprehensive examination and "game plan" for seo. As with anything in life, "easier said than done", meaning not everybody will roll up there sleeves and actually follow Simey's advice. be prepared to put alot of hard work and time into your seo campaign if you follow this book, but it will work.

David has done a great book - we have used his ideas with good results for 2 years. You need to get the "leg work" done and if you do his ideas work.

Easy to read for non tech people.

This is a great book enjoyed it thoroughly. He explains everything in a simple manner and all the online examples he gives work perfectly. I continue to reference the book now. He also has a great forum which i posted a question on and he replied within hours. Great buy worth every penny.

Luke

The information in this very specific book can help you increase the effectiveness of your Web efforts and gain better visibility among the Web search results on Google and other search engines. David Viney shares his expertise in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in helpful detail. Have you wondered if you need professional input in this area? Read here to find out how expert guidance, copywriting, site design and Web master services can supplement your efforts, and boost your visibility and sales. Viney explains how to assess your current results. He tells you how to make sure your Web page appears among search results in productive positions, but he doesn't overpromise about what you can accomplish. Much of his information is quite detailed and technical, but relatively accessible and applicable. However, it is somewhat vulnerable to becoming outdated, in places, if Google alters its current parameters. getAbstract expects future editions to handle that little problem quite nicely.

I love how new technologies also breed experts to help us understand and guide us through their complexities. David Viney calls himself "The SEO Expert". So, what is SEO? It is Search Engine Optimization. That is, how can your company make the best use of marketing to your customers using search engines, in this case Google. Since 84% of all people doing searches on the web never get past the second page of search results, it makes sense to do what you can to get your web pages as close to the top as possible.

Viney is very clear about the work involved and the kinds of businesses that do best in these efforts. He provides a seven step process to help you optimize the trade-offs you face in trying to get seen in the Google search results pages.

The first step is to get the right words and phrases. But for whom? You have to first decide what you can best sell and provide over the web and who those customers are. It isn't everything to everyone. He provides the D-A-D process where you make a list (a long list) of keywords and keyphrases. This is supposed to be a laundry list of as many possible keywords and phrases that you can think of. Then you winnow them down to the very best and most relevant items on that list, and put them in your pages in the right way.

The second step takes you through the process Google uses to discover and rank your pages (a very cursory explanation) and how you need to design and arrange your web pages to "court the crawl" of Googlebot. Step 3 is about priming your pages and discusses the difference between Google's main and supplemental indexes and how to tell which of your pages is in which index. Viney also warns you off certain popular practices that may well get you penalized by Google.

Step 4 is all about developing high quality links using content, relationships with web content providers, and avoiding penalties from developing too many cheap links too quickly. The fifth step examines the trade-offs of paid advertising on Google, its dangers, benefits, and when it is likely to be more effective for you. I like Viney's honesty about the need for experienced and high quality web copywriters. You can waste a lot of money with the wrong ads that attract lots of non-customers. You also need to have great web designs for the customers you attract to land on and will help convert them from someone browsing to the web into purchasing customers.

Step 6 talks about getting your site ready today for the mapping and geographic technologies that are rising and will likely be part of everyone's web experience soon. Step 7 talks about the tools Google and others provide to help you track and analyze your web traffic.

A useful book that doesn't require you to be very technical. However you must be able to be somewhat familiar with the argot and jargon of the web to get through this stuff.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

I have read numerous books on SEO over the last six months and always felt as though I had a slightly better understanding than when I started. No great leaps. I would be run through the regular tips and general concepts all these books cover. This book goes into great detail and handles the issues that have plagued me all along the path. It brings to rest the issues that have caused me to suffer in the SERPS due to a limited understanding of relevant SEO strategies. If I had this book many months ago, I would have clearly saved myself a lot of struggle, lost PageRank, Google penalties and other misunderstandings.

Thank You David! This is JUST what I have been searching for. I started to read an SEO bible just a few days ago and see no reason to even finish it. The great thing about this book vs. forums and SEO sites is its laid out in a logical order. One is able to make sense of things in chronological order rather than have to make rumors and random website readings into some kind of methodology.

I hope anyone looking for the missing pieces to the SEO puzzle comes across this book... just as long as they're not in my industry!

I hope to see this books fellow readers on the official forum site!!!