Customer Reviews
Worth a Read - By: vikingraider, 20 Sep 2008 
This book contains much good advice & tips on how to improve & optimise your website. I like the fact he recommends you steer clear of unethical approaches such as hidden text, & that you should stick to simple html with a lot of text-based content that can be easily read. The other big factorin this book is it's compact size & straightforward short chapters, meaning you can concentrate on implementing one recommendation at a time.
On the downside, some of the information is very outdated, considering the recent publication of the book itself. For starters, the Overture keyword search helper is overused & therefore very hard to even access nowadays, if at all, & is being phased out. Secondly, some of the items recommended such as Wordtracker are far from free & therefore only relevant for large businesses rather than the one-man band web developers likely to be attracted to a book like this.
Allin all, 4 out of 5. Good & worth a read, you will most probably get your money back & more through increased exposure of your website using the suggestions within.
Clear, simple, and very quick to read - By: Chris J, 19 Sep 2008 I've been building websites since 1994 & things have changed hugely since then - especially with the arrival of Googlein the late '90s. This book presents 52 short & sweet tips for improving your ranking on search engines (not just on Google, though that's where the book places most of its emphasis).
It's a small book (about 6 inches by 4.5 inches) & a short one (just 174 pages of main content), but that's definitely a positivein my view. The advice is very distilled & easily readable. We cut straight to the chase. Each of the 52 general pointers concludes with "Here's an idea for you": a simple practical tip you can immediately try.
I knew almost all the tips already but hadn't bothered to do anything about them. The virtue of this book is that it served as a wake-up call to action. Reading through itin a couple of days, I finally felt motivated to optimize my site. I have no idea whether I'll see much benefit, but if you make a significant proportion of your income from the Web, it certainly can't hurt. Even a small improvement would pay for the cost of the book, & the time invested, many times over.
One thing worth pointing out: I felt the book was geared mainly towards websites selling products or promoting small businesses. Though much of the advice is general, the book doesn't really tell you how to optimize a content-rich, newspaper- or magazine-like site (or blog) that makes its money from advertising. That's probably a whole separate 52-idea book! If your site falls into that category (information-based rather than product-based), with dozens or hundreds of separate pages, you'll find the ideas here helpful but less relevant. If your site has just a few pages & it's promoting, say, a local florist or building business, I think you'll find it very helpful.
Simple and effective - By: David L, 15 Sep 2008 
This is a really easy book to use.
Yes, there are more complex books that go into SEOin greater depth than this but the fact is that if you have a small or medium size business employing less than 10 people, then the really advanced techniques aren't really for you anyway & are really not worth worrying about because you wont have time to implement them, even if you knwo about them.
For people like you, this book is probably all you will need -and it is all very clearly explainedin non tecnhical jargon.
I even managed to read it on hols - yes, that's sad I know! But it lends itself to that kind of easy reading because it is explained so clearlyin short bite size chunks that take all of about 10 minutes to read & digest.
OK, I found the odd thing listed as free (which now isnt) - & I see another reviewer noticed that too, but given the fast pace of chnagein this area, that cannot really be a serious criticism
Great little book that is not a drag to wade through - By: D. Edwards, 10 Sep 2008 At last! A book that's good for me, but is easy to read & concise & gives me loads of tips every few pages that I immediately bookmark & want to implement. I'm getting teally tired of 'How-to' books that make you wade through several hundred pages of padding: this book is the antidote.
Great book - all the basics of good web optimisation are in here - By: Ms. Clare Patterson, 24 Jul 2008 I was coming at search engine optimisation from an entirely new perspective. I found this book incredibly easy to read with highlighted areas which helps you find the most important things to remember. This gave me a brilliant grounding on where to start with search engine optimisation. It gives a clear step by step guide as to how to improve your rankings. Also I had one question that I needed an answer to & I emailed Jon thinking that it would probably take ages for someone to come back - he emailed me backin 2 mins with really good advice - superb!!
