Apress business books provide essential information and practical advice, each written for practitioners by recognized experts. Busy managers and professionals in all areas of the business world—and at all levels of technical sophistication—look to our books for the actionable ideas and tools they need to solve problems, update and enhance their professional skills, make their work lives easier, and capitalize on opportunity.
Whatever the topic on the business spectrum—entrepreneurship, finance, sales, marketing, management, regulation, information technology, among others—Apress has been praised for providing the objective information and unbiased advice you need to excel in your daily work life. Our authors have no axes to grind; they understand they have one job only—to deliver up-to-date, accurate information simply, concisely, and with deep insight that addresses the real needs of our readers.
It is increasingly hard to find information—whether in the news media, on the Internet, and now all too often in books—that is even-handed and has your best interests at heart. We therefore hope that you enjoy this book, which has been carefully crafted to meet our standards of quality and unbiased coverage.
—The Apress Business Team
Welcome to search engine optimization!
The purpose of this book is to provide a simple, focused introduction to search engine optimization, for interns who may be working at a company or non-profit organization, for students at a university, or for self-paced learners. The approach is the same one taken in most of the books I’ve written, which is conversational, friendly, with an attempt at making things fun.
The experiment is to help you get started with search engine optimization in a way that is fun and helps strengthen your career at your employer, or help you find work through an internship, paid work, volunteer efforts, freelancing, or any other type of work. The focus is on skills and approaches that might be immediately useful to a business or non-profit organization. I’m not going to try to cover everything—just the things that I think are the most helpful.
The other goal is to help you leave intimidation in the dust. I used to be intimidated by marketing and now look at me, I’m a marketing strategist, and an assistant professor of marketing! But I remember the feeling of intimidation, so part of my approach is to encourage readers who may feel uncertain about the field.
The fact is, that search engine optimization has a lot of option—especially in the “tools” area—it has grown rapidly, and there is a lot of material out there. It can be overwhelming! But it can also be very doable, if you leave intimidation in the dust, by taking incremental steps, trying things out, and building confidence.
For example, I had a friend who used to be a journalist and was looking for career opportunities. I helped get him started in digital marketing, and one of the first things he ran into was feeling overwhelmed by all the options, including all the articles about all the options. “There are so many tools out there!” he used to say, “How am I ever going to learn all of them?!?”
The answer is that you don’t need to learn all of them. No one can.
The thing to do is focus on some of the tools and skills and build from there.
I encouraged my friend not to worry about trying to learn everything, but instead to just learn some basics.
The friend worked with Facebook advertising, learned a bit about Twitter, and was able to find a local agency that gave him a shot at doing some freelance digital marketing work. The career didn’t develop easily for him—he had to put effort into it. But a few years later, he’s doing full-time freelance work in digital marketing and is writing Google ads. He was able to leave his intimidation in the dust—and I believe he’s also had some fun with it too.
This book is not a collection of individual skills, such as “The Top 10 List of Most Effective SEO Techniques” or anything like that. It’s not comprehensive. A blog search will reveal that kind of material, which can have its uses.
What I try to do is start a conversation and show you some skills, concepts, and topics that have jumped out at me based on my experience. In other words, it’s fairly informal and is mainly intended for beginners, especially those who might be intimidated by technology. I think my perspective is valid, but I don’t claim to know everything, and I learn from third parties and students all the time. This especially applies to search engine optimization, which changes a lot.
One of the other points I’ve learned during my career, which I try to reinforce in these books and in my classes, is the way that the core areas of digital marketing are related. For example, I consider search engine marketing to be tightly connected to all other areas in digital marketing. The central goal of digital marketing is to develop content that flows through various channels, including search engines.
Just like each of the other areas, search engine marketing is crucial. If you do all the other steps, but you don’t advertise, you won’t get as much traffic, and it will be that much harder to succeed. On the other hand, as you’ll learn, search marketing allows you to track return on investment, unlike almost every other kind of traditional advertising (radio, TV, billboards, etc.), and that’s why it is so important. You can start out small, look at how much revenue resulted from the ads, and build with confidence. Search engine marketing has helped businesses around the world, both large and small, effectively sell on the Internet.
This book mentions what I call the core areas of digital marketing: Content, AdWords, Social, and Analytics (CASA). My goal is to reinforce how all the areas are connected. AdWords is Google’s tool for creating ads for search engine marketing. The inspiration came from my professional background, as well as looking at trends in the marketplace.
Best wishes in learning search engine optimization!
is an author and educator whose publishing credits include several books for helping people learn more about technology. He has appeared on television as a featured expert, and has worked with a wide variety of corporations and non-profit organizations. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Benedictine University in Lisle, IL ( www.ben.edu ).
I’ve worked professionally in digital marketing for some time now, and I’ve also authored books on related topics. You’re welcome to look me up on LinkedIn, and you’re also welcome to invite me to connect: http://linkedin.com/in/tekelsey .
is an expert in SEO, SEM, and Social Media and Web analytics, and President of Eagle Digital Marketing ( https://www.eagledigitalmarketing.com ), a full-service agency in the Chicago area. When he isn’t advising local business owners and CEOs of mid-sized companies, he enjoys hockey and doing his best to survive the occasional subzero temperatures. Brandon enjoys helping companies face the challenges of the future with optimism, including navigating the treacherous waters of the Amazon e-commerce river, and taking advantage of the goldmine in marketing automation.
3.142.135.249