If you are looking to develop advanced knowledge in the area of search engine optimization, Search Engine Optimization Secrets is one of the best books you can read. It is written by Danny Dover who has helped companies like SEOMoz and Yelp achieve great results in search engine rankings and this book explains the important things he learned working on SEO for large companies. Danny is extremely transparent and open in sharing what has been effective for the clients that he has helped and provides a lot of practical tips and insights.
The book is intended for an intermediate or advanced audience, so if you are new to SEO, you might want to read The Art of SEO or Marketing in the Age of Google first. If you are in the SEO field, there are a lot of great ideas that you can learn from this book to help your clients or your employer. Here are some of the main takeaways that I found really helpful.
Links Can Solve Most SEO Problems
Dover emphasizes the importance of links in SEO and points out that many SEO issues can be overcome by gaining more links. The SEO experts at SEOMoz estimated that about 70% of Google’s ranking algorithm has to do with links, so it is a good idea to focus a significant amount of effort on this part of SEO.
Every Page Should Be Linkworthy
Dover argues that each page on your site should be able to earn links. Adding content should add to the site’s linkjuice rather than dilute it. “Content for content’s sake is a waste of resources and a distraction for users.”
Realize that Category Pages Have A High Chance of Ranking
Category pages can provide your best shot of ranking well for a competitive phrase because linkjuice is flowing from the homepage and usually from a lot of children pages.
Disable Your Browser’s JavaScript When Reviewing A Site
Since search engines are not as effective at crawling JavaScript, disabling it on your browser can help you determine if there may be accessibility issues on a given site. Setting your user-agent to Googlebot can help detect any possible cloaking issues on a site.
Consider Buying Your Competing Websites
Roughly 90% of clicks go to the first three results, so if you are #3 for a keyword phrase and buy the sites that own the first two spots, you can get about 90% of the traffic for that keyword phrase.
Use Meta Robots to Block Pages From Engines
Meta Robots (noindex,follow) is a better option than robots.txt files because it ensures that pages are not included in the index and still pass linkjuice to other pages.
Pick up a copy of Search Engine Optimization Secrets by Danny Dover to learn more great tips. You can also check out our previous interview with Danny Dover.