Oh, another SEO book?! What are you on Tereza, not everyone is obsessed with SEO like you! Well hear me out. Last post in this series was all about the printed copy of SEO 2017 & Beyond by Dr Andy Williams which as you know by now is one of my favourite search engine optimisation publications to date. Today’s eBook is just as topical (purely on SEO) however it is priced at the very opposite end of online resource spectrum (an eye-watering £100!). FindMe – An SEO Cookbook For Busy Entrepreneurs by Rachel Brenke from Blog Legally is said to be the ultimate SEO manual for small businesses and bloggers alike – well, is it?
FINDME – AN SEO COOKBOOK FOR BUSY ENTREPRENEURS
? What’s this eBook about?
This eBook is written by Rachel Brenke – a licensed attorney in Virginia, Texas and the Supreme Court of the United States focusing on small business law. She’s also a business consultant, mother of five and the executive brain behind multiple businesses (one of them being the Female Bloggers Association). This eBook has been designed as a no-nonsense search engine optimisation manual for small entrepreneurs and bloggers alike. For ease of understanding it is built like a cookbook and touches on all points from how to set the table to individual recipes.
This cookbook has 60 pages covering the following (and more!):
? Backlinks (and how to acquire them)
? Google ranking
? Keyword searches
? WordPress plugins
? URL structures
? Image optimisation
? Post optimisation
? Guest posting
? YouTube optimisation
? AdWords
? & much more
This book is a comprehensive overview of all things SEO – it’s definitely not exhaustive but it’s a good starting point. The information provided within this eBook is aimed at both business owners running regular websites and bloggers – and as you know the structure of a blog is very different to an online shop per say so it does get slightly confusing in places. There’s a big focus on WordPress so if you’re on any other host I wouldn’t necessarily recommend investing in this book as you’d be skipping a good 1/4 of the book. Overall this book gives me a feeling that it’s written by someone who knows SO MUCH that they find it hard to put it in concise words (yet they try anyways) – it’s definitely not for beginners (you need to be familiar with a fair share of SEO terminology to understand it) but the form it’s written in suggests it is. It’s not for advanced SEO experts neither because it contains a lot of basics.
It’s definitely picture heavy (I’m pretty sure you’d be able to cut it down to 20 pages if you tried – it took me less than an hour to finish the whole book), there are typos (on many, many pages) and some misleading passages too – for example Rachel mentions that updating old blog post is not worth your time as it won’t improve your SEO. I would disagree with this based plainly on my own experience – after updating my old posts, repairing broken links and redirecting invalid URLs I have jumped up 2 points in my DA.
? Who is it for?
I would say that this book doesn’t have a very clear target readership – it’s for both small businesses (an example mentioned in this eBook is a sink repairs business) as well as bloggers (as it tackles a lot of blog post issues). It’s not for beginners, neither it is written for those advanced in SEO. If you’re looking for a well structured SEO syllabus but have a lot of time to research each topic on top of what you read then this might be for you.
? Value vs Cost
This eBook retails for a steep $129 (£100) however you can also find a version for Busy Bloggers which retails for $109 (£85) yet it seems to have exactly the same syllabus. I would most definitely not recommend spending money on this eBook – there are many other resources that are more affordable (or even free) that cover SEO more effectively – if you’re looking to improve your SEO then you can start right here for free. Alternatively I can happily recommend my favourite printed book on SEO called SEO 2017 & Beyond by Dr Andy Williams – click here to get your copy for just £10.Despite this eBook not living up to my expectations (and I’m not afraid to admit they were pretty damn high looking at the cost & subject) I would still recommend you checking out Rachel’s blog called Blog Legally where she writes about all things laws & regulations when it comes to blogging. From the importance of contracts to legislation around running an affiliate programme and protecting your online intellectual property. Her blog posts are full of useful information with hard facts that are often very hard to find anywhere else. Check her blog out here.
(or maybe don’t)