#62/111: Search Engine Optimization Secrets

What is it about?

Do you want to know more about SEO than just the basics? Then Danny Dover, who worked for SEOmoz, provides the solution. He writes about his methods which he uses in consulting and shows you how to bring your site to the next level.

What can I learn?

Domain and Page Popularity: Why do Wikipedia nearly always rank first in Google? Because of its domain popularity, i.e. their domain is often linked. However, their page popularity is often low, i.e. how often each page is linked. It’s important to understand the concept. You probably won’t outplay Wikipedia’s domain popularity but this does not mean that you can’t rank first for the specific keywords if your page about the keyword gets enough site popularity.

Links still matter: They do. However not just inbound links also internal links and the whole information structure. Firstly, you should name your internal links carefully. No more click here (Hint: it’s a search for click here). Secondly, you should organize your structure in a meaningful way. For an online bike store, e.g. examplestore.com/mountainbikes/somebrand. Furthermore, your hierarchy should be flat and each page should be accessible within a few clicks.

Learn from your competition: Look on the competing sites. What do they do right? What do they do wrong? You can learn a lot from them. An other example is the search for backlinks. You can use Open Site Explorer to find out who links to a domain. Often the same sites could also link to your site. Great success!

Conclusion

Search Engine Optimization Secrets is an amazing book. Danny Dover gets into great detail and covers a lot of topics. He even wrote some chapters for people who want become a SEO consultant. For my knowledge level (advanced) this is a great book. If you are new to SEO, I recommend reading Search Engine Optimization: A hour a day. If you are more advanced, this is exactly the right book for you. Recommendation!