#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!

#43/111: Micro ISV

What is it about?

Just for the clarity, a Micro ISV is a small software vendor. Bob Walsh writes about the complete process from finding the idea, to founding a company, to actually selling the software.

Key points?

Search for pain points: Ask people in a industry that interested you, how you can help them. In general, you will find a lot of problems that arise but haven’t be solved yet.

Building your product is easier than selling it: Bob Walsh interviewed a lot of people in this book and most people agreed with this statement. If you are a professional, you know how to solve problems in your area but often founders underestimate the part of marketing and sales.

Niche, Niche, Niche: One interesting observation was that most people built products for the mass market. Today, nearly none of them still exists. The others chose a niche and are still running. Why? If your market is too big, big players becoming your competitors. If you market is small, all your competition is small.

Conclusion

This book was written in 2005 and is a bit outdated. It doesn’t really cover internet marketing besides writing a blog and Google Ads and it’s heavily focused on Windows development. However, the interviews were interesting and stimulating.

#23/111: Grinding It Out

What is it about?

I have always believed that each man makes his own happiness and is responsible for his own problems. That’s the first sentence in this book and Ray Kroc meant it. He describes his pursuit of happiness from a piano player to the chairman of McDonald’s.

Key points?

You are responsible for your own life: In the early years a franchisee opened a McDonald’s restaurant nearly to some other burger restaurant. The other restaurant offered burgers for 10 cents each (15 cents at McDonald’s) but people got their fries and milk shakes at McDonald’s. After a while the other restaurant lowered all prices to 10 cents. The manager of McDonald’s called Ray Kroc and asked if he should inform the Center for Combating Unfair Competition. Ray Kroc said: “No, make burger which are worth 15 cents.”

Stay Green: Basically you should try to get not too conservative or too comfortable. “When you’re green, you’re growing. When you’re ripe, you rot.” Try new things, be open and don’t afraid of failure. At McDonald’s they introduce a lot of new meals, some fail, some prosper (e.g. the BigMac).

QSC and V: Quality, Service, Cleanness and Value these are the main values of McDonald’s. They are easily portable to other businesses.

Conclusion

What a great book! I love how Ray Kroc impersonates the American Dream. He worked hard, he took responsibility for himself and he helped other people to reach their dreams. Definitely a recommendation!

#5/111: Blue Ocean Strategy

What is it about?

There are red and blue oceans. Red oceans are highly competitive markets (e.g. commodities). In contrast blue oceans are markets with a low rate or non competition. The authors explain how to construct & execute a blue ocean strategy.

Key points?

There are several tools to construct and execute a blue ocean strategy. Some new ideas are targeting non-customers and tipping point leadership. The idea of targeting non-customers is easy. Before the Ford T-Model cars were expensive, so many people don’t bought them. Ford invented the T-Model which was really cheap, therefore non-customers converted to customers for this business.

The tipping point leadership is based on the popular tipping point phenomena. To change a company fast try to influence the key players (important and well respected people). These key players will allow you to influence a lot of people with a small effort.

Conclusion

You will notice that this book is written by academics. You can’t read it so fluently because there is some unnecessary complexity. However it got some nice examples of companies building blue oceans and shows how you can construct your own blue ocean strategy.