Search Engine Optimisation Resources
RSS Feeds, Blogs & Newsletters
I have a nasty habit of subscribing to more information than I often have time to read:
It is also important to note that in many of these SEO industry blogs the same news or bits of information are repeated time and again. Many posts are aggregated versions of what is going on over on other blogs.
But it is still worth at least skimming through what is going on - different bloggers have different takes on what is going on and it can give rise to new insights. Much of what I've learned has come from these feeds.
Also Useit.com's indispensible Alertbox
Twitter:
Increasingly important tool for networking and constant updates, Twitter is (as of March 09) all over the media at the moment, who seem to be treating it with a strong sense of "hey - this is new, all the kids are using it, but we don't really understand what it's for..."
User Groups:
Great source of help
Podcasts
SEO podcasts might be considered the Lazy Man's SEO news digest, but in my experience it is far from a pain free experience. Often the shows are riddled with annoyingly cheap-sounding and repetitive ads and have low production values which result in long awkward pauses, shaky skype connections to guests or contributors, unexpected mid-sentence show terminations and some embarrassing attempts at "personality".
If you are prepared to persist there are some gems to be found however, and with this in mind, this is what I tend to find myself listening to as I march to and from work:
-
Search Buzz Video Roundup with Barry Schwartz
-
The Daily SearchCast
-
The SEO Advisor
-
SEO 101: SEO for Beginners
-
Search Engine Optimisation: Mr SEO's Podcast
A couple of these haven't produced anything new in quite a while, but still contain some invaluable and timeless advice for setting up a usable and successful web site.
Great SEO Books
The most useful books I've encountered, the ones that I feel have helped shape my views on all matters web site. and optimisation include:
Prioritizing Web Usability
by Jakob Nielson & Hoa Loranger (pp406)
This is a great all-rounder by one of the grand old men of of good considered web design who seems to have been around for ages. This book focuses refreshingly on the user experience, keeping them always at the forefront of all considerations through the design, development maintenance and upgrade processes. The book covers areas like navigation & information architecture, legibility, presenting page elements and satisfying your users' expectations.
One of it's most confronting messages is "meet user expectations", which in so far as design and architecture is concerned, is marketing speak for 'limit your innovation" - don't be so different that your users will be confused and go elsewhere, basically.
Web Design For ROI
by Lance Loveday & Sandra Niehaus (pp196)
I was a little skeptical about this book before I read it, but having done so I am firmly of the opinion that anyone with a web site. that promotes or sells anything it is absolutely a must read. It has a heavy emphasis on Clear Call To Action, how to optimise your landing pages, directing visitor focus and the check-out process. It is clearly written and refreshingly to the point. There is very little waffle in this book - a great testament to its point sharp focus.
Letting Go of the Words
by Janice Redish (pp365)
This is widely regarded as the last word in copy writing for the web. It gives great advice on user-profiling, on the ways in which writing for the web is different to other forms of writing, keeping it simple, sentence structure and style guides.
It is feature rich, uses loads of illuminating examples and can even be a bit too busy sometimes, but it is designed to be as useful when dipped into as when read cover to cover.
Online SEO Resources
There are obviously an absolute stack of online SEO resources out there on the internets. And as is always the case, some are more useful than others.
I'll resist the urge to compete with simply shoving "SEO resources" into Google as I can't. But there are a few places that should not be ignored, and these are some of they:
Google Webmaster Central - the grand poobar all is also by some distance the most useful and user-friendly in its approach to helping folks promote themselves on the world's biggest search engine.
Pretty much all the tools at SEOmoz, especially the ProTools.
Microsoft's Keyword Forecast tool might at first appear to be a Google Insights clone, but further digging shows it to hold its own.
Vertical Leap SEO Tools
- Index Rank will show you the rate at which Google is indexing your site. Use it to find indexing patterns, like how many new pages were indexed in the last month, three months, six months, etc.
- SEO Browser will let you see your site the way a search engine spider sees it. Use it in conjunction with the site:domain.com idea above; if a site:domain.com search reveals that only 25% of your pages are in the index, SEO Browser might help identify crawling issues that spiders are having.
- SEO Digger will show you a list of terms for which your site ranks in Google's (or MSN's) Top 20. The list this tool provides isn't perfect, but it can be educational to see what terms you rank for, i.e. - what terms the search engine has decided to associate with your site.
