WordPress 3 Search Engine Optimization

WordPress 3 SEO consists of several aspects and this book of Micheal David covers all of those aspects in his book WordPress 3 Search Engine Optimization

Here is a short breakdown of each chapter:

1. Getting Started: SEO Basics. Good introduction into the On-Page ranking factors that you need to be aware of, good in detail information that you can use on your website before you get into link building. User good keyword-rich navigation is covered and in chapter 3 keywords are getting more attention, but I would have liked to have more information on the right structure for your websites topics. As said, Chapter 3 covers keywords, but a good website structure example would have been great, either here or in the keyword chapter. Definitely a great start of this book to get into the topic of SEO

2. Customizing WordPress Settings for SEO. This chapter starts by taking a step back and lets you look at the goal of your website, which is not always clear unless you write it down on paper and stick to it! If you look at the first few posts on this site you will see that I was guilty of that sin myself… The rest is about the strengths and weaknesses of WordPress as a platform.

3. Research and Working with Keywords. Keywords, keywords, keywords… for some this chapter will be an eyeopener, for others it will be tough to read, but Keywords are the cornerstones of your website and Michael David teaches you how to lay the best possible foundation for your site. If you don't want to read the whole book, don't skip this chapter.

4. Understanding Technical Optimization. Don't be scared for the term Technical is is not about the in-depth technical mambo-jumbo that you think. This chapter will tell you how to use the basics of WordPress Title, Meta descriptions, Permalinks structures, and Images to get the most of your website. I do suggest you try the alternative WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin instead of All-In-One-SEO and Google XML Sitemaps.

5. Creating Optimized and Engaging Content. Together with the keyword chapter, you will learn a lot about what will attract visitors to your website and keep them coming, together with the search engines. Here you get some good information about writing content and how to structure your categories for optimal results. It has a nice collection of plugins listed that can help you with your categories.

6. Link Building. A short chapter on Link Building which is good for me (I don't do much link building).It is good to see how you can get inbound links, but I feel that Google's PageRank is not a thing that you should focus on. If you want to start with basic link building this will give you some good hints.

7. Using Social Media. Social media is hot now, LinkedIn, Twitter, Social Bookmarking, Facebook and YouTube are all covered in this chapter. I love the Facebook section and how to set up a fan page!

8. Avoiding Black Hat Techniques. Hopefully, you will never have to use the advice given to undo Google penalties, but it is good to know which things you need to avoid on your website. Here a just a few of them that are covered: Link Exchange, Website Submission Services, Offshore link building (I don't like those emails) Autoblogging.

9. Avoiding SEO Mistakes. There are some things that you have to avoid if you want good rankings in the search engines, read through this chapter and start your cleanup session, you probably will have some mistakes in place…

10. Testing Your Site and Monitoring Your Progress. Use the tools the search engines offer you, Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Central, Yahoo! Site Explorer and more. Learn how to use a theme, but don't go checking everything every hour. Use your time to write good content and build your site. Set aside a moment per day and an hour per week for analysis.

Appendix A: WordPress SEO Plugins. A WordPress book is not complete if it doesn't have Plugin recommendations. There a definitely a few ones that I will be testing but I do think All-In-One-SEO is no longer the best choice, now WordPress SEO by Yoast is better.

Appendix B: Other SEO Resources. Very helpfull list of websites and forums to get more information and to keep up-to-date with SEO in general.

Conclusion: If you want your WordPress website to get better ranking in the search results, this book covers all the basics and has good advice about content and technical improvements. And you did build your website to get visitors, right? Follow the advice in this book and it will help you to get those visitors.

For me, this book will stay on my desk a lot longer than I thought it would.