Business Book Review: “Outsmarting Google” by Even Bailyn

• By jloren
• Books Business Uncategorized
• 777 days ago
• 0

Title: Outsmarting Google: SEO Secrets to Winning New Business

Author: Evan Bailyn with Bradley Bailyn

Jacket Blurb: "Breakthrough Google site optimization techniques from one of the world's leading authorities on SEO!"

Plot: I have never read an SEO focused book before so this was a first for me, and it was a good first. This book takes a very easy approach to SEO for all types of users. I was able to read the book in one weekend without falling asleep, which says a lot. Most technical books leave you drooling on the pages in boredom and this one did not, kudos to you Mr. Bailyn.

The overall theme of the book is if you run a website and need more traffic, this book will help you get there without having to hire an "expert" SEO firm. Below I will point out some more of the notable elements I found worth highlighting:

1. "Every web page on the Internet is assigned a PageRank, which is a number from 0 to 10. The higher the PageRank, the more relevant Google considers the page to be, and the better its chance of showing up at the top of the search results" (page 9).
2. "Google considers search engine optimizers to be spammers" (page 15).
3. "The five ingredients of successful SEO are: 1. Links (the very currency of trust in Google's eyes) 2. Keyword selection 3. Meta page title 4. URL structure 5. Time" (page 21).
4. "The best free keyword-spying tool is Alexa.com" (page 25).
5. "The meta page title is the second most important factor in all of SEO" (page 27).
6. "other that the meta page title, what's on your website barely even matters to Google! It's all about the links" (page 32).
7. "Your site is like a magnet trying to attract traffic from search engines. When your site is new, it is more like an unmagnetic hunk of dull metal; nothing comes to it. As you add pages to the site, however, each page increases the size of that magnet, making it more likely to bring in new traffic" (page 88).
8. "In reality, SEO is not a technical skill" (page 136).
9. "We know what Google actually like: links, page titles, aged domains, and keyword-rich URLs. White hat SEO is about capitalizing on these things successfully while never violating Google's Webmaster Guidelines" (page 151).
10. "Both Bing and Google favor clean, easy-to-navigate architecture, fast-loading pages, and easy-to-follow links" (page 160).
11. "Google users tend to be more skeptical, whereas Yahoo! And Bing users tend to be more trusting" (page 163).
12. "In the future, every person's search experience will depend on what they like, who they know, where they are, and anything else Google knows about them" (page 217).

Bottom Line: If you are in the market for an SEO professional, invest the money in this book first and then make your move towards a better SEO strategy for your needs based on what you read.

Related posts:

1. Business Book Review: …And The Clients Went Wild!
2. 5 myths and a reality about Google AdWords
3. Show Me The Money: Chicago Federal Reserve Bank Announces Small Business Advisory Council
4. 5 Social Networking Tips for Project Managers
5. Forbes: The Next $100 Billion Technology Business