Search Engine Optimization All-in-One for Dummies

Bruce Clay’s mega desk reference on SEO, “Search Engine Optimization All-in-One For Dummies,” is now in its third edition. Bruce Clay, Inc. partnered with Wiley, publisher of the For Dummies series, to produce this 765-page, fully indexed guide for businesses and marketers (available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble).

The third edition stays true to the For Dummies style of easy-to-read, accessible content. ​This all-in-one volume (nine books in one!) gives business owners and marketers the principles, methods and tools they need to:

• Develop a keyword strategy
• Learn from competitors and better position ​themselves to be found online
• Design a site that appeals to customers and search engines
• Optimize your site for mobile and a good user experience across devices
• Create compelling content and build your brand
• ​Deal with international search engines
• Use analytics to monitor SEO efforts

Bruce Clay, author

The third edition ​is completely updated throughout but also has entirely new sections covering mobile, the ever-advancing search engine algorithms (including Panda, Penguin, the Knowledge Graph and more), and emerging technologies within Internet marketing that apply to search engine optimization.

Author Bruce Clay, who has taught classroom-style SEO courses to thousands worldwide, knows how to break down th​e huge topic of SEO into manageable chunks. This SEO desk reference is as close as you can ​get to an in-home SEO training course.

The “Search Engine Optimization All-in-One for Dummies” book covers a wide range of SEO topics logically, building your knowledge and skills ​layer by layer. Or, zero in on just the area you need to know — each of the 9 books stands on its own, a “mini-course” ​on a particular essential topic within SEO. You’ll also find dozens of free tools and resources recommended, so read this book with your laptop open alongside! You don’t have to wait to ​start improving your website and its visibility in search.

Review of Search Engine Optimization All-in-One for Dummies (2nd Ed.):
“… Being a complete neophyte to SEO, I happened see this book at my local bookstore, and dove in with no small amount of trepidation as I was concerned the material would be too advanced and that it would take too much of my time. However, my concerns proved completely unfounded. Bruce Clay expresses SEO concepts in a very accessible way, providing HTML samples and walking the reader through various related SEO tools. Moreover, he is concise but descriptive. … Overall, I can heartily recommend Search Engine Optimization All-in-One for Dummies and Bruce Clay in particular. A job well done at making SEO accessible to the novice. Thank you.”


Michael Brenner

Take a Look Inside the Book

The “Search Engine Optimization All-in-One For Dummies” book is for both the small business owner ​and search marketing professional who wants a hands-on SEO implementation experience. Here’s a look at what you’ll find inside “Search Engine Optimization All-in-One For Dummies, 3rd Edition”:

Book I: How Search Engines Work
Everything you ever wanted to know about search engines on the ​web, ​focusing on Google but also covering Yahoo, Bing and ​some niche engines. Learn how they operate and how your web page winds up on their results pages.

Book II: Keyword Strategy
​Critical to ranking well in a search engine is choosing the right keywords. This book walks you through the process of ​selecting and using keywords on your page for maximum efficiency.

Book III: Competitive Positioning
Learn how to scope out your online competition to learn what they​’re doing wrong and, more importantly, what they’re doing right.

Book IV: SEO Web Design
An important part of SEO is structuring your site properly with information architecture and ensuring your individual Web pages are also built correctly. In this book, we teach you how to best build (or redesign) your site for maximum SEO efficiency.

Book V: Creating Content
One of the most important things you can do for your website is content creation. SEO is about bringing qualified traffic to your site; great content brings and keeps people on your website. Here you’ll learn about creating solid, engaging content.

Book VI: Linking
From linking pages within your own site to managing links coming from outside sources, this book teaches you about the importance of linking​. ​Find out how to obtain links safely​ while avoiding ​harmful links that can ​lead to search engine penalties​, and how blogs and social networks can support your SEO efforts.

Book VII: Optimizing the Foundations
Having the proper server can make or break your SEO project. This book ​explains the fundamentals of servers and the “nuts and bolts” of redirects, domain issues, secure site pitfalls and more.

Book VIII: Analyzing Results
Once you compile all the data about your website’s performance, how do you go about analyzing it? This book discusses analytics and the tools you would use to understand the data your site is generating.

Book IX: International SEO
This book discusses taking your site international and the challenges you’ll face ​in various search engine markets around the world.

The appendix that follows the last book deals with the importance of digital marketing training and continuing education for professionals and business owners in this fast-moving discipline. This includes attending search marketing conferences and other SEO training courses you can attend.

Give Me a Sample of the Information I’ll Find in This Book

Here’s a sneak peek at what you’ll find in “Search Engine Optimization All-in-One For Dummies 3rd Edition”:

Say Mother’s Day is coming up, and you want to buy your mother a nice bouquet of roses. (Good for you! No wonder Mom always liked you best.) After going to Google and typing your [​bouquets] search query into the box, you’re presented with a results page. The results page contains many different listings containing the keyword, or search word, [bouquets], sorted according to what Google thinks is most relevant to you. Figure 3-1 shows a Google results page for the query [bouquets].

Take a look at the different parts of the page shown in Figure 3-1. (Note that we’re using a Google results page because they get the lion’s share of traffic. Plus, there isn’t much difference between Google’s results-page layout and those of Yahoo and Bing.)

Search Box: The box where you type your search query, or whatever it is that you’re looking for. In this case, it’s bouquets.

Search Verticals: Links to the vertical search engines, the specialized ones that narrow your search to a specific type of result, such as images or news. Clicking one of these links takes you to a results page with only ​images or only shopping results, for instance.

Page Count: The number of ​web pages Google found that match your search query in some way. In Figure 3-1, we have a lot of pages in our results.

Time Search Took: How long the search engine took to retrieve your results.

Organic Results: The listing results from a general search of Google’s index, with algorithms applied to determine relevance.

Ads: The paid advertising links. These are marked as “Ads” (or sometimes “Sponsored”) and usually appear to the right of the organic listings or above them.

Local Map Results (“local pack”): Local businesses considered to be relevant to the query, pulled from Google’s local index.

Map: Visual map of the local area with markers to show where all the local map results listings are located.

Images: Picture files that match your query. This comes from Google’s Images vertical engine. Clicking the text link would take you to the vertical search results; in this case, a page containing only images of bouquets.

Related Searches: Other topics that contain your query or other searches Google thinks might be relevant.

Pagination: Links to the additional pages of results.

Sign In: Google encourages users to be signed in to their Google accounts, which enables the search engine to track their behavior and personalize their results. When you are signed in, you’ll see your picture and a different set of buttons in the upper-right corner.

Search Engine Optimization All-in-One for Dummies is available now in print ​and e-book formats. ​Order your copy from Amazon or Barnes and Noble today!

Author Bruce Clay would like to thank the following (former and current) Bruce Clay, Inc. employees for their invaluable help over the years with the creation of “Search Engine Optimization All-in-One For Dummies” first, second and third editions:

• Paula Allen
• Gary Collins
• Susan Esparza (co-author of the first edition)
• Kristi Kellogg
• James Kim
• Aaron Landerkin
• Jessica Lee
• Bradley Leese
• Johnny Lin
• Virginia Nussey
• Scott Polk
• Rob Ramirez
• Maryann Robbins
• Javier Ruesga
• Katherine Wertz