Building Findable Websites Web Standards SEO and Beyond
August 9, 2009 by Jim Host
Filed under Advanced SEO Tips
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This is not another SEO book written for marketing professionals. Between these covers you’ll find practical advice and examples for people who build websites aiming to reach their target audience. Each chapter will introduce you to best practices and fresh perspectives on how to accomplish these simple, yet indispensable goals:
- Help more people find your site
- Help users find content within your site
- Encourage return visits
The path this book travels through the villages of Web standards, accessibility, and contemporary technologies like Ajax, APIs, Flash, and microformats. You’ll find the big ideas behind these technologies and real world examples, illustrating that you don’t have to compromise the user experience to create search engine friendly, findable websites.
Although this book illuminates a broad range of findability strategies, one common theme pervades:
Web standards + compelling content = improved findability = more successful sites
You’ll find even more findability guidance on the book’s companion website (http://buildingfindablewebsites.com) including 5 bonus chapters. more info
Complete Resource
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This book has it all, from the simplest principles and basic practices to more complicated techniques. The author thoroughly explores what it takes to attract web visitors, and keep them coming back. He includes plenty of concrete examples of what to do, links to resources on the web, and so forth. This book should benefit any website owner, from the small business or individual, to the largest organization. A couple nice extras: More chapters, to supplement the book, and freely available on the book’s companion website; and code for some of the examples in the book, also on the website.
If you own a web site, or you’re planning one, get this book. It’s essential reading!
A must have book for web designers
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I have always wanted to know more about SEO tips and strategies – but this book completely flips that thought on its head. Findable websites do not just try to optimize for search engines but are accessible, usable; and value informative, pertinent content before anything else. There are lots of tips and tricks for people who like them and also insights into how to use Google Analytics (or other web statistics software) for tweaking your design based on the implicit feedback of the users (actions users take on your web page).
I find this book standing in stark contrast to most other “SEO” books, in that it actually clearly states what it takes to build findable websites without resorting to jargon or marketing gimmicks.
I hope Aarron Walter would write more books for web designers!
Finally! An extrememly useful reference book for today’s web designer and developer
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I first downloaded the 5 bonus chapters ([...]) and was hooked on Aarron Walter’s clear writing, code, links and organization of his chapters. Since I picked it up, I haven’t put it down. It has clarified previously mystifying concepts such as mod_rewrite, 301 redirects, 404 pages, and microformats — and I’m only on page 80. For anyone interested in improving their current site or creating a new one from scratch, you MUST get this book. If you want people to find your site (finability), use web standards the correct way, and get SEO under your belt, I highly recommend this book. Taylor / [...]
This is a valuable guide for anyone developing websites.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This book describes in great detail a list of potential pitfalls and best practices for creating content that is not only easier for users to find, but to the search engines as well. Numerous HTML, CSS, Javascript, .htaccess, and PHP examples are given and thoroughly explained. I found this book to be easy to read and yet very informative, especially when it pointed out design choices I had been making that were in fact hurting search engine rankings.
Excellent book full of practical, usable advice
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Building Findable Websites: Web Standards, SEO, and Beyond by Aaron Walter is the best web development book I’ve read in a long time. It is densely packed with actionable advice for improving the “findability” of your site, and in so doing, improve the usability, readability, speed, and manageability of your site. Findability is a broader concept than simply SEO. It is helping people find your site, helping people navigate your site and retrieve the information/action they want from it, and encouraging people to return to your site.
Walter covers a wide range of areas you can work on to improve the findability of your site, from the importance of quality content with strategically placed keywords, using semantic markup with clear hierarchies, server-side strategies such as friendly urls, rss and email subscriptions, etc.
I heartily recommend this book to not just web designers and developers, but also website owners and managers and web content writers.