Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP
| Author | Cristian Darie |
| Author | Jaimie Sirovich |
| ISBN | 978-0-470-10092-9 |
| Pages | 360 |
| Publisher | Wrox |
| Year | 2007 |
A Developer’s Guide to SEO
Book Description:
Maybe you’re a great programmer or IT professional, but marketing isn’t your thing. Or perhaps you’re a tech-savvy search engine marketer who wants a peek under the hood of a search engine optimized web site. Search engine marketing is a field where technology and marketing are both critical and interdependent, because small changes in the implementation of a web site can make you or break you in search engine rankings. Furthermore, the fusion of technology and marketing know-how can create web site features that attract more visitors.
The mission of this book is to help web developers create web sites that rank well with the major search engines, and to teach search engine marketers how to use technology to their advantage. We assert that neither marketing nor IT can exist in a vacuum, and it is essential that they not see themselves as opposing forces in an organization. They must work together. This book aims to educate both sides in that regard.
An interesting combination, PHP with SEO. Most PHP programmers who I can think of, code their new application in a dark room, and when they are happy it gets released to the world. And because they are such great coders that is all they need to do. Either they believe the world will find them, or they get others to do the publicity. Either way they will be successful beyond belief.
I see an aim of this book is to get a developer to think about how people will find him before he has released his wonder app or insightful blog. With so much info on the web, the best thoughts are not guaranteed to float to the top and be number 1 on the Google result page.
You don’t need to be a hard core developer or even a PHP developer to get a lot out of this book from the programmers side. All code examples are in PHP, but most are pretty gentle and explained, so a programmer from another script language such as Python would find it useful. There is also an extensive emphasis on Apache and its modules to help the SEO process.
As for the SEO side, it will mostly make sense to a developer. They have avoided most of the SEO voodoo talk that can be found around, and back up many of the ideas with pointers to relevant and authoritative web sites.
The tone of the writing is good. Not too dry, not all fluff. There are a few errors in the text which the editing should have picked up, so check the errata at the seoegghead site.
Still not sure if there is a huge market for this book, but if you are a 1 person or small team web development company or have dreams of being a well paid blogger then check it out.