Tactical SEO: The Theory and Practice of Search Marketing Paperback – 3 Aug. 2016

SEO (search engine optimisation) is ever-changing and there is no shortage of advice about how to get your website noticed by the likes of Google. You need to strategize and look at the broader picture and here a book like this, promising a guide to being tactical with your SEO, may come to the fore.The author seeks to go beyond the common technical changes that may be necessary to boost your “SEO juice”, looking at the SEO industry, practices, strategies and methodologies that are involved. A lot of the advice can thus be timeless and enable you to be more reactive to future changes that will surely come. It all made for an interesting read, providing accessible information in an easy-to-understand manner to make it particularly actionable as required.There is a lot of hype, “black magic” and voodoo around the whole SEO business, in part created and encouraged by those who hope to make a living from it. Get your SEO wrong or, perhaps even worse, mess it up through bad advice and it is your company’s website on the block (or the “naughty step”) rather than the SEO guru’s. Caveat Emptor. There is no universal SEO practice that would be suitable for everybody and here the author seeks to make the reader strategically aware of what may be suitable for their purposes and guide them towards implementation; you need not take out every tool from the toolbox!The author has done a great job in pulling a rapidly changing and quite complex subject together. For the uninitiated it can be an eye-opener. Undoubtedly elements will date quite quickly but the core guiding knowledge will remain valid for quite a long time. Get your strategy and knowledge from this book and the latest, most up-to-date implementation advice online when you need it. Your SEO activity is not a one-time activity in any case… well it shouldn’t be.The provided case studies felt a little too generic and bland. It would have been nice to have had named, real world examples but it is appreciated that many companies would want to keep their “SEO magic” close to their chest. A small complaint, but by no means a deal-breaker.A book worthy of closer consideration!

Wilson looks at SEO from a slightly different angle than I've found in previous, similar books. Rather than going over old ground he introduces new ways of looking at things. Interestingly, those finding themselves leading a digital team but not knowing a whole lot about SEO would probably find this useful. Rather than thinking from the 'front line' this look is somewhat from more of a strategic perspective that explores the tactics that can be used to achieve the objectives set out by a strategy. The 'nitty gritty' won't be found within its pages but rather getting to grips with how the edges of the puzzle pieces go together - tactical SEO to form a more compiled plan of attack.

Lee introduces a variety of process management activities which not only helps to ensure your organic search marketing is dealt with effectively and in an efficient manor. Having worked within the digital marketing industry for almost 8 years it's refreshing to read a book that doesn't focus on a checklist methodology but instead allows the reader to learn new ways to manage something that can be quite overwhelming to people looking to start their career.For those more experienced, the processes provide a new way to show impact and value whilst ensuring visitors to your website get the information they want. Utilising experience and logic to effectively introduce new tactics to existing strategies whilst staying on topic and focused.The book doesn't regurgitate old strategy or tactics but instead introduces new ways to compete in a difficult industry as well as being easy to read, understandable and quick implement.

I’ve been designing websites since 1996. My clients always end up number one in search if they let me do what I need to. So I looked to Tactical SEO as a refresher for me from a brand new generation of the obsessed. I hoped to find a number of new tips to remember that would keep me on my game. Instead I found the most basic of basic generalities, a lot of definitions, and no real advice on how to beat the competition or even just shine on my own. And there’s no how-to. It’s all just term-dropping.There are directions to make sure your staff is diversified, that you have a strategy, that you assign metrics but don’t live and die by them, build an outsourcing decision tree, find and work with an agency, and follow the rules as set out by Google. Aside from listing Google’s requirements, most of it is just a checklist. There are no real tips on doing any of this. Wilson mentions app search optimization in one paragraph only, and tells absolutely nothing about how to set it up or what effect it might have on ranking. The same goes for numerous other features; there is no information of their effect on ranking.The book is enormously repetitive; Wilson makes the same points over and over, then repeats them in the glossary at the end of each chapter, and in the concluding points that follow. He mentions content quality as critical at least ten times. I got a laugh near the end when one of his recommendations was to ponder “What have I missed.”The basic problem is that you cannot ensure your website is optimized by using this book. If you never heard of SEO before, this might be an overview so you don’t look like a complete moron when you bring it up to the head of IT. Beyond that, I found it of no value.David Wineberg