This week, I'd like to make suggestions for a 'reading list' to help SEOs, and others who work online, particularly with website strategies.
But this list isn't going to be blogs, post and online articles, oh no. These suggestions are entirely offline. We're going into dead tree mode with eleven books and two magazines. Some of these suggestions you may want to flick through, some you may want to read cover to cover. Others will be suitable for suggesting to other people within your organisation.
There's no intention that everybody should read all these books (they're spread over many topics) and my list is far from exhaustive. I'll welcome your feedback and further recommendations in the comments.
(NB: This post links to Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk to help you find more about the books mentioned. I've used affiliate links, and any revenue generated will be donated to good causes through a general disaster/emergency fund.)
Analytics and Data
Web Analytics in an Hour a Day - Avinash Kaushik
This book is regarded as required reading for anyone who needs to understand the concepts behind web analytics and how to properly assess and understand them. Beyond the very basics about collecting analytics data, the book focuses on how to truly understand how it applies to your website's goals, and using analytics to collect actionable insights that will improve your website.
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)
Information Dashboard Design - Stephen Few
This book isn't directly related to SEO or web strategy, but since reading it, I've already had two opportunities to use its advice on effectively presenting data. Even if you're comfortable creating tables, graphs and charts, the hugely practical and highly actionable advice about combining data into 'dashboards' is worth your time to acquire.
Whether you work with sites that need to present data in a way that's appealing to users, or if you need to produce a dashboard of analytics and search data for use internally (perhaps gleaned from Avinash's book) then you'll be able to communicate the information more effectively after taking advice from here. (You'll also start spotting the terrible data presentation mistakes that others make, but I can't help you there unfortunately.)
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)
Usability & Testing
Don't Make Me Think and Rocket Surgery Made Easy - Steve Krug
Krug's famous book about design and usability is one of those classic texts that offers the whole premise within the four words of the title, and then goes on to spend the book showing you how to build that premise into your design philosophy. Get a flavour of the author's style and keen understanding in the sample chapter, How we really use the web.
Krug describes the first book as being about how to think about usability, whereas Rocket Surgery Made Easy is about how to do it - covering the process of improving web site usability though user testing. It's highly recommended that before you start designing test and recruiting users, you give this book a read; if you're not planning any user testing just yet, then read it anyway to remind you why you should.
(Buy 'Don't Make Me Think' online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)
(Buy 'Rocket Surgery Made Easy' online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)
Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer - Bryan Eisenberg & John Quarto-von Tivadar
Complementing Krug's books, this text focuses on using Google Website Optimizer to set up tests for Conversion Rate Optimisation. Beyond the simple technical aspects of how to run a test with the tool, it teaches how to use an understanding of the buying process and creating strong offering to make websites more powerful.
One reviewer on Amazon was given a copy of the book at SES, and mentioned: "In one recent test, we used the principles learned from the book such as persuasion architecture to setup a test in only an hour that increased lead generation on a high volume ecommerce site by 51%"
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)
Search Marketing
Information Architecture for the World Wide Web - Louis Rosenfeld & Peter Morville
How does a book originally written over a decade ago make it into this list? Because when O'Reilly publishes a book by these authors, on a topic so important to the way information is published online and understood / consumed by visitors, the text is going to stand the test of time.
Like many of these suggestions, the book doesn't just float at a high level, but gets down to 'brass tacks' with detailed discussion about designing and implementing IA on websites, and dedicating a significant chapter to choosing whether and how to implement on-site search on a site. (Recommendation by Dr Pete.)
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)
The Art of SEO - Eric Enge, Jessie Stricchiola, Rand Fishkin and Stephan Spencer
Despite the incredible ongoing changes in the field of SEO, an 'all-star cast' (including SEOmoz's Rand Fishkin) has managed to put together this excellent reference book for search marketers. Before page 50, the authors have covered the basics of how search engines crawl & index the web and search ranking factors; it goes onto cover the technical aspects of SEO, keyword research, competitor analysis & benchmarking, linkbuilding, vertical search and monitoring results.
Most appealing about this book is the understanding that the authors bring from their experience managing SEO campaigns in the real world - such as in the chapter dedicated to building SEO teams, and knowing when or how to appoint a search agency.
The main reason I sound like I'm raving about the book is the same reason you should read it: flattery. Rand dedicated this book to you, the members of the SEO community.
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)
Search Marketing Standard
Recommended by RobBothan, Search Marketing Standard published a quarterly magazine for the search industry. They promise: "Stop stressing out over the avalanche of marketing advice from online sources and let us filter the noise for you."
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Robert B. Cialdini
This is a classic book, which chooses to pitch persuasion as a science, rather than an art. The author is a professor of psychology, so this is perhaps expected, but the rigour of explanation in the examples (many from Caldini's own observations) will help you develop new, more persuasive ways of influencing the visitors to your sites.
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)
Management & Implementation
Good to Great - Jim Collins
I've never before come across a book that is essentially a write up of a research project; it's particularly special as the research conclusions are highly valuable, and can be actioned. The premise of the work was to: identify concepts which great companies had in common, but that were not implemented by any (or many) companies that were simply 'good.'
You can read more about what these concepts turned out to be, and see how Rand tested their application within SEOmoz in his 2007 post, Asking the Tough Questions or a similar post by Will, from Distilled's perspective.
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)
Getting Things Done - David Allen
An outstanding book that proposes a workflow management system which would seem highly radical to many people with an established system, and terribly common sense to others. The book then leads you into a method for implementing the GTD setup.
From my perspective, the most important message (but one that plays second fiddle to much of the book's other content) is that your mind is excellent at a certain type of work (creative thinking, problem solving, etc) and shouldn't be fettered with other tasks (remember to call that client tomorrow, try to come up with some blog post ideas etc) which can be devolved to a trusted system.
You know when you put things by the door, so that you remember to take them with you when you next leave the house? This book provides a way of making sure that your whole life runs that way.
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)
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Agile Project Management with Scrum - Ken Schwaber
Ken Schwaber is one of the authors of the 'Agile Manifesto' which outlined the principles behind the methodology known as 'agile software development'. His 'Scrum' process - described in detail in this book - uses a series of relatively fast iterations, typically month-long 'sprints' between releasing product improvements.
For people who don't like structures and systems that may introduce additional bureaucracy as a barrier to work, the system may sound terrifying (particularly the formal daily meetings) but trust me: once implemented, Scrum reduces almost every barrier between finding out what needs to be done and actually doing it.
Though designed for software development, the principles can be applied to any product or service that can benefit from incremental improvements (and with a bit of creativity, I think this could easily apply to the output of a great deal of organisations.)
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)
Day to Day
Wired
Wired (at Wired.com and Wired.co.uk) is a monthly magazine, covering many facets of 'technology', from gadgets to online-strategy. Its blend of creativity and informity will help you keep on top of technological trends and can also spark ideas, inspire design themes and help as a seed for linkbait concepts.
That their staff have coined terms such as 'crowdsourcing' and 'the long tail' gives an idea of the impact the magazine has had on the internet marketing industry; reading it every month is the only way to make sure that you're using their next bit of lingo, before it hits the big time.
Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home - by David Shipley & Will Schwalbe
Various people have written about how to manage email as part of your daily work life, but this book talks about the specifics of style and writing in the medium. It should help you create better understood, more expressive emails. Sam suggested this book; he said "It was recommended by an e-mail marketer friend and it changed the way I write (and read) e-mails. (...) Really useful."
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)
"Don't Make Me Think" is an awesome book! You could even scan the book in an evening and end up with some great take-aways. I haven't looked at a website the same way again.
"Web Analytics in an Hour a Day" is an eye opener. Look for his 2nd book recently released: "Web Analytics 2.0."
"Good to Great" and "Crossing the Chasm" were two books recommended in the UW Business School Entrepreneur Program. Very-very insightful.
Ok, knowing 3 out of 13 books here, I'm convinced about the caliber of the rest. I'm sold.
Great post, Rob.
There is a 2nd web analytics book written by Avinash: "Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity". It is really good.
I am currently reading "The Art of SEO" and this book is brilliant.
I too recommend "Web Analyticd 2.0" - it takes off where Avinash's first book ends and is a must-read for any web professional.
Another b ook from Cialdini worth reading is
Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion: https://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1846680166/ref=ox_ya_oh_product
The Art of SEO is a must read https://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-SEO-Mastering-Optimization-Practice/dp/0596518862/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264425738&sr=8-1
I'm currently reading Neuro Web Design: what makes them click. So far so good https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neuro-Web-Design-Voices-Matter/dp/0321603605/ref=pd_sim_b_13
Thanks for the reminder about What Makes Them Click. I attended a session by the author, Susan Weinschenk and have started reading her blog.
Hi! Great list and well done for taking the time to do it.
One thing I am really interested in is link building (legitimately!) and I'm always on the look out for hints and case studies. That being said, I am reading "The Art of SEO" at the moment. I'm up to Chapter 7 "Creating Link-Worthy Content and Link Marketing" and on page 305 there's a recommendation to a blog post that has a list of social media sites that do not NoFollow links in their public profiles. (make sense?)
Problem is, the post is really out of date. Does anyone know of a more up-to-date site that lists sites which still employ Follow links?
Thanks,
JM
CEO, Optomo.
very good list "Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion" is a classic. i'd also add:
"Getting to Yes" (no aff) https://bit.ly/5c45iQ
"Even Faster Web Sites": https://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596522315/
"Prioritizing Web Usability": https://www.useit.com/prioritizing/
Thanks for the additions.
Getting to Yes is one of my favourites. I did a 'negotiation' paper at University, which had this as a core text; phenomenal.
yep, every time i read that book, i come away with something specific and actionable that i can apply to my life:
"Arguing over positions produces unwise agreements... Your ego becomes identified with your position."
actually - wow, when you read his discussion of positional argumentation.
if you accept that most serious discussions (business, or personal) are actually negotiations, this book is a list of things that you should do to accomplish your goals, but also keep yourself from making enemies where they should not be made.
Thanks grasshopper. I just added "Getting To Yes" to my Amazon wishlist.
Nice post Rob!
The one thing I would add to the list of essential offline reading for all SEOs is the newspaper. I know it sounds foolish but it is an essential piece of kit in terms of both looking for new opportunities for links (from articles written about or relevant to clients) and potentially finding out information about clients that they might not talk about as regularly as you might like!
Also, it just seems an essential, but oft overlooked, piece of the puzzle in terms of understanding the greater landscape (both for advertising and public opinion).
I know it sounds cheesy but every SEO should try to read the newspaper every day (or at absolute least a few times a week)!
Awesome!, i was looking for some books to start reading.
Anyone know of some good beginner/adv beginner books?
Thanks
How about Building Findable Websites by Aaron Walter which I found a really useful book for myself as well as to give to developers
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?ie=UTF8&ref_=nb_sb_ss_i_0_26&field-keywords=building%20findable%20websites&url=search-alias%3Daps&sprefix=building%20findable%20websites
Now this is the information we need. Nice collection of tools for the arsenal.
Thanks for sharing this list.
I second "Influence" by Cialdini. It takes everything fun I learned in Psych 101 and condenses it to a little book. Awesome!
Great list, thanks.
I'll toss out Paco Underhill's "Why We Buy, the Science of Shopping" It isn't about search marketing and the one one chapter that touches on ecommerce notes that it may be interesting for some people, but the challenges of the technology will keep it from ever being a big deal. That said, it is an interesting exploration of shopping behavior and how shoppers interact with the physical aspects of stores. I've read it a couple time and each time I've come away with a page of notes and ideas to explore from an ecommerce perspective.
I found his book to be pretty interesting when I read it before, although I think that was an older version that didn't mention ecommerce.
Great collection here. I have read a couple of books from the list and I hope that they really are great resources for SEO.
Thanks for also providing detailed information along with the list.
hi, hmmm how should i start this post, ok i will be honest:
"The Art of SEO is a frustrating read!" There i said it now send the mob after me.
first, the 4 authors are great thinkers and innovators in the organic SEO field. the book offers lots and lots of know how for a good price.
sadly the editor was clearly overwhelmed: if you collaborate on a book you need a great, strong editor to make the book a whole. this did not happen with this book.
every topic is not discussed once but up to 4 times, a lot of times (but not always) with a note saying: see chapter XX site YY. but then the topic is discussed again (and again).
also its not well structured, you jump from a beginners topic to an advanced topic to a beginners topic and back again. its frustrating.
randfish and all the other authors: you have contributed great knowledge to a book which should have been great, sadly the outcome is not the great book it should have been. it seems the editor could not match all those inputs into one great book.
so, before you now flame me please ask yourself the question:
* have you read the book front to cover?
if yes and you still disagree with me, then you can flame me.
this book still ranks in the top 10 SEO books, but it is in no way a competition to "search engine marketing inc" (which is nummber one on my list)
I've been looking at buying either 'The Art of SEO' and O'Reilly's 'SEO Warrior'. If I was to buy one of them, which would you recommend and why? Thanks
I just finished up The Art of SEO. Hands down, the best book on SEO I have ever read.
It covers all the fundamentals I can think of, and combined with the SEOmoz blog + tools you are pretty much set.
I do, however, agree wih franz enzenhofer that the book is repetitive. But if you are a trained reader, you'll know when to skip a few pages.
seo warrior
675.43% more usefull the the art of seo.
Never Eat Alone, E-Myth Enterprise, Do It Wrong Quickly and Competing on Analytics are just a few of the books to add to this list.
Thanks much for including us (Search Marketing Standard magazine) in your offline reading list! We’re in our fourth year of publication, with our Spring issue just about ready to go to the printers. Your readers can use FRIEND15 as a coupon code to save 15% off a subscription if they are interested. Thanks again!
Great post! thank you very much! I've been looking for some decent SEO books for quite a while now.
Hi Rob, I appreciate the effort you put in listing down books on SEO. I have personally read and acknowledged some of them. However I would like to add the book SEO: Search Engine Optimization Bible by: Jerri L. Ledford to your list as a must read for every individual invovled in this field.
I'm going to come from a slightly different angle (more IR than marketing) and say 'Web Dragons' by Witten, Gori & Numerico; gives a good overview of the background to search engines.
Good list, I've got my own list here: https://petermoorman.com/4-internet-marketing-books-you-must-buy-now
One book your missing is "Inbound Marketing" It's a great overall strategy book relating to internet marketing.
This is a pretty sophisticated crowd, but if anyone is starting new in the SEO field I'd still recommend Mike Moran and Bill Hunt's Search Engine Marketing Inc: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company's Web Site. I read it 2 years ago but still keep it desk-side for frequent reference.
Does anyone know if there are any Audiobook versions of these??
I prefer to listen to books when driving/gym etc, if not, Rand - you should do an audio version of your (for the community, of course! :P )
There are a few audio version of the books that are mentioned above. You should go check out this website and sign up for a montly subscription. It is really a good deal and if you enjoy learning then I would recommend it.
Check out: https://www.audible.com/
I have the "Good to Great" audio version.
And listening to "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" is totally awesome and inspiring to listen to. Sometimes I listen to this on the way to work and by the time I reach the office, I'm ready to hit the ground running. :)
I can also recommend:
‘Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day’ - Dave Evans.
‘Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques’ - Michael Michalko (not an SEO book, but this contains some excellent methods for generating ideas and structuring your thoughts. I’m a huge fan of the Lotus Blossom technique, which is also contained in this book).
P.S. Rob, just a thought... where you are in agreement with suggestions made in the comments section, can I suggest that Amazon links to these are also added to your blog entry as an edit, so that you don’t lose the opportunity for affiliate revenue to go to the aforementioned charity?
Hi Rob,
Good post - i'd add -
I'd suggest that just as people may find value with agile project management in many/most large UK corporations (and nearly all govt.) they use Prince2 - hence being able to understand or put forward your development/SEO recommendations in this format can give benefit to your argument. And yes both Scrum & Prince2 are generally designed so that it doesnt matter what your delivering the same concepts apply -Prince2
2. Web Analytics in an Hour a Day (or Analytics 2.0)Analytics wise, although Kaushiks Analytics 2.0 book is amazing, if you use either Yahoo or Google it can benefit you to get the books tailored to those platforms:Brian Clifton: Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics (due March 2010)
Dennis Mortensen: Yahoo! Web Analytics
Nice list! I've just ordered three of the books :)
Guess this is an excellent example of word-of-mouth marketing
I like the books by David Allen (GTD) and I've also bought the related "Making it all work". I'm not too fond of people trying to tell me how things should be done, but that methodology/ mindset really kicks ass :)
The Art of SEO and Wired are now on my shopping list. Thanks for this.
about 4 years ago I purchased a copy of the search marketing toolkit from sitepoint.com.
Its pretty much the basics, but for any new SEO its a good read and I heartily recommend it.
MOGmartin
Hey Rob,
Cheers for the excellent list, I asked Rand for a list of these a month or so ago and it's nice to see that you have delivered :-)
Payday today so I think I might be getting a few of these!
I already own Dont Make Me Think (second edition), its a great book and really hits home things that are important for maximising conversions
I'm always looking for good books but it's hard bc of the enormous selection. Thanks for narrowing it down a bit.
Good to Great is one of my favorite books.
The slogan "Don't Make me Think" by Steve Krug also is helpful to remind clients of beeing precise in their wordings, i.e. for navigation titles, headlines... they understand the phrase and begin to think over their "in house" terms for the broader public - don't make them guess.
I agree with you hgw57. It is one of the best web design guide to read. It mainly deals and explains about about human computer interaction and about web usability. Has nice tips regarding SEO.
I´m reading "Good to Great" right now. Great book it shows characteristics that great Companies have had in order to succeed. Like the author mentions on the book: "Why some companies have made the leap."
I would add at the day to day section these two:
alistapart.com
boxesandarrows.com
So wrapped up in talking about books that I forgot to comment on the post itself!
I've only read about half of these books so take what I say with a grain of salt, but if I met someone new to the world of web design and marketing, the only book I would give them would be Steve Krug's classic "Don't Make Me Think".
Only after they read it and digested it would I give them more books. It's an absolute MUST read (IMHO).
And although I haven't read Rand, et als. new book "The Art of SEO" yet, the cover looks great. I know there is an old saying of "Don't judge a book by its cover", but the fact is , a lot of people (myself included) do. So I'm glad it has a nice enticing cover.
Good looking list, I've read a couple but I do have to agree with the gentleman above who commented that although books are a great place to start, getting stuck reading about the processes available can cause you to miss out on important things happenning right now in the industry!
I admit, that sometimes when I'm engrossed in an SEO book, my "cup" is so full that I can't even read SEO articles/blogs online for a few days. I get info overload.
Being a bibliophile, I'd give this post 10 thumbs up if I could. There's nothing like holding a new book in your hands, smelling the printers ink, feeling the paper as you turn the pages. I know I'm dating myself here.
To Bludge and chris181m, you're absolutely right about needing to balance your time between reading and doing. But I would hazard a guess that most SEOmozzer's are of the digital age, and indeed have learned by a combination of learning from the web (seomoz.org as a good example)and hands on with either their own sites or work sites.
Because of that, getting a book list of pertinent subject matter is actually a fresh idea.
Or maybe I'm full of sand and I just love books and am always happy to see anything about them. :)
And there's something to say about reading a page rather than a screen. You can write in the book, make notes, highlight, etc. I like to devour a book and own it with my various pencil marks.
Read all of them and I'd be amazed anyone has any time to actually do their day job - e.g. being an SEO! I find it very amusing there is a book called "Getting Things Done". Well... reading that book is stopping you getting something else done!
I'm going to get a little bit controversial now. I read a couple of books on the subject including one of those in the list above when I was getting interested in the subject, before I worked in the industry. Now, I don't think I would be interested in reading a book on the subject.
The fundamentals of SEO are always going to be the same (content is king, links ftw etc) so I don't need a book for that. The industry is also still young and therefore very dynamic, so by the time a book is written, edited and published, there could be some pretty outdated stuff in it.
The more general psychology books in the list would probably be of more value, but then I learned that sort of thing by people-watching, which is free. Don’t get me wrong, I think this is a great post with a well thought out selection of books, particularly for people new to the area, it’s just people shouldn’t get hung up on reading being the only way to learn.
I hear you that you can overdo it, but as long as you keep your reading to action ratio under control, it's extremely helpful to read up. People who assume "I know it all" or "I can figure this out on my own" can easily fall into the trap of pride and make their learning curve a lot longer.
That being said, you want your time spent on action to be much larger than your time spent on reading. So you can read a book like Getting Things Done, become more efficient, then get a ton more action done in your workday. No loss there!