Your SEO Reading List


Recently I presented a webinar for the Verizon Small Business Center on the topic of SEO (search engine optimization)  strategies for your small business.   I am not an SEO professional myself, so I called upon a panel of experts for small business SEO tips which I related during the webinar.

Along with giving some great SEO tips, the expert panel also recommended a reading list with resources and additional articles.

Here is the resource list they recommended so that you can study and learn more about how SEO can improve your online presence:

  • SEO Tools – An outstanding set of tools by Aaron Wall of SEOBook.com.  I happen to know that Aaron has invested a lot of capital and effort into developing these sophisticated tools for the community.  Highly recommended!
  • Bloggers Guide to SEO –  If you have a blog and want to understand enough about search engine optimization to increase your blog’s reach, read this helpful guide. ( It may take a couple of read-throughs if you’re a complete newbie about SEO, but stick with it.  You’ll absorb a little more each time you read it. )  Also by Aaron Wall.
  • Why Trust Matters and How to Earn It — In recent years, as the Web has grown larger, the concept of “trust” in your site has become more important — trust from human readers and trust from search engines.  This article by Matt McGee of Small Business SEM explains what trust means in the context of a website.  More importantly, it explains how to make YOUR site a trusted site.
  • SEO Success Pyramid graphic – Also from Matt McGee, this graphic is a companion to the article on trust.  It describes  visually the many components it takes to develop a trusted site.  I recommend you print this graphic out, distribute it to your marketing and tech teams, discuss it in team meetings, and refer back to it from time to time.
  • Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2009 – At the end of each year, social media guru Tamar Weinberg pulls together a gigantic “best of” list of blog posts about Internet marketing.  Her roundup contains well over 100 articles.  A must read!
  • Local Business Listing Optimization Guide – If yours is one of the majority of small businesses that gets its customers locally (i.e., within a 50-mile radius), you need to be aware of some special techniques. This Guide is from Vedran Tomic, who happens to be one of our Small Business Trends experts and who goes by the screen handle “SEO Rabbit.”
  • List Of Linking Tools — Getting links to our sites from other quality sites is crucial to search engine position.  Widely acknowledged as an expert in the field of link-building, Debra Mastaler suggests this list.  Even if you think you know a little bit about building links, I guarantee you’ll see at least one tool you’ve never heard of before but will want to try out. See also Debra’s related article with link building tools.
  • 5 Quick Ways to Improve Facebook SEO – With so many of us spending so much time on Facebook, don’t forget about increasing your company’s (and personal brand) Facebook presence for search purposes.  This is a post from here at Small Business Trends that I recommend.

Do you have any articles, tools or resources about SEO that you’d like to recommend?  Leave them in a comment below.

11 Comments ▼

Anita Campbell Anita Campbell is the Founder, CEO and Publisher of Small Business Trends and has been following trends in small businesses since 2003. She is the owner of BizSugar, a social media site for small businesses.

11 Reactions
  1. An alternative resource for free link building and article marketing is Linknami.com, where users can use text links and contextual one way link tools to get more quality backlinks to their websites or blogs and internal pages (deep links). They also can get links by posting articles on relevant niche blogs.

  2. Anita,

    I particularly enjoy SEO Book’s tools – they are indeed helpful in getting ideas on keywords and tracking my SEO progress (and I do love freebies – free tools on sign-up? Nice!)

  3. Martin Lindeskog

    After listening to John Jantsch’s interview with Brian Clark of CopyBlogger, I am interested in looking into the tool called Scribe SEO. You could read the free report, How to Create Compelling Content That Ranks Well in Search Engines, if you go to: http://scribeseo.com/seo-copywriting/

  4. Anita,

    Excellent, excellent post! Many people neglect spotlighting trust and authority when it comes to SEO and SEM. It’s a huge piece of the pie and results will come much quicker when authority and trust are established.

    Would you ever consider adding my article to your resource list?

    Here it is: http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/2010/06/sbd-contest-seo-basics-and-background/

    ps. you have a new follower on Twitter =)

  5. Great selection Anita! I especially like Matt McGee’s Trust article as SEO can be so much easier if you can do it organically.

  6. Make sure to add to your SEO reading list my Common Sense SEO and Website Optimization and Marketig blog at http://marcusinteractive.wordpress.com

  7. I agree with Anjali Sharma that link bulding is still popular in Search Engine Optimization. Thanks author for sharing interesting blog.

  8. While link building is important, there are good ways to link and bad ways and the key to it all is relevence. My blog gets over a dozen spam posts a day looking for linking, some with as many as 20 links within one post. Clearly these are paid link services that are not reputable. Linking to appropriate, relevant sources is rewarded by Google and Bing, the only 2 that really matter in the USA, and irrelevant or clear link farming are penalized.

  9. Hi Brad

    Have you tried Traffic Travis free version. It can find competitors backlinks for you?

    Andy