TheRandomForest.com

Full Title: Increase Your WEB TRAFFIC in a weekend, Fifth Edition
Authors: Jerry Lee Ford, Jr. and William R. Stanek
Genre: Web tutorials, / web promotion techniques

This is the second week of my extended review for Increase Your WEB TRAFFIC in a weekend.

Please read the first weeks review if you have not done so already. The Monday Extended Review: Increase Your WEB TRAFFIC in a weekend - Week 1

So this week I have been looking at the second chapter and gathering my opinions for you all to read..

Saturday Morning, Promoting The Motion in Promotion.

The fundementals of this chapter are pretty straightforward. Get your site ready for and submitted to the top search engines.

Much like the last chapter search engines and the different ways that they can include your site is the first thing that is looked at here. However it gets rather detailed and I admit I did learn a little, which is something I had arrogantly resigned myself to believing wouldn’t happen.

This book started off quite childish in it’s writing but things start to turn around a little here as it explains about meta tags, introduces you to playing with your HTML code and tries to help you along the way to optimizing your site for maximum exposure. Sadly I thought that the lack of emphasis on blogs was sorely missed. Many people are using blogs these days as the hub of their website and I felt that in this update a good section should have been dedicated to the Wordpress and Blogger platform.

After all the technical brushing up, you are giving a few pages showing how to submit to the major search engines. This is very helpful and I was surprised to learn that Google, MSN and Yahoo pretty much hold the government in this area and there is no one else to speak of.
For websites selling products details are given for submitting to comparison sites and there is a great detailed explanation to show you how to best get your site listed in the top directories.

The only section that bemused me slightly was the off-line promotion that contained some good info about getting your URL onto business stationary but it felt out of place slightly. I am guessing they didn’t quite know where else to put it. Personally I would have allowed the subject to populate a whole chapter.

This chapter was very informative but hard going. Considering it was written suposedly to be completed in a morning, I think it is too much in one go. Information overload led me to getting bored and having to re-read and come back to the book a few times throughout the week.

The help with search engine and directory submission was however very helpful. I am still to add all my sites to the recommended directories as I don’t feel I have prepared my information enough but I must find the time to do so.

As this was aimed at search engine submission, it’s effects could take months and by then I probably won’t be able to tell if the book has helped with that aspect.

Next Monday I’ll be back with the next chapter: Saturady Afternoon, The Coolest, The Hottest, and the Best.