I’ve got a new book review today for all of you. It’s been awhile since I’ve done one of those. Is it a book about drawing with pen and ink? Is it about layouts and frames for your comics? Is it a life drawing text? No.
The book I’m reviewing today is Search Engine Optimization for Dummies, 5th Edition by Peter Kent (published by Wiley).
I know what some of you are thinking as you read that title. It has absolutely nothing to do with drawing or comics. What good is this book to me? Well, it won’t help you improve your drawing, hone your writing skills, or help you figure out story panels. What it will do though is worth its weight in gold – it will help you in promoting yourself and your comics work.
It’s a good bet that most of you out there have some sort of webpage, either a static website or some sort of blog (like on Livejournal or WordPress.com). You’re probably confused about how to get visitors to your page to learn about you and see your comics. That’s where search engine optimization (referred to hereafter as “SEO”) comes into play.
The book talks about SEO, the basics, how it works, methods to use and not to use, and other strategies. It also debunks many of the myths of SEO. Manually submitting your webpage to search engines (according to Mr. Kent) is pointless. He also points out that those ads you might see saying for US$20 (or 50 or 100), your page will be submitted to thousands of search engines – they’re bogus.
Key topics discussed in the text are search engines and search directories, how search engines work, how sites are indexed, the important search engines, strategies like keywords, indexing, linking, etc., and what to avoid like Flash and Javascript.
As with many titles in the Dummies series, the book is written in layman’s terms and is easily explained. The content itself is highly useful (especially debunking many of the big SEO myths) and within two or three readings of the book, you’ll be able to help pull in more traffic to your comics/promotional webpage with improved strategies.
Peter Kent definitely knows what he’s talking about. He has written other books on the Web such as Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing for Dummies and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Internet plus he’s been online since 1984! If those aren’t impressive credentials, I don’t know what is. Check out Peter Kent’s website for more info about him and his services.
The final verdict is a simple one. If you want to pull in more traffic to your comics webpage, weblog, online gallery, etc. through search engines, then Search Engine Optimization for Dummies is the book for you. Get a copy today!
