The SEO Battlefield

Preface

About This Book

As I sat down to write this book, I realized there were many things to consider. I wanted to write a book to help people from many different disciplines enact SEO programs effectively. My goal was to educate both developers and marketers on the most important things to consider when improving search dominance.

If you’ve never really heard of SEO and have no marketing or technical experience, then you may want to read other awesome O’Reilly books on these topics first.

My career has been spent in web development, design, interpreting analytics, and practicing SEO. This hybrid nature has resulted in a more technical search marketing book than many others out there on the market. I’m not going to tell you how to write good content; I’m going to help you optimize for what search engine relevancy truly means.

This book is ideal for marketing teams who need to be hybrids and cover more ground in terms of understanding search. Publicly traded companies and larger companies and startups alike will benefit from the SEO frameworks I’ve laid out.

Conventions Used in This Book

The following typographical conventions are used in this book:

Italic

Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, filenames, and file extensions.

Constant width

Used for program listings, as well as within paragraphs to refer to program elements such as variable or function names, databases, data types, environment variables, statements, and keywords.

Constant width bold

Shows commands or other text that should be typed literally by the user.

Constant width italic

Shows text that should be replaced with user-supplied values or by values determined by context.

Tip

This element signifies a tip or suggestion.

Note

This element signifies a general note.

Warning

This element indicates a warning or caution.

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Acknowledgments

My warmest and sincerest heartfelt thanks to:

Georgina Ahola, my Mom who has loved and supported me feverishly since my birth. She is my #1 fan! Throughout the writing process she kept asking me “how many pages?” knowing I’d dutifully report back, even when I didn’t want to, which pushed me forward.

My husband Joel “Val” Ward, the ultimate mad data scientist—the wind beneath my wings, a marvelous tech editor, my best friend, and undisputed soul mate. I couldn’t have done this without his support.

Tyler Durrett, a top-notch tech editor who has been a close creative collaborator for many years. His support and overall acceptance for my moments of weirdness kept me going when the weeks grew so, so long.

Meg Foley, my amazing editor at O’Reilly and TV twin, whose support and willingness to laugh at my jokes made all of this more fun.

Lastly, but not least, a big thank you to my compatriots, heroes, and friends. All of you who believed in me, rooted for me, and were there for me when I needed you. Thank you. For that you are very cool.