thinks

  Search engine optimization (SEO) is not dead. I don’t care what ShoeMoney says. And no one makes a stronger case for search engine optimization’s continued survival - and importance - than Jennifer Grappone and Stephanie Couzin in the second edition of their book Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day.

Businesses large and small can use the practices of search engine optimization - keyword research and selection, landing page design, copywriting, and development practices - to attract more visitors and to turn those visits into sales.

Grappone and Couzin walk you through a 3-month plan designed to help you achieve both better positions within search engines and the business results that follow. As with the first edition of the book, after finishing - and frequently while reading it - I said, “Screw this ‘3 months’ nonsense! I’m going to lock myself in my cave and do this in one weekend!” Clearly, this is neither healthy nor effective. More to the point, it also doesn’t establish SEO practices as a discipline. So, while Grappone and Couzin offer a number of shortcuts for the Type A’s in the audience, their method aims to tame the madness.

Of particular note, the book looks at the specific of different types of sites - e-commerce, blogs, and non-profits alike - to determine how to best effect results. Their plan will help your organization - not matter its type - to get the most out of your site.

No, search engine optimization is not dead. And with authors like Grappone and Couzin on the scene, it’s not going anywhere soon. Following their advice may not guarantee you top spot the Google; But, you can expect greater business benefit from your site overall. Guaranteed. And that’s well worth what you’ll pay to buy this book.

I mentioned Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture last week. You can see the video from his speech here. Well, I finished his book over the weekend. What a powerful read. You owe it to yourself to watch the video, read the book, hug your spouse, your kids, your partner, and do what you want to do. If this book - if this man - doesn’t inspire you to go after your dreams, I’m afraid little I can say will. I plan to buy copies for my whole team. It’s that impactful. Read it. Then live it.

Full disclosure: Any affiliate revenues I earn through sales of this book will go to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

James Kilts knows how to build successful companies. As the former CEO of Gillette, Nabisco and Kraft, Kilts helped turnaround three major organizations. His understanding of how to build outstanding brands and the discipline needed to support those brands is unparalleled. Fortunately, he also knows how to explain it. His book, Doing What Matters: How to Get Results That Make a Difference - The Revolutionary Old-School Approach, gets right to the point - despite its long title. Kelts explains the mindset and methods used to turnaround three iconic companies in terms that apply to companies small, large and in-between.

My only criticism is that I “read” the audiobook edition. The reader was a little too tense for my tastes, sometimes berating the listener with the text. Read the book instead.. You won’t regret it. Because building your company is what matters most of all.

After suffering a tragic injury as a young man, Dan Ariely wanted to know what sorts of treatment hurt less. Was it better - as the adage says - to rip the band-aid off all at once? Or was it better to slowly peel the bandages off? Questions such as these led Ariely to the field of behavioral economics, where he continued to ask questions about why people sometimes pay too high a price when logic would dictate otherwise. He outlines what he’s learned in his terrific book, “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions”.

Ariely examines the relationships between relative prices and purchase decisions, procrastination and decision making, the costs of social norms vs. economic transactions, and what causes people to cheat. Smart, well-written, often funny and occasionally poignant, Ariely brings both a scientist’s detachment and a moralist’s passion to these and other issues. Business managers and marketers will gain tremendous insights for setting prices designed to sell, and everyone will learn more about who we are and why we do what we do. I highly recommend picking up a copy.

Whether you set prices - or simply want to avoid paying a price too high - “Predictably Irrational” is worth every penny. Grab a copy today.

Business owners, managers and writers often invoke sports metaphors to illustrate business situations. Just as often, those metaphors fall flat, either because the audience has little connection to the sport or the metaphor has little connection to reality. So a business book that builds its case around the actions of a low-budget sports franchise risks alienating sports fans and business managers alike. Yet, traveling these well-worn basepaths, Michael Lewis has written one of the classic business books of its era in “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game”.

The book, ostensibly about the Oakland A’s and their demanding general manager Billy Beane, provides a catalog of techniques - and more important - attitudes necessary to compete with the big boys. Its fundamental question, “how does a low-budget operation manage to win consistently against the best-funded teams in sports,” illustrates how a small business owner or manager can develop a winning game plan by focusing on the right information and exploiting market inefficiencies the big guys overlook. Plus it reads as an engaging David vs. Goliath story, introducing colorful characters and situations familiar to sports fans and business veterans alike.

Among the business wisdom sprinkled throughout its pages, “Moneyball” states “the goal of the Oakland front office was simply to minimize the risk. Their solution wasn’t perfect, it was just better than the hoary alternative, rendering decisions by gut feeling.” It also quotes the wonderfully-named amateur (later pro) statistician Voros McCracken, “It didn’t make any sense to me that the way to approach the problem was to give up.” You don’t have to be a fan of baseball - or any sport - to see how that applies to every business.

Oakland general manager Beane, according to Lewis, is fond of Warren Buffett’s statement, “The hardest thing to find is a good investment.” Buy this book. That’s at least one good investment you can take to bank.

Typically, I spend this time each week (or so) reviewing what I’ve just finished reading. But, I haven’t actually finished reading anything for the last couple weeks. Here’s what’s on my night stand right now:

• Connect! A Guide to a New Way of Working from GigaOM’s Web Worker Daily - Anne Truitt Zelenka and Judi Sohn discuss the transition from knowledge worker to web worker and what that means for business and their employees. Anne and I have debated this point from time to time, though she makes a compelling case in the book. Check back in a couple of weeks and I’ll let you know if she’s convinced me.
• The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable - Nassim Nicholas Taleb takes what ought to be a dry topic and makes it interesting, engaging - and sometimes funny. Not funny enough to read it quicker (this one’s been on my nightstand for a while), but worthwhile all the same.
• Influencer: The Power to Change Anything - I feel like I walked in late on a conversation on this one. The authors (Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, and Ron McMillan) detail the steps others have taken to affect change in key performance drivers. But, they seem to ignore how one goes about identifying those key drivers in a particular enterprise in the first place. Maybe I should read their earlier books?

So, that’s what I’m reading right now. Here are my questions for you: What are you reading? What should we all be reading? Drop a comment and let us all know.