People who know me, or who browse my blog and various writings, will know I'm not one for hawking products. But finished reading an eBook by fellow Australian Glenn Murray called 'SEO Secrets' and am making an exception. People who know me may have also heard me on my SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) soapbox.

I tend to lean towards the notion that paid SEO is the dark arts. I've worked with a bunch of clients who have paid companies for SEO work, and none of it has impressed me. I had one client last year forking out $400 a month, and the firm had basically broken every rule in the Google book – hidden links on the home page (reams of them); white text links; using a flash page to hide SEO text – you name it. On my advice they dropped the SEO firm, and we built a whole new site, using tried and true conventions, and hey presto, they rank as well or better for their keywords. And save $400 a month.

I fell over Glenn's book when looking for something completely unrelated, I was hunting around for good examples of an eBook being sold online in preparation for Fiona and I releasing our book (more on this in a week or two I hope). I liked his site, I liked he was Australian, I liked the fact that he really must be a copywriter because his sales pitch is the complete antithesis of the hyped up high pressure rubbish you so often see by the con merchants flogging their tired old paid information booklets.

So I did what I almost never do, and bought the book. And am glad I did. The majority of the content is not a major revelation to me, because I've been building sites for a long time, and generally feel I'm across the big issues with regard to coding and optimising content on a site. We kinda did this all before at our previous www.artshub.com.au business – with literally hundreds of thousands of pieces of content on the site network it became second nature.

But Glenn's book is a clear, well written, concise confirmation of my prior knowledge, plus throws in a few nuggets of 'oh of course' information that I know will prove useful in the future. And all nicely organised in a format I can easily dip into as required.

If unlike me you are not across the SEO issues, but you have a web site, and you want to know what all the SEO fuss is, then I reckon this is a good purchase.

Glenn concludes his book with:

"Search Engine Optimization is not a black art; it’s a science. There are defined rules and proven methodologies."

OK, I'm going to hold to my assertion that it's still the dark arts. There are so many variations, permutations and circumstances that, when teamed with the fact you are dealing with unknown Google algorithms, there is no guarantee. But Glenn has done a good job of laying the known facts on the table, and offering a clear path through the maze.

You can buy Glenn's book from his web site by clicking this link. And yes, I'll be upfront and say I've signed up to his Affiliate Program and yes I get a commission.