I finally got a hold of a copy of SEOBook about two weeks ago. I would have gotten this review up earlier but a combination of Christmas and a huge development project left me little time.

When I interviewed Aaron for this blog some people asked me if SEOBook was worth the money. At the time I hadn’t read it so I could not give my personal opinion of the book. So what is the deal with this $79 book?

SEOBook is packed with excellent tips to building a great website (many key points that are completely missed by novice webmasters, I might add.) Aaron does an excellent job connecting different website publishing concepts and tieing them all together with SEO.

If you’ve read Aaron’s blog at SEOBook.com you’ll know that he often questions if he is taking the right approach to something. In the book itself he points out specific mistakes he’s made in the past and how he is doing things differently today.

Aaron covers a lot of topics in SEOBook’s 241 pages. Everything is there from logo design to CSS to choosing the perfect domain name to affiliate marketing. Is this an excuse for filling pages? As Aaron himself points out, he could have split this into several books and probably made more money.

Some readers may have been expecting a book full of technical tricks and techniques to getting good rankings. The truth is that Aaron provides a very comprehensive look at what web site owners who want long term rankings need to do. In fact, I think a more accurate name for SEOBook would be something like “What you need to know if you want to make money online doing something other than eBay or pyramid schemes.”

The price of SEOBook has been a big issue for some people. $79 for a book? If you are serious about website publishing and development you only need to pick up a couple of new ideas from the book and you’ve made your money back and then some.

When he first launched SEOBook Aaron originally had the book priced lower. At the urging of other SEOs he raised the price. Additionally this helped to filter out problem customers and make it more profitable to affiliates. As someone who does both affiliate marketing and sells personal services I can tell you these are two very legitimate reasons for a higher price.

As a bonus, you also get access to several SEO tools and a copy of SEO Interviews (95 more pages!) In it, Aaron Wall talks to several of the top people in the search engine optimizing industry. If your curious about the world of SEO - black, white, and grey - you should take the time to read this too.

Here is the bottom line –

SEOBook may not be for you if:
1) You expect a few killer SEO tricks that will allow you to instantly recieve top rankings
2) You’ve been a website developer for a few years and spend hours a day reading multiple forums and SEO blogs
3) You can answer 98% of the questions asked by new and experienced members of webmaster forums

As far as I’m concerned, SEOBook is a must read for anyone serious about web site development you need to read SEOBook. (notice, thats not an affiliate link, the above has been my honest opinion on SEOBook.)