8 Best Must-Read SEO Books for Beginners

With numerous best SEO books available in the market, it has become easier for beginners to learn about SEO. SEO is an essential part of digital marketing for every organization and has become mandatory to understand the concept of SEO to reach more masses digitally. It’s one of the foremost ways to attract traffic to your website or eCommerce store.

The methods of SEO are always improving and upgrading day by day but the basic concepts are the same. While on the internet there is so much information given on the topic but the information given on the internet can be inaccurate. When it comes to correct facts and research, books are always trustable.

Authors take months, even years to do the research and provide you with the correct information. It is always advisable to rely not only on the internet but also on books for correct information. We have brought to you the 8 best SEO books that are very informative and easy to understand, especially for beginners who are planning to start their career in SEO.

1. The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization by Eric Enge, Jessie Stricchiola, and Stephan Spencer.

“The art of SEO” book is one of the best SEO books that a beginner must read. It is a fundamental book for beginners as well as SEO professionals to learn or refresh their knowledge of SEO. It was published in 2012 and later updated in 2015. It gives a lot of valuable information about SEO and most of the contents of this book still apply today.

The book guides you from beginner SEO concepts to advanced-level strategies. The authors of the book are SEO experts and are well-known in the industry. It contains around more than 900 pages and covers all the important aspects of search engine optimization such as:

• Basics like SEO history, its evaluation, etc.
• Social media’s role, user data, links, and how these signals impact the SEO efforts.
• Tracking your results and measuring success tools list.
• Overview of SEO planning, the stages of SEO implementation, and building SEO friendly website.
• Keyword research.
• Information about the most famous algorithmic updates that affect the SEO industry: Panda, Penguin.
• Building an SEO team with defined roles to maximize your speed and success with SEO.

This book will help you gain a solid education in the areas of SEO. This book is one of those books which a marketer should read. The book also gives many Google ranking secrets to land on the first page of the search engine. This book is also issued in colleges and universities around the world for digital marketing and SEO studies. You can buy this book on Amazon.com and Kindle.

2. SEO 2022: Learn Search Engine Optimization with Smart Internet Marketing Strategies by Adam Clarke.

Adam Clarke’s SEO 2022 book is one of the best SEO books which the author re-releases every year by updating the Google trends and algorithm changes. It targets the beginners as well as the advanced audience and is a best-seller. It was published in 2013 and it gets updated with a new edition every year with the most relevant information on SEO.

The author is a Google Ads and Google Analytics certified professional. He also conducts SEO consultations and has achieved thousands of #1 rankings for large multinational brands and family-owned businesses. The author has given detailed information on SEO to his readers in his 250 pages book.

Adam has shared his various tricks and tips in the book for the readers and it is beneficial for beginners and professionals to grow in their careers. The book includes the some of the following contents:

• Information about how Google works to rank sites every year.
• Ticks to find easy keywords that can bring traffic to your website.
• Proper structuring of your website for SEO.
• How to make use of Google’s search quality guidelines to your advantage.
• Overview of link building which includes how to acquire links, which links to avoid, link building strategies, and how to scale this process.
• SEO tips and strategies for getting top-ranked in the search engine.
• Social media and how it affects SEO.
• Checking common SEO problems and rectifying them.
• Targeting Google’s Featured Snippet.
• SEO tools, keyword research, optimization, link building, and web analytics.

It also has a bonus chapter on Google’s PPC advertising and how to make the most of the algorithm to get more views and clicks. It also contains case studies for you to understand the concepts more clearly. You can get this book on Amazon.com, Kindle, and Audible as an audiobook.

3. Everybody Writes – Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley.

If you are in any services in content writing then this book is a must-have book for you. This is also one of the best SEO books to help you increase your knowledge of SEO. It will help you to know the great practices and strategies in SEO. It also focuses on grammar, punctuation, and the language of the content.

It gives you the knowledge to help you to attract and retain your customers with its content on SEO. It is written in easy-to-understand language and has detailed information on how to create good content. It contains 300 pages with fundamentals of writing and content marketing for creating blog posts, web pages, emails, and social media posts. It contains 6 parts to help you get the knowledge:

• How to Write Better: Handy scaffolding and blueprints for better thinking and writing.
• Writing Rules: Easy grammar uses and rules tailored for business in a good way.
• Story Rules and Publishing Rules: Infusing your content with heart, soul, and integrity with trust.
• Some ground rules of Journalism and publishing are also covered.
• Things Marketers Write – Super tactical look at typical marketing tasks.
• Content Tools: A reference list of resources and equipment to help you produce your best content.

It is a good companion to SEO which should be read by every serious marketer to produce ridiculously good content. The book is available on Amazon.com, Kindle and as an audiobook on Audible.

Here is a guide to SEO for Beginners

4. How to Get to the Top of Google in 2022: The Plain English Guide to SEO by Tim Cameron-Kitchen, Dale Davis, and Andrew Tuxford.

This book is written by Exposure Ninja, a digital marketing company based in the UK which is also an official Google Partner. This book is published in 2013 and is continuously updating its content concerning current strategies that help your website rank on top in Google and other search engines, making this book one of the best books to read.

With the continuous effort of being the best-seller on Amazon, with just 280 pages, this book teaches people effective SEO techniques. A few of the topics covered in this book are listed below:

• Easy and free ways to appear on the top page of Google.
• The necessary steps to consider are to be in the #1 spot using the most profitable keywords.
• Keep a tab on your competitor’s growth and use the strategies which are working for them on your website.
• Different methods for structuring your site, making it easy for Google’s web crawler to read it.
• Tips to get more traffic through blog posts to your website.
• Advice to approach and build good relationships with key publishers in your industry.
• Link Building methods for your site to get mentioned in newspapers.
• Designing effective and organized SEO strategies.

They have also included case studies from their SEO agency as well as some recommendations based on recent Google rankings. The authors have prioritized their highest-performing SEO growth in this book. This book gives you an overview of how Google works ways to improve your site’s visibility and tips and tricks for every business owner. The book is available on Amazon.com.

5. SEO for Dummies, 7^th Edition by Peter Kent

Primarily, this book was published in 2016 and is now in its 7^th edition latest released in December 2019. This is another one of the best SEO books for beginners if you are considering a career in SEO. This book is layman-friendly with the language used to explain the complex topics.

This “Dummies” series contains how to build an optimized website from the beginning to how to implement SEO strategies on social media. It also explains the difference between On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO with easy-to-understand language for the learners. The book includes the following topics:

• Creation of pages as per what the search engines love and hate.
• Use of structured Data Markup.
• Designing according to speed up your website.
• Planning of search engine strategies.
• How to target audience using valuable keywords.
• Optimization of your website completely.
• How to find sites that will link your site back.

This book is a beginner-friendly publication and coveys the basic concepts of SEO without overwhelming people. This book is good for you if you are interested in implementing SEO best practices step-by-step on your website. You can buy this book on Amazon.com and Kindle.

Also Read: Best SEO Tricks

6. SEO for Growth – The Ultimate Guide for Marketers, Web Designers and Entrepreneurs by John Jantsch and Phil Singleton.

As the title of the book suggests, it was written for the marketers, the designers, and the executives who can benefit from the book. As SEO information keeps on upgrading, it becomes hard to keep up with the tips and tricks used by people to increase the website’s traffic and rank on top of the search engine. This book is written about how you to do just that.

This is one of the best books to learn about SEO when you are not actively thinking about search engine optimization. The authors have explained how the websites have evolved from digital brochures to accomplished marketing platforms and how SEO and lead generation are important aspects of the web industry along with web designing.

This book also helps marketers, web designers, and business owners understand the important concepts of SEO behind search engine optimization without using technical language. It also explains some concepts other than SEO for business growth. The 219 pages book includes:

• Re-purposing content for multiple channels.
• Planning an editorial calendar.
• Usage of different social media channels to generate engagement with content.
• Building and managing your online reputation.
• How to handle negative reviews online.
• Different methods for doing quality link building.
• Ways to do keyword research.
• Optimizing your website content for better ranking in Google.
• How to use pay-per-click advertising most cost-effectively.
• Usage of analytics to track and analyze your performance.

You will also get recommendations from a top expert at the end of every chapter whom you can follow. This book is available on Amazon.com and Kindle and also as an audiobook, you can listen on Audio as well.

Recommended Read: SEO Courses in India

7. The Ultimate Guide on Link Building: How to Build Backlinks, Authority, and Credibility for Your Website, and Increase Click Traffic and Search Ranking by Eric Ward and Garrett French.

This book is an ultimate guide on link building which is one of the most important aspects of search engine optimization and an SEO learner needs to know link building. The authors have written one of the most important books on SEO and link building ever published and there hasn’t been any other book like this ever since it got published in 2013.

The most recent edition of the book was released in 2020 and it is one of the best SEO books that you should have on your bookshelves. This book covers everything you ever want to know about SEO and link building for professional use.

Many people face challenges in link building and this book will help you face those challenges with relevant information and ideas to make difference in your efforts. The authors have written this book in a way that anyone can easily understand the concepts of link building.

The Topics Covered in the Book Are:

• Making the website link-worthy.
• Building an effective link-building campaign.
• Key metrics are needed to measure the verify your success.
• Ways to create linkable assets that generate links more easily.
• Doing the link prospecting the right way.
• What are the methods to qualify your link prospects to build only high-quality backlinks to your website?
• How to design pitches for your outreach emails and how to handle responses.
• Finding effective guest post opportunities.
• Methods to do broken-link building campaigns the right way.
• How to scale up your link-building efforts to acquire more links in less time.
• Negotiating best deals to buy links.

The book contains every part of the link building of SEO providing plenty of ideas on how to find opportunities in any niche and giving advice that can apply to any type of website. Get this book on Amazon.com and kindle.

8. 3 Months to No. 1 – The “No-Nonsense” SEO Playbook for Getting Your Website Found on Google by Will Coombe.

To achieve extraordinary results for your SEO efforts within 12 weeks (i.e., 3 months) time, this book is designed by Will Coombe to become one of the best books. Will Coombe is an ex-airline pilot who learned SEO on his own to earn money online as a side hustle.

Within 2 years of giving a shot at SEO, he became so good at SEO and rankings that he was making more money online each day with his SEO skills than his hourly wage as a pilot. So, he finally quit his job as a pilot and became a full-time SEO consultant. He then co-founded the London SEO agency Sharpe Digital and wrote this book to help people to achieve success on Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

This book gives nothing special about SEO that you can not find on the Internet but it does help you to look for what you need, where to focus and when to use the knowledge in your SEO journey to riches.

Chapters 1 to 23 have the information related to SEO as the other books have such as on-page optimization, building links, content marketing, and social media for SEO but the real discriminator here can be found in chapters 24 to 26. In these final 3 chapters, the author has mentioned week by weak blueprint for how to use SEO for better effectiveness.

Topics Covered

• Online marketing 101 for any website.
• Personal advice for your business.
• How to discover money-making keywords.
• How to structure WordPress for SEO success.
• Configuring your site and nail the technical elements.
• How to build links.
• A crash course in content marketing.
• What on Earth you should be doing with your social media.
• Things to do differently when you’re a local business.
• eCommerce SEO
• Google penalty diagnosis and avoidance.
• Why it’s quicker to go “White hat” and not to try to cheat Google.

The book description on Amazon claims that you can get access to 3 hours of video tutorials. These videos will walk you through each step of the blueprint with a few tricks and tips along the way. To get access to these video tutorials, you need to register your copy of the book (Kindle or paperback) on Will’s website by giving the Amazon order number. Once verified, you can get access to those videos. Buy this book on Amazon and Kindle.

Frequently Asked Questions:

1. Is SEO useful in 2022?

SEO is very effective for any website. It does not just help the website to generate traffic but also generates leads and sales. Over 50% of traffic around the web entered websites is generated by clicking on them in organic search results. That means over 50% of the websites have invested in SEO to get more traffic across the internet. These websites rank on the top of the search engine’s results page and they are seeing over 90% of that traffic because of SEO.

2. Can I learn SEO on my own?

You don’t have to be an SEO specialist or an expert to learn how to use SEO independently. Do your research and study SEO and you will learn it in no time. This article on the 8 best SEO books will also help you to understand which book is more suitable for you.

3. What is the responsibility of an SEO specialist?

An SEO specialist identifies strategies, techniques, and tactics to increase the number of visitors to a website and obtain high-ranking placement on the search engine’s results page. The generates more leads for the business to create new opportunities for driving growth and profit.

4. How to practice SEO at home?

There are 6 steps to practicing SEO at home:

• Understanding the goal of SEO.
• Mastering keyword research.
• Understanding the difference between on-page and off-page SEO.
• Learn to identify UX signals.
• Embracing SEO-friendly content creation.
• Link building.

5. Do we have to pay Google to do SEO?

No. Google does not offer any services for SEO. Google is a search engine and they have created its algorithm to rank websites.

Wrapping It Up On 8 Best SEO Books for Every Beginner to Read

These are the 8 best SEO books for beginners to read in 2022. It doesn’t matter if you are just starting your career in SEO or you are a professional, each one of these books will help you learn something new. The right SEO strategy requires careful monitoring and thoughtful execution but with a dedicated approach, you can achieve more visibility on your website and help you rise the ranks. These 8 best books show that smart SEO makes a huge difference in your digital performance and attracts more potential customers.

Also, remember not to take everything you read on the internet about SEO seriously as some of it can hurt your website. These are called black hat tricks and some companies use such tricks to bring their competitors down. Always keep track of updates on books or articles published online as it’s a changing topic. These books mentioned above will help you get the knowledge on search engine optimization and help you grow in your career. Good Luck!!