If you are in SEO for a while you have heard about SEO Book and SEOmoz Premium Membership where you pay for an access to quality content and resources that will help you boost your SEO skills and continue to grow in this area.
“The Marketing Pilgrim Essays” ebook that is given away for free is an example that both publishing scenarios coexist in the SEO world. In the beginning I thought it would be 20-30 pages ebook and I will read it through within an hour. It came out it is a collection of 68 Essays on Improving Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Advertising and Social Media Optimization. Marketing Pilgrim is sharing this precious knowledge with you and will be happy if you recommend this 163 pages book to others and/or subscribe to their RSS.
Andy Beal did a great job by gathering all these articles as well as bringing judges and sponsors on board. I am just wondering what will be the future of SEO Books? Are we going to pay for them or there will be more and more available free of charge? I know it is a bit like comparing ASP and PHP but are there proportions that will keep SEO ebook market in balance? Are there any boundaries when giving SEO knowledge for free? Sharing matters but should we limit it somehow?
9 comments ↓
For me, I’m not really giving this book away for free. The book has a lot of value. In reality, I’m paying the $xx per download as a marketing expense. You get the book for free, but only because I subsidize its value based on the publicity for my blog.
Andy, I will be happy to publish more information regarding this project. There is no doubt that the book has a lot of value. The unique thing is the way you distribute it and I thought it is worth discussing.
Marketing Pilgrim is one of these blogs I check every day…however as far the future of free seo content is concerned, while free advice can be very valuable, I think if you really want to be at the very top of SERPs you have to invest and pay for content, and that’s fair enough. The most important point is to do your research, ask fellow seos for opinions, and make sure the paid content will be useful for you or your clients’ business models.
Paul,
Another example of a free SEO ebook is Dan Thies’s fast start. It is excellent material.
While those free ebooks are good for building traffic for their respective publishers, their information is not as in depth or as frequently updated as a paid e-book such as Aaron’s.
Honestly, for a process that is constantly being rewritten and changed, printing a book with steps to take and tools is like trying to release a LaserDisc in today’s DVD market.
For example, it takes about six months from final copy to press to get a book printed. What has changed in the SEO world in six months? XML sitemaps, Google Analytics, Webmaster tools, PPC aquisitions. By the time the book hits the shelves it’s already outdated.
I think sites like this and SEOMoz and SearchEngineWatch are truly where the advice and help should be coming from. Instead of forcing someone to fork over $30-$50 for a thick text that has the possibility to be useless before it leaves the shelf, offer premium services with more of the detailed SEO/SEM help like SEOMoz offers.
Just my $.02
Sure, Haggis, printed books will never be up-to-date in the SEO world but what about eBooks? I am happy to invest a few $ in high quality content because I know I pay for experience and knowledge packed in the user-friendly form. Andy’s project is quite unique, and although you does not pay for it, you still got a value, and his name as well as people supporting this eBook, only confirm that.
My hunch is that SEO books will become free. I know I wouldn’t pay for one. I would pay for someone to spend time on social networking sites promoting my blog of course. I agree with Haggis because change is happening so rapidly that even SEO is practically out of date. Viral Marketing is key.
I think this debate extends beyond SEO specifically; why do people pay for any information online? If you look hard enough, you’ll likely find it or something similar for free, but a lot of people don’t want to spend the time.
I appreciate what people such as Andy are doing (thanks Andy - I’m gonna download it next!); I hope he gets some value out of it by promoting his site. I also understand why people charge as well though. There is a lot of money to be made if you have information people are looking for…
Andy did a great job and there is no doubt this was a part of his marketing - to drive visits, build reputation etc. I believe that there will always be free available but to get high value information you will have to pay for it.
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