My company uses the tag line “Velocitize Your Web Marketing”. So you know that when I saw the title of Arnie Kuenn’s book, Accelerate!, I had to read it. Well, that and (full disclosure) he asked me to write a chapter introduction. (He also mentions me on page 147, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Arnie is a good friend, but a lot of people I know write books and not all of them are good books. Arnie’s isn’t just good, it’s great! Accelerate! takes you through the ins and outs of online marketing from primarily a content development perspective and how it influences search, social and link building efforts.

If there is one chapter that really stood out (and no, it’s not the one I wrote an introduction to!) was Chapter 7: Sixteen Examples of Content for Your Business. No where else will you find a more complete list of ready-to implement content strategy options that will help you build a better website, reach your audience, and engage with your customers.

But that’s just one chapter, the rest of the book is chock full of suggestions, ideas, strategies and ways to implement a successful online marketing plan for your business. As Arnie puts it, in the Internet age, we are all publishers and successful businesses have to act like one. Accelerate! will show you how.

• Winning, Jack Welch
• Hard Goals: The Secret to Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be, Mark Murphy
• Anointed for Business: How to Use Your Influence in the Marketplace to Change the World, Ed Silvoso
• The Truth about Leadership: The No-fads, Heart-of-the-Matter Facts You Need to Know, James Kouzes & Barry Posner
• Accelerate!: Move Your Business Forward Through the Convergence of Search, Social & Content Marketing, Arnie Kuenn

Entertainment

• Merciless, Robin Parrish
• The Bride Collector, Ted Dekker
• Trader of Secrets, Steve Martini

Personal

• How to Argue & Win Every Time: At Home, At Work, In Court, Everywhere, Everyday, Gerry Spence
• Change Agent: Engaging your passion to be the one who makes a difference
• The Rules of Engagement: The Art of Strategic Prayer and Spiritual Warfare, Cindy Trimm
• 4 Keys to Hearing God’s Voice, Mark Virkler
• Tender Warrior: Every Man’s Purpose, Every Woman’s Dream, Every Child’s Hope, Stu Weber
• The Invisible War: What Every Believer Needs to Know about Satan, Demons, and Spiritual Warfare, Chip Ingram
• Courageous Living: Dare to Take a Stand, Michael Catt

Real Life

• Inside the Revolution: How the Followers of Jihad, Jefferson, and Jesus Are Battling to Dominate the Middle East and Transform the World, Joel Rosenberg
• The Obama Diaries, Laura Ingraham

Currently Reading

• New Testament Apocrypha, Ante-Nicene Fathers
• Havah: The Story of Eve, Tosca Lee
• Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight, Karl Rove
• Decision Points, George W. Bush
• Rediscovering the Kingdom, Myles Monroe
• Hearing God’s Voice: Seven Keys to Connecting with God, Vern Heidebrecht

Books on deck

• Defining Conservatism:The Principles That Will Bring Our Country Back, Jonathan Krohn
• Marketing Shortcuts for the Self-Employed: Leverage Resources, Establish Online Credibility and Crush Your Competition, Patrick Schwerdtfeger
• Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind, Tim Groseclose
• Known and Unknown, Donald Rumsfield
• Brand Like A Rock Star: Lessons from Rock ‘n Roll to Make Your Business Rich and Famous, Steve Jones
• Bloom County: The Complete Library, Vol. 5 1987-1989, Berkeley Breathed
• The Twelfth Imam, Joel C. Rosenberg
• The Litigators, John Grisham
• The Tehran Initiative, Joel C. Rosenberg
• Corridor, Robin Parrish
• Micro, Crichton & Preston
• Forbidden, Dekker & Lee
• Nightmare, Robin Parrish
• Vigilante, Robin Parrish
• Six Action Shoes: A Brilliant New Way to Take Control of Any Business or Life Situation, Edward De Bono
• Think Big and Kick Ass: Make It Happen in Business and Life, Donald Trump
• Social Media Marketing: Strategies for Engaging in Facebook, Twitter & Other Social Media, Liana Evans
• Jesus, CEO: Using Ancient Wisdom for Visionary Leadership, Laurie Beth Jones

• In Charge: Finding the Leader Within You, Myles Munroe
• Now, Build a Great Business!: 7 Ways to Maximize Your Profits in Any Market, Mark Thompson and Brian Tracy
• The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures, Dan Roam

Entertainment

• The Confession, John Grisham
• Bloom County: The Complete Library, Vol. 4, Berkely Breathed

Personal

• The Measure of a Man, Gene A. Getz
• 10 Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe, Lary Osborne
• Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive, John Eldredge
• Everyone’s Guide to Demons & Spiritual Warfare: Simple, Powerful Tools for Outmaneuvering Satan in Your Daily Life, Ron Phillips
• The Apocrypha, Joseph Lumpkin
• Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God, Dallas Willard

Real Life

• Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God, Francis Chan
• Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, Tavris & Aronson
• Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War, Mark Bowden

Currently Reading and Tweeting

• The Obama Diaries, Laura Ingraham
• How to Argue & Win Every Time:At Home, At Work, In Court, Everywhere, Everyday, Gerry Spence
• The Bride Collector, Ted Dekker
• Winning, Jack Welch

Change Agent: Engaging your passion to be the one who makes a difference

• New Testament Apocrypha, Ante-Nicene Fathers
• Inside the Revolution: How the Followers of Jihad, Jefferson, and Jesus Are Battling to Dominate the Middle East and Transform the World, Joel Rosenberg
• Merciless, Robin Parrish

Books on deck

• Havah: The Story of Eve, Tosca Lee
• Defining Conservatism:The Principles That Will Bring Our Country Back, Jonathan Krohn
• Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight, Karl Rove
• Hard Goals: The Secret to Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be, Mark Murphy
• Marketing Shortcuts for the Self-Employed: Leverage Resources, Establish Online Credibility and Crush Your Competition, Patrick Schwerdtfeger
• The Rules of Engagement: The Art of Strategic Prayer and Spiritual Warfare, Cindy Trimm
• Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind, Tim Groseclose
• Known and Unknown, Donald Rumsfield
• The Truth about Leadership: The No-fads, Heart-of-the-Matter Facts You Need to Know, James Kouzes & Barry Posner
• Anointed for Business: How to Use Your Influence in the Marketplace to Change the World, Ed Silvoso
• Accelerate!: Move Your Business Forward Through the Convergence of Search, Social & Content Marketing, Arnie Kuenn

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey
• Overcoming Crisis, Myles Munroe
• Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones, Joseph Jaffe

Entertainment

• Fever Dream, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Personal

• Just Walk Across the Room: Simple Steps Pointing People to Faith, Bill Hybels
• Raising a Modern-Day Princess: Inspiring Purpose, Value and Strength in Your Daughter, Pam Farrel and Doreen Hanna
• Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul, John Eldredge and Stasi Eldredge
• Inside Out, Larry Crabb
• Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream, David Platt
• The Fatherhood Principle: Priority, Position, and the Role of the Male, Myles Munroe
• Holy Ambition: Turning God-Shaped Dreams Into Reality, Chip Ingram

Real Life

• Going Rogue: An American Life, Sarah Palin
• Obama’s Wars, Bob Woodward

Currently Reading and Tweeting

• The Measure of a Man, Gene A. Getz
• Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God, Francis Chan
• The Confession, John Grisham
• Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, Tavris & Aronson
• In Charge: Finding the Leader Within You, Myles Munroe

Books on deck

• Utopia, Lincoln Child
• Tyrannosaur Canyon, Douglas Preston
• Death Match, Lincoln Child
• The Codex, Douglas Preston
• Havah: The Story of Eve, Tosca Lee
• Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War, Mark Bowden
• He’s Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys, Greg Behrendt
• The Obama Diaries, Laura Ingraham
• Ten Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe, Lary Osborne
• Defining Conservatism:The Principles That Will Bring Our Country Back, Jonathan Krohn
• Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight, Karl Rove
• How to Argue & Win Every Time:At Home, At Work, In Court, Everywhere, Everyday, Gerry Spence
• Hard Goals: The Secret to Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be, Mark Murphy
• Now, Build a Great Business!: 7 Ways to Maximize Your Profits in Any Market, Mark Thompson and Brian Tracy
• The Bride Collector, Ted Dekker
• Winning, Jack Welch
• Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive, John Eldredge
• From Eternity to Here: Rediscovering the Ageless Purpose of God, Frank Viola
• Marketing Shortcuts for the Self-Employed: Leverage Resources, Establish Online Credibility and Crush Your Competition, Patrick Schwerdtfeger

• Branded Male: Marketing to Men, Mark Tungate
• Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t, Jeffrey Pfeffer
• The Soccer Mom Myth, Michele Miller & Holly Buchanan
• Buy-In: Saving Your Good Idea from Getting Shot Down, John P. Kotter and Lorne A. Whitehead
• Turn Clicks Into Customers: Proven Marketing Techniques for Converting Online Traffic into Revenue, Duane Forrester
• The Truth about Leadership: The No-fads, Heart-of-the-Matter Facts You Need to Know, James Kouzes and Barry Posner

Entertainment

• Bloom County: The Complete Library, Vol. 3: 1984-1986, Berkely Breathed
• The Rule of Nine, Steve Martini

Personal

• The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God, Brent Curtis and John Eldredge
• Raising a Modern-Day Knight: A Father’s Role in Guiding His Son to Authentic Manhood, Robert Lewis

Real Life

• Sounding Forth the Trumpet: 1837-1860 (God’s Plan for America), David Manuel and Peter Marshall

Books on deck
This is a list of the books I am either currently reading or are stacked up on my nightstand to be read as soon as I can get to them.

• Thunder of Heaven, Ted Dekker
• Eaters of the Dead, Michael Crichton
• The Bourne Identity, Robert Ludlum
• Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul, John Eldredge
• Tested Advertising Methods, John Caples
• Your Gut is Still Not Smarter Than Your Head: How Disciplined, Fact-Based Marketing Can Drive Extraordinary Growth & Profits, Kevin Clancy
• The Anatomy of Buzz: How to Create Word of Mouth Marketing, Emanuel Rosen
• The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with Masters of the Craft: David Ogilvy, William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, Rosser Reeves,, Denis Higgins
• Fever Dream, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
• Utopia, Lincoln Child
• Tyrannosaur Canyon, Douglas Preston
• Death Match, Lincoln Child
• The Codex, Douglas Preston
• Havah: The Story of Eve, Tosca Lee
• Raising a Modern-Day Princess: Inspiring Purpose, Value and Strength in Your Daughter, Pam Farrel and Doreen Hanna
• Going Rogue: An American Life, Sarah Palin
• Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul, John Eldredge and Stasi Eldredge
• You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up: A Love Story, Annabelle Gurwitch and Jeff Kahn
• The Measure of a Man, Gene A. Getz
• Teach Yourself Google Analytics in 10 Minutes, Michael Miller
• Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War, Mark Bowden
• Obama’s Wars, Bob Woodward
• He’s Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys, Greg Behrendt
• Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God, Francis Chan
• The Obama Diaries, Laura Ingraham
• Ten Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe, Lary Osborne
• Defining Conservatism:The Principles That Will Bring Our Country Back, Jonathan Krohn
• The Confession, John Grisham
• Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight, Karl Rove
• How to Argue & Win Every Time:At Home, At Work, In Court, Everywhere, Everyday, Gerry Spence
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey
• Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones, Joseph Jaffe
• Hard Goals: The Secret to Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be, Mark Murphy
• Now, Build a Great Business!: 7 Ways to Maximize Your Profits in Any Market, Mark Thompson and Brian Tracy
• The Bride Collector, Ted Dekker
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin: or, Life Among the Lowly, Harriet Beecher Stowe

• Surrounded by Geniuses: Unlocking the Brilliance in Yourself, Your Colleagues and Your Organization, Alan S. Gregerman
• Everyone Communicates, Few Connect: What the Most Effective People Do Differently, John C. Maxwell

Entertainment

• When Heaven Weeps, Ted Dekker
• Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer, John Grisham
• Impact, Douglas Preston

Personal

• In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars, Mark Batterson
• The Journey of Desire: Searching for the Life We’ve Only Dreamed of, John Eldredge

Books on deck
This is a list of the books I am either currently reading or are stacked up on my nightstand to be read as soon as I can get to them.

• Thunder of Heaven, Ted Dekker
• Eaters of the Dead, Michael Crichton
• The Bourne Identity, Robert Ludlum
• Sounding Forth the Trumpet: 1837-1860 (God’s Plan for America), David Manuel and Peter Marshall
• Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul, John Eldredge
• Branded Male: Marketing to Men, Mark Tungate
• Tested Advertising Methods, John Caples
• The Soccer Mom Myth, Michele Miller
• Your Gut is Still Not Smarter Than Your Head: How Disciplined, Fact-Based Marketing Can Drive Extraordinary Growth & Profits, Kevin Clancy
• The Anatomy of Buzz: How to Create Word of Mouth Marketing, Emanuel Rosen
• The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with Masters of the Craft: David Ogilvy, William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, Rosser Reeves,, Denis Higgins
• The Rule of Nine, Steve Martini
• Fever Dream, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
• Utopia, Lincoln Child
• Tyrannosaur Canyon, Douglas Preston
• Death Match, Lincoln Child
• The Codex, Douglas Preston
• Havah: The Story of Eve, Tosca Lee
• Going Rogue: An American Life, Sarah Palin
• Raising a Modern-Day Knight: A Father’s Role in Guiding His Son to Authentic Manhood, Robert Lewis
• The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God, Brent Curtis and John Eldredge
• Raising a Modern-Day Princess: Inspiring Purpose, Value and Strength in Your Daughter, Pam Farrel and Doreen Hanna
• Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul, John Eldredge and Stasi Eldredge
• You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up: A Love Story, Annabelle Gurwitch and Jeff Kahn
• The Measure of a Man, Gene A. Getz
• Teach Yourself Google Analytics in 10 Minutes, Michael Miller
• Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War, Mark Bowden
• Obama’s Wars, Bob Woodward
• He’s Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys, Greg Behrendt

• Pull: Marketing Secrets The Fortune 100 Use, Keith Chambers
• Audience, Relevance, and Search: Targeting Web Audiences with Relevant Content, James Mathewson, Frank Donatone, Cynthia Fishel
• Marketing in the Age of Google: Your Online Strategy IS Your Business Strategy, Vanessa Fox

Entertainment

• Heaven’s Wager, Ted Dekker
• Bloom County: The Complete Library, Vol. 2: 1982-1984, Berkeley Breathed
• The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown
• Ford County: Stories, John Grisham

Personal

• Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices, Frank Viola
• For Parents Only: Getting Inside the Head of Your Kid, Shaunti Feldhahn and Lisa A. Rice

Real Life

• Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman
• I Will Teach You To Be Rich, Ramit Sethi
• Tea with Hezbollah: Sitting at the Enemies Table Our Journey Through the Middle East, Ted Dekker and Carl Medearis

Books on deck
This is a list of the books I am either currently reading or are stacked up on my nightstand to be read as soon as I can get to them.

• When Heaven Weeps, Ted Dekker
• Thunder of Heaven, Ted Dekker
• Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer, John Grisham
• Eaters of the Dead, Michael Crichton
• The Bourne Identity, Robert Ludlum
• Sounding Forth the Trumpet: 1837-1860 (God’s Plan for America), David Manuel and Peter Marshall
• Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul, John Eldredge
• The Journey of Desire: Searching for the Life We’ve Only Dreamed of, John Eldredge
• Branded Male: Marketing to Men, Mark Tungate
• Tested Advertising Methods, John Caples
• The Soccer Mom Myth, Michele Miller
• Your Gut is Still Not Smarter Than Your Head: How Disciplined, Fact-Based Marketing Can Drive Extraordinary Growth & Profits, Kevin Clancy
• The Anatomy of Buzz: How to Create Word of Mouth Marketing, Emanuel Rosen
• The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with Masters of the Craft: David Ogilvy, William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, Rosser Reeves,, Denis Higgins
• Impact, Douglas Preston
• The Rule of Nine, Steve Martini
• Fever Dream, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
• Utopia, Lincoln Child
• Tyrannosaur Canyon, Douglas Preston
• Death Match, Lincoln Child
• The Codex, Douglas Preston
• Havah: The Story of Eve, Tosca Lee
• Going Rogue: An American Life, Sarah Palin
• In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars, Mark Batterson
• Raising a Modern-Day Knight: A Father’s Role in Guiding His Son to Authentic Manhood, Robert Lewis
• The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God, Brent Curtis and John Eldredge
• Raising a Modern-Day Princess: Inspiring Purpose, Value and Strength in Your Daughter, Pam Farrel and Doreen Hanna
• Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul, John Eldredge and Stasi Eldredge
• You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up: A Love Story, Annabelle Gurwitch and Jeff Kahn
• The Measure of a Man, Gene A. Getz
• Surrounded by Geniuses: Unlocking the Brilliance in Yourself, Your Colleagues and Your Organization, Alan S. Gregerman
• Teach Yourself Google Analytics in 10 Minutes, Michael Miller

• The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t, Robert I. Sutton
• Hundred Percenters: Challenge Your Employees to Give It Their All, and They’ll Give You Even More, Mark Murphy
• Scientific Advertising, Claude C. Hopkins
• State of Search Engine Marketing Report 2010, EConsultancy & SEMPO
• Google SEO Report Card

Novels

• Guardian of Lies, Steve Martini
• Digital Fortress, Dan Brown
• Flashforward, Robert J. Sawyer
• Pirate Latitudes, Michael Crichton

Personal

• Finding God in the Shack: Seeking Truth in a Story of Evil and Redemption, Roger E. Olsen
• Better Dads, Stronger Sons: How Fathers Can Guide Boys to Become Men of Character, Rick Johnson

Real Life

• Bad Boys of the Black Hills…And Some Wild Women, Too, Barbara Fifer
• Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life, Winifred Gallagher

Books on deck
This is a list of the books I am either currently reading or are stacked up on my nightstand to be read as soon as I can get to them.

• Bloom County: The Complete Library, Vol. 2: 1982-1984, Berkeley Breathed
• Heaven’s Wager, Ted Dekker
• The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown
• When Heaven Weeps, Ted Dekker
• Ford County: Stories, Ted Dekker
• Thunder of Heaven (Martyr’s Song, Book 3), Ted Dekker
• Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer, John Grisham
• Eaters of the Dead, Michael Crichton
• The Bourne Identity: A Novel, Robert Ludlum
• Sounding Forth the Trumpet: 1837-1860 (God’s Plan for America), David Manuel and Peter Marshall
• Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices, Frank Viola
• Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman
• I Will Teach You To Be Rich, Ramit Sethi
• Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul, John Eldredge
• The Journey of Desire: Searching for the Life We’ve Only Dreamed of, John Eldredge
• Branded Male: Marketing to Men, Mark Tungate
• Pull: Marketing Secrets The Fortune 100 Use, Keith Chambers
• Audience, Relevance, and Search: Targeting Web Audiences with Relevant Content, James Mathewson, Frank Donatone, Cynthia Fishel
• Marketing in the Age of Google: Your Online Strategy IS Your Business Strategy, Vanessa Fox
• Tested Advertising Methods, John Caples
• The Soccer Mom Myth, Michele Miller
• Your Gut is Still Not Smarter Than Your Head: How Disciplined, Fact-Based Marketing Can Drive Extraordinary Growth & Profits, Kevin Clancy
• The Anatomy of Buzz: How to Create Word of Mouth Marketing, Emanuel Rosen
• The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with Masters of the Craft: David Ogilvy, William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, Rosser Reeves,, Denis Higgins

• Confessions of an Advertising Man, David Ogilvy
• Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through to a Better Business Model, John W. Mullins
• Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell
• Trade-Off: Why Some Things Catch On, and Others Don’t, Kevin Maney
• My Life in Advertising, Claude C. Hopkins
• Choosing a PPC Management Pricing Model, Search Marketing Now
• Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion, Gary Vaynerchuk

Novels/Entertainment

• Kiss, Ted Dekker and Erin Healy
• A Girl of the Limberlost
• Bloom County: The Complete Library, Vol. 1: 1980-1982, Berkeley Breathed
• Cemetery DanceDouglas Preston and Lincoln Child
• BoneMan’s Daughters, Ted Dekker
• Offworld, Robin Parish

Political/Historical

• Fox’s Book Of Martyrs: A History Of The Lives, Sufferings And Triumphant Deaths Of The Early Christian And Protestant Martyrs, William Byron Forbush
• From Sea to Shining Sea: 1787-1837 (God’s Plan for America), David Manuel and Peter Marshall

Personal

• The Way of the Wild Heart: A Map for the Masculine Journey, John Eldredge

Most of these books can be picked up for free (plus shipping) from my Bookins trade list.

Books on deck
This is a list of the books I am either currently reading or are stacked up on my nightstand to be read as soon as I can get to them.

• Guardian of Lies, Steve Martini
• Digital Fortress, Dan Brown
• Bloom County: The Complete Library, Vol. 2: 1982-1984, Berkeley Breathed
• Flashforward, Robert J. Sawyer
• Pirate Latitudes, Michael Crichton
• Heaven’s Wager, Ted Dekker
• The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown
• When Heaven Weeps, Ted Dekker
• Ford County: Stories, Ted Dekker
• Thunder of Heaven (Martyr’s Song, Book 3), Ted Dekker
• Eaters of the Dead, Michael Crichton
• The Bourne Identity: A Novel, Robert Ludlum
• Bad Boys of the Black Hills…And Some Wild Women, Too (Bedside Reader Series), Barbara Fifer
• Sounding Forth the Trumpet: 1837-1860 (God’s Plan for America), David Manuel and Peter Marshall
• Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life, Winifred Gallagher
• Finding God in the Shack: Seeking Truth in a Story of Evil and Redemption, Roger E. Olsen
• Better Dads, Stronger Sons: How Fathers Can Guide Boys to Become Men of Character, Rick Johnson
• Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices, Frank Viola
• Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul, John Eldredge
• The Journey of Desire: Searching for the Life We’ve Only Dreamed of, John Eldredge
• The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t, Robert I. Sutton
• Hundred Percenters: Challenge Your Employees to Give It Their All, and They’ll Give You Even More, Mark Murphy
• Scientific Advertising, Claude C. Hopkins
• Branded Male: Marketing to Men, Mark Tungate
• Tested Advertising Methods (Prentice Hall Business Classics), John Caples
• The Soccer Mom Myth, Michele Miller
• Your Gut is Still Not Smarter Than Your Head : How Disciplined, Fact-Based Marketing Can Drive Extraordinary Growth & Profits, Kevin Clancy
• The Anatomy of Buzz: How to Create Word of Mouth Marketing, Emanuel Rosen
• The Art of Writing Advertising : Conversations with Masters of the Craft: David Ogilvy, William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, Rosser Reeves,, Denis Higgins

I’ve had a copy of Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer, on my shelf for over a year now and had just recently gotten around to reading it. I picked it up once, read 10 pages, put it down, and “more important” books came along.

Once you get past the first few chapters, which read like a Google Website Optimizer infomercial, Testing is an important book on not just the necessity to test, but the how-to and the what. It’s the latter part that makes Testing such a great resource.

Obviously the authors can’t tell you everything that you need to test, there’s just too much for that, but they do provide some great examples along with questions and ideas for you to start thinking in the right direction.

You don’t have to be a testing expert for Testing to make sense. Aside from a few math-geek pages the book is remarkably easy to read, understand and get yourself into implementation territory.

Cunningly Clever Marketing
Andrew Wood

I was actually pretty impressed with this book. More so than I would have thought. You can read my full review here.

The Sticking Point Solution: 9 Ways to Move Your Business from Stagnation to Stunning Growth During Tough Economic Times
Jay Abraham

I don’t have much on this one. I read it early in the quarter and nothing stuck. I guess I better start writing up my synopsis immediately after reading!

Ogilvy on Advertising
David Ogilvy

I enjoyed this a lot. Not much here pertained to SEO, though I did get a blog post or two out of it. Regardless of the angle (advertising) there is a lot of information that could easily be transferred over to marketing and even SEO.

Every now and then I get requests to review books. I was recently asked if I would review a book by Andrew Wood titled Cunningly Clever Marketing. When I received the book what struck me first is that this was obviously a self-published book. The cover wasn’t much to look at and the book itself was about twice as heavy as it needed to be since each page is the glossy type typically used for picture books.

But you can’t always judge a book by it’s cover, and Cunningly Clever is no different.

There are quite a few typos throughout the book, but that’s to be expected of most self-published books. What I liked most is the brevity of each chapter. The book contains 145 chapters with the longs being three or four pages. Most chapters are a little over a page and a half. While this may seem like overkill, it makes for a very easy read, and even easier to digest.

Most of the information in this book can be found by reading dozens of other business marketing books. But I think that’s just the point. Why read dozens when you can read one, putting all this information at your fingertips, where you can easily re-read, re-reference and re-find when you need.

This year PubCon went really crazy with sessions, running a keynote and 4 sessions each day. And, to cram in even more information, there were six tracks to chose from! Doing the math, that’s 31 topics to choose from in one day. Truly something for everyone. With so much going on, it wasn’t possible to live blog or even create a wrap up at the end of the day. Thus I am pulling my wrap up together for the entire week in one post.

And then since 15 summaries is too much for anyone to deal with, I’m just going to give you the takeaways from my favorite sessions.

PPC Engine Vendor Panel

If you’ve ever been to any conference, you’ve at one time or another sat in on a vendor panel. And typically, I think the feeling is that if you’ve been to one, you’ve been to them all and there’s no point in attending another one. Well, with PPC it’s always nice to get an update on what might be new in each. For example last year I was excited to hear first hand (before any blogs posted about it) how MSN adCenter were releasing their keyword tool to integrate with Excel (07). Cool stuff.

This year I got excited to learn some stats from the Ask.com rep Dustin Kwan. He emphasized the importance of spreading your presence across a variety of vendors. He mentioned how Ask has a larger percent of the search traffic over MSN, saying that 2/3 of searchers don’t use MSN, and of those, 1/2 of them don’t use Google. Interesting point, and something to consider for my clients who are looking for more presence in the search world.

Yahoo Search Marketing rep Patrizio Spagnoletto told us how Yahoo have fine tuned their geo-targeting down to the zip code, which having that ability is pretty cool.

AdWords rep Frederick Vallayes mentioned something new in the Geo Reports, that you can find where clicks are coming from. Important information to have, helps you fine tune your geo targeting. Why pay for advertising and clicks in regions that don’t convert as well? Or with this information, create a geo-targeted campaign and spend more money in the regions that convert well.

Not much of a takeaway from MSN adCenter rep Doug (last name??) beyond his focus on improving ROI using 3 metrics of Market Change/Technology/Knowledge. He did recommend the following @adCenterBlog on twitter and staying current with adCenterCommunity.com

Navigating the Complex World of PPC Engines

The big take away here is Christine Churchill of KeyRelevance, she’s just totally awesome every time I hear her speak. She gave us a big list of copy “secrets that sell” … excellent take aways, easy to follow, easy to implement.

The big bullets that I grabbed (although I did get her entire list) are:

• Know what differentiates your ad
• Provide incentive to click
• Talk about benefits
• Use psychology – add humor and get their attention
• Use DKI – when it works
• A/B test your ads
• Pre-qualify clicks with ad text to eliminate those unwanted clicks

Top-Secret Tools of the Trade

This session was great – I have a list of tools to check out. Some of which I have seen and used, but there are others that I’ve not so I’m interested in looking into them further. I’ve recently found analytics to be FUN to play with. I want to check out Caphyon and DupeCop

Fun Stuff

Had some time to do fun stuff in Vegas too, including walking blisters into the soles of my feet … Spent a bunch of money, did the roller coaster at NY NY, the rides on the Stratosphere, and saw the Cirque du Soleil, KÀ. Even taught a friend how to lose money gambling. Ye ha!

That wraps up the wrap up … until next year…

• The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki
• The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk!, Al Ries & Jack Trout
• The Appeal, John Grisham
• Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex, John Gray
• The Irresistible Offer: How to Sell Your Product or Service in 3 Seconds or Less, Mark Joyner
• Marketing and Advertising Using Google: Targeting Your Advertising to the Right Audience (PDF), Google
• The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success, Brian Tracy
• Talent Is Never Enough: Discover the Choices That Will Take You Beyond Your Talent, John Maxwell
• The Day I Died, Steve Sjogren
• Shadow of Power: A Paul Madriani Novel (Paul Madriani Novels), Steve Martini
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey
• The 5 Paths to Persuasion: The Art of Selling Your Message, Robert Miller and Gary Williams

I’ve never claimed to be a programmer but working in SEO means that I’m involved in creating or editing hundreds of pages over the course of a year. Understanding how CSS works, and being able to implement basic to more advanced CSS strategies, has become essential over the past few years. Until now I’ve only had a rudimentary knowledge of CSS. The CSS Anthology has helped me grow my knowledge significantly on the topic.

I’ll admit that I didn’t follow the coding examples line by line, but that’s the beauty of this book. You don’t have to be a CSS programmer to be able to follow it. The great benefit of this book to the non-programmer like me, is simply knowing what kind of styling tricks can be accomplished via CSS. It’s easy to search for CSS tricks once you know what can be done, but until you do, then searching can be a shot in the dark. That’s what makes CSS Anthology such a good reference.

At 400 pages, it’s actually a very quick read unless you study all the CSS code examples provided. If you’re like me, you burn right past them which leaves you with probably about 150 pages of actual reading. But it’s all very valuable material. I can say that I have a much firmer grasp on what can be done with CSS and as I look to implement some of these tricks on the sites I work on I’ll frequently be referring back to the book.

The women have severe cohesiveness issues, thanks largely due to Omorosa. On the other hand, the guys, who work very well together, had some pre-task fireworks themselves. Which brings me to…

Business Lesson One: Save the animosity for the opposing team, not your own

Some personalities just seem to have a hard time working together. But you can’t let personality clashes get in the way of team performance. Not everybody can be a leader, and sometimes you’ve got to know when to step off, step back, and put your personal opinions aside.

Piers Morgan and Stephen Baldwin are very different. They have different styles of leadership and their own way of doing things. These two clash.

But at the same time they have (so far) been able to put that behind them in order to get things done. It was actually funny to see them laughing at themselves later in the episode. They know they clash, but they don’t let that get in the way of victory.

Even opposing personalities can work together, and in business, you’ve got to make differences work for you rather than against you. If you’re going to have animosity, save it for the other team. Learn to put differences aside with your own teammates so that you can press on to achieve the goals laid out before you.

Business Lesson Two: If you can’t compete, get off the field

Some competitors are not meant for certain fields. Just because someone succeeds in one area doesn’t mean they’ll automatically succeed in another. This is especially important when bringing in new people to your team.

In the world of business, many people think that just because they are strong and have shown victory in one area that they can easily transfer that over into another. Some people can do that, but most of the time, people can’t. Ever see Trump dabble in technology? He doesn’t because that’s an area he doesn’t know. Trump tries to stick to doing things where he has a much higher chance of success.

Jennie Finch is a gold medal softball player. She’s tough on the field, and she is used to asserting herself to bring her team to victory. That’s her field. The Apprentice is not. All her wins on the softball field wasn’t enough to bring her victory in a different arena. And she seemed to recognize that a bit.

Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is essential to success. If you find yourself in an area of weakness and you realize you just don’t have what it takes, be smart and get off the field. Nobody likes losing and it doesn’t make sense to continue in an area where victory is unlikely, especially when you can get back to your own area and dominate.

Conclusion

I don’t think Vincent Pastore turned out to be a particularly effective leader. I’d hate to see good people get fired off the girls’ team just because the guys’ team has some particularly effective leaders.

After dabbling with the stock market for a couple of years and finding both moderate success and spectacular failure, O’Neil’s book “The Successful Investor” pretty much confirmed what I already knew. I was doing this all wrong. That’s the depressing part. But the good part is that O’Neil teaches you how to do stock investing right.

“The Successful Investor” outlines five steps that every stock investor needs to know. Complete with stock charts and visual illustrations, O’Neil provides a very easy to understand step-by-step instruction for wise investing. Of course as the cliche goes… it’s easier said than done.

While O’Neil teaches you how to read stock charts, he makes it look much easier than it is to the non-professional investor. I’m certain that with practice–and O’Neil makes this point in the book–one gets better and better at it. But even while going through the five steps, knowing how and where to get the information you need before you invest is extremely time consuming. I’m certain it would be much easier if we all knew what stocks to watch, but that’s up to each investor overall.

I definitely would recommend this book to anyone investing in the market. Even if you can’t immediacy put all of the steps to use you’ll learn a great deal about the market and you’ll have a much better idea of how and when to invest in what than most people do now.

• How To Make the No-Follow A Blessing and Not a Curse: Advanced Internal SEO
• 5 More Free Tools To Improve Search Engine Optimization
• Four Reasons To Avoid Using Dates In URLs

Link Building

• Link Building Tips
• Link Building Ideas, Teach a Man to Fish and He’ll Bring You… Links
• What’s Your Link Building Marketing Mix? – Part 2

Social Media

• 5 Steps to Become a Better Social Media Marketer
• 31 Days to Becoming a Better Blogger
• Promoting Your Media

I didn’t know what to expect going into The Eye’s Have It. I know Kevin Lee’s reputation in the SEM industry, which is good, as well as his thoughts on the SEO industry (which can be way off base) so I’m sure those things colored my perception before I even began to read. But I have to say that whatever you know or think of Lee, this book is well worth reading.

The book takes you through a lot of the history of marketing, but not as a “here is how things used to be done” but more as a way of using the past to explain the future of marketing. Lee and Baldwin did a fantastic job researching the days of marketing past and exploring that under the light of the new age of digital marketing.

Upon closing the back cover you’ll feel breathless with the wealth of information covered as well as the ignition of new thoughts and ideas for creating forward thinking marketing campaigns. I’ve probably learned more from this book about marketing than any book I’ve read last year. But the trick now is to take this information and to translate it into new results for the new advertising age we are in.

I think that by now everyone pretty much agrees that words are an important part of your website and your online marketing campaign. While a picture may be worth a thousand words, sometimes just a few words can provide the right mental picture your audience needs in order to make that final buying decision.

For many business owners, writing can be a daunting task. Sure we know our products and services inside and out and putting what we know into words is easy enough, but that’s about as far as it gets.

Is that enough to sell? Sure.

Could more be done to sell better? You bet!

Continue reading at Search Engine Guide…

Seth Godin who has written 11 books to date including Purple Cow as well as being an entrepreneur and highly respected speaker has another great book for us to read, Meatball Sundae. I truly enjoyed yet again his getting to the point writing merged with real-life business examples. Godin doesn’t focus on the negative instead he illustrates through words what a company did and what they could have done better and on the flip side what they did and what he thought was amazing about it. He also includes many websites that should be looked over as examples or used in your new marketing strategy. Godin gets into old marketing and new marketing how they differ and why old marketing is not the future or the present. He touches on, The Long Tail theory coined by Chris Anderson which is also one of SEOmoz’s must read books. Godin explains why direct communication with your customers is more important then ever and how one person can effect your business by using direct communication. It’s up to you to make it a positive comment or a negative one.

Quote from Meatball Sundae:

“If the New Marketing can be characterized by just one idea, it’s this: Ideas that spread through groups of people are far more powerful then ideas delivered at an individual.”

This book is written for the busy bee it has an executive summary and gets to the point in only 232 pages.

Seth’s Blog is another good resource to look over and see what point he’s making today or even in the past. I signed up for it about a month ago and have found it to be refreshingly informative and useful. He also has free ebooks which touch on subjects such as website design, blogs and the new web.

In my opinion Godin’s success thus far has come by doing exactly as he preaches and not being knowledge greedy. He focuses on the success of others and doesn’t hold back knowledge because of insecurities; which you’ll find in the business world a lot. People who are so focused on keeping all the best knowledge to themselves in fear of their jobs, let it go. Once you build others up you’ll find they are thankful and want to help you succeed as well. Try it, you’ll be surprised how much more of an asset to your company you’ll become.