Book Review: How to Best Optimize Blog Posts for SEO: 25 Tested Tips Writers Need to Know Now

If you are a blogger and after reading SEO from the featured book title you stopped, scratched your head, looked around to make sure no one was around and asked yourself aloud, “What the hell is SEO?” Then you need to click on the following title and purchase a copy of Rachel Thompson’s How to Best Optimize Blog Posts for SEO: 25 Tested Tips Writers Need to Know Now. Go on, I’ll wait. The link will open in another window, so you don’t have to worry about losing me. The Kindle price is a mere $0.99, and if you have Kindle Unlimited, it’s your lucky day, you can read it for free. In full disclosure, I requested to read Rachel Thompson’s book, in exchange, I committed to writing a book review. The truth? Had Rachel not sent me the book, I would have broken the bank and paid the measly $0.99 to read the book, and I would have written the review anyway because that’s what I do (I write book reviews) when I am not working on my own manuscript or reading for pleasure.

I feel obligated to tell you more about SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO) after I chided you about there being a possibility of you not knowing what SEO is. You can relax because believe it or not, not everyone knows what SEO is or understands how it works. That’s OK, but it’s not OK to not give it further consideration. Every blogger and website owner should be well acquainted with SEO because this is what drives traffic to your blogs and websites. We all know what search engines are, but do you know how to make them work for you? Do you want your blog or website to be found when someone types something into one of the search engines that are related to you or your product? Without knowing anything about SEO, you may as well be sitting dead in the water. SEO is a part of marketing yourself. Rachel Thompson has another book titled The BadRedhead Media 30-Day Book Marketing Challenge, and although it was written for marketing books, it is also a must-have book for writers, bloggers, and businesses. Unfortunately, Rachel has not gifted me this book, but I will get it, one way or the other.

But let’s talk about Thompson’s book How to Best Optimize Blog Posts for SEO: 25 Tested Tips Writers Need to Know Now since that’s why we are here. I will then give you some tidbits of information on the book I don’t yet have. However, I know enough about the book to peak your interest. This is why I linked the book to Amazon, should you make the smart decision to purchase the book today when you buy How to Best Optimize Blog Posts for SEO: 25 Tested Tips Writers Need to Know Now. By the way, have I mentioned how funny Rachel is? I personally don’t know how she has time to be so hilarious as she has her hands in everything from authoring, marketing, advocating and more, but I’ll get to all that later. You’ll find out for yourself how funny Rachel is when you read How to Best Optimize Blog Posts for SEO: 25 Tested Tips Writers Need to Know Now. Rachel’s comical self-shows up at the beginning of her introduction. She writes, “When I talk with authors about optimizing their blog posts for SEO (Search Engine Optimization), most look at me as though I’m speaking in tongues.” Pretty funny, right? Oh for the love of God, please don’t let it be known that you don’t understand what speaking in tongues means. Google it!

There’s more of Rachel’s humor in her introduction, but you will have to read it for yourself as I have four books waiting to be read. However, I do want to touch on a few of the essential tips that Thompson provides in her book. Did you know how vital your headlines and permalinks are in SEO? Immensely so! And Thompson gives you the scoop on both topics in her book. How about captions? According to Thompson, “Captions under images are read on average 300% more than the body itself…” And photos! I had no idea there was so much to know about photos; we upload them, and we are on our way, right? Not so fast, cowboys and cowgirls. There is a plethora of information to know about photos, and Thompson covers everything on pictures from A to Z.

Keywords, Categories, and Tags are just as relevant as everything else Thompson covers in her book. Just as I have yet to figure out where she chisels the time to be funny, I was happy to find she also sculpted the time to provide step-by-step instructions for completing the more complicated tips she gives. But that’s not all Thompson offers, she also provides sources, so there’s no need to waste your time googling and getting yourself all worked up in having to make another decision. Everything you need to know is in Rachel Thompson’s book, How to Best Optimize Blog Posts for SEO: 25 Tested Tips Writers Need to Know Now. I will admit, without shame, after reading her book I have a lot to learn on all 25 topics in this ‘must have’ book. But I feel less dopey knowing I now have a great go-to resource that is user-friendly and not complicated as so many other books on SEO are. I intend to reference this book each time I blog until I am as certain as Rachel Thompson is about SEO. I can’t tell you how helpful this book will be to you, but I can tell you I don’t write to please the author. I write to tell you, my reader, what my thoughts are on a book and whether I believe the book will be beneficial to you, and in this case managing your blogs and websites. Just in case I haven’t been clear enough on what my recommendation is, Rachel Thompson’s book How to Best Optimize Blog Posts for SEO: 25 Tested Tips Writers Need to Know Now is a ‘must have’ book if you have a blog or website. Period.

I will quickly share what I know about Rachel’s second book I previously mentioned, The BadRedhead Media 30-Day Media Book Marketing Challenge. I talked about SEO being part of marketing your blog, your website, your product, whatever it is you are marketing. In this book, Thompson is more inclusive in marketing and writes about all things marketing. Topics include Twitter secrets, and if anyone knows anything about Rachel Thompson when it comes to Twitter, it is Rachel Thompson that has Twitter’s official little blue bird. She obviously knows something. Additionally, she addresses must-dos for your Facebook page, gives you additional Social Media Ideas, talks about Marketing Secrets such as  Promotions and Giveaways, as well as sharing additional blogging and website SEO advice.

Because I wrote so much I linked both of Rachel Thompson’s books to Amazon to simplify purchasing so, you don’t have to scroll back to the top. The book links will open in separate tabs. I failed to mention that while BadRedhead Media 30-Day Media Book Marketing Challenge published in December 2016, the book has been updated for 2018. Both books are a must, especially if you are an author, blogger, manage a website for other products, etc.. Must haves! Both books!

I can’t end this blog post without talking about Rachel Thompson, or without providing you with links to visit and follow Rachel. So without further ado here is Rachel Thompson’s Official Bio taken from her BadRedhead Media website:

Rachel Thompson is the author of the award-winning, bestselling Broken Places (one of IndieReader’s “Best of 2015” top books and 2015 Honorable Mention Winner in the Los Angeles and San Francisco Book Festivals), and the multi-award-winning Broken Pieces, as well as two additional humor books, A Walk In The Snark and Mancode: Exposed.

She released the BadRedhead Media 30-Day Book Marketing Challenge in December 2016 to rave reviews, with an updated ebook and print version in December 2017. She also published an SEO mini-book just for writers in February 2018 which immediately shot to #1 on 5 lists! You can purchase that here for only 99c.

She owns BadRedhead Media, creating effective social media and book marketing campaigns for authors. Her articles appear regularly in The Huffington Post, IndieReader.com, FeminineCollective.com, Medium, and Mogul.

Not just an advocate for sexual abuse survivors, Rachel is the creator and founder of the hashtag phenomenon #MondayBlogs, the weekly live Twitter chat, #SexAbuseChat, co-hosted with C Streetlights and Judith Staff (every Tuesday, 6pm pst/9pm est), and #BookMarketingChat (every Wednesday 6pm pst/9pm est), helping authors learn all kinds of great tips to market their books!

She hates walks in the rain, running out of coffee, and coconut. She lives in California with her family.

Rachel also created #NaNoProMo – National Novel Promotion Month in May, which Rachel refers to 2018 being the inaugural year. #NaNoProMo is “a month-long initiative of tips, resources, and daily giveaways from experts across the book marketing and publishing industry — all free, all to help YOU, my author friends, get a handle on your author promotion efforts. The only effort you need to make is to visit my blog daily to read awesome expert posts and leave a comment (IF you want to enter to win that day’s giveaway from my terrific experts).” I can speak from experience in telling you that Rachel rocked #NaNoProMo last month. If you haven’t picked up on it by now, Rachel Thompson sacrifices a lot of herself to help others succeed. Follow #NaNoProMo on Facebook and Twitter.

You can read more about Rachel Thompson and the services she provides on her website: BadRedHead Media and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, Amazon, and Goodreads.  You will find contact information for Rachel whether it’s to email her or to get Advertising information, and BadRedhead Media Services on her website.