SEO with PHP - a must-read for all programmers

One of my favorite SEO blogs is SEO Egghead by Jamie Sirovich. When I heard that Jamie was writing an SEO book for programmers, I jumped at the opportunity to get my hands on an advanced copy. Unfortunately since I've been swamped I'm just getting around to writing the review now, a few weeks after the book came out.

The book, officially titled Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP by Jamie Sirovich and Cristian Darie is one of the best resources I've ever encountered. I think I should preface this review with my background, because this book certainly isn't for everyone. I consider myself an above average PHP programmer, and I consider myself to have advanced SEO knowledge. Although I'm not actively soliciting SEO clients at the moment, I still have a lot of clients (including my own sites) that I'm still performing SEO services for AND am the programmer for.

I read several blogs each day to keep up with the latest in the SEO world. Every once in a while, I'll purchase an SEO book or access to a premium resource to see if there's anything I didn't know. For instance, last week I purchased SEOmoz's link building guide. SEOmoz is great, but to be honest with you I didn't learn anything - not that it wasn't great info, but it just wasn't info I didn't already know.

The primary thing I wanted to learn from Jamie's book was more effective URL rewriting (changing sl.com/page.php?product_id=1 to sl.com/page/product_1.html). URL rewriting helps with indexing, but also helps produce URL's that will help click-through-rates on search results and be more memorable to visitors.

I didn't expect much else. Boy was I wrong. Not only do they have an extensive chapter on URL rewriting, they also covered:

• An extensive explanation of SEO and WHY it's important, something I didn't expect.
• Sitemap generation (another thing I needed better code for)
• Black hat SEO techniques, an interesting read to learn what bad SEO's do...I learned a few things.
• Foreign language SEO, something I've never really encountered but was very interesting.
• Specific tutorials for Wordpress and an eCommerce site
• Geo-Targeting
  
• Link building strategies, something I didn't expect it to cover but they did a surprisingly good job
  

The best part is that you'll find all of the PHP scripts you need for SEO in one spot. I've accumulated many of my scripts over the years piece by piece, and it's taken a long time and a lot of testing. These all work out of the box, and that saves time, stress, and money.

Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP hit's it out of the park. It's easily the best book out there for a PHP programmer looking to step up their SEO skills...or an SEO looking to step up their PHP skills.