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Review by Compay:

I have developed several hundred websites over the last decade, optimized them for Google, and have literally made millions for my clients. So while most web marketing books may not present me with new techniques, I have still given five-star reviews to those that I think others would find useful.

Not only is this book a weak primer with plenty of page filler, but Perlman’s suggestions can actually hurt your marketing results. Chapter 4 is dedicated to your keywords meta tag, yet Perlman doesn’t realize nor does he mention that Google’s algorithms have completely ignored the keywords tag for years. When discussing title tags, he makes no mention of easy mistakes that will get websites penalized or even blacklisted from Google. Perlman encourages reciprocal link exchanges with other webmasters (with no mention of anchor text), but never explains that some links can be worthless, and others can get you banned from Google.

The only effective marketing angles that Perlman barely scratches the surface on are writing articles, press releases, and blogging. I can point out several books for the same amount of money that contain ten times as much useful information for newbies and designers alike, such as Web Marketing All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies, and Web Copy That Sells.

I bought this book (Amazon verified) because there were almost 50 glowing reviews. What I failed to notice was that 90% of the reviewers have written only one review. Most of them refer to the author by his first name, and suggest that they’ve been to his seminars. The testimonials in his book are from other authors, and not a single one of them are web developers or online marketing experts. Perlman himself seems to have no background in web design or internet marketing (there’s zero mention of either on his sites or in his book).

Countless other web marketing books will help you more in the long run, and will actually tell you how not to get banned from Google. I’m not even upset that I bought it, I’m upset that so many people new to web marketing will buy it, and do a major disservice to promoting their business.

Review by C. S. Frederick:

I purchased three SEO/online marketing books and “ebootcamp” was the worst out of the three. The the information in this book was made over simplified to the point that it was not worth buying. “SEO Made Simple” was shorter but had more precise/useful information. Unless you’re completely computer illiterate find something with more substance to spend your money on.

Review by Brad Shorr:

More than anything, The New Rules of Marketing & PR ties things together. The book provides an easy to understand yet comprehensive view of the new online marketplace–a landscape that can appear quite bewildering, even to marketing specialists. With so many options at our fingertips (literally), where do we start? Blogs? Podcasts? Public relations? SEO? Paid search? Viral marketing? The list goes on. To make matters worse, technology is changing and new tools are developing almost every day.

In the early chapters, David takes a high altitude look at online marketing options, showing us how they developed, why they’re important, how they work, and why they work. In later “Action Plan” chapters, he jumps into the trenches and shows us how to actually use the tools and implement programs. Throughout, he uses detailed case studies to illustrate not only the programs but the amazing results they can achieve.

But it isn’t just the latest and greatest technologies that are crucially important. Public relations, for example, has been around since Gutenberg but for the first time is practical for a small company. Traditional PR was cost-prohibitive and dependent on unreachable key media contacts. But in the new world–

“…your primary audience is no longer just a handful of journalists. Your audience is millions of people with Internet connections and access to search engines and RSS readers.” (Chapter 5)

Today, public relations may be the single most underutilized tool in the marketing arsenal.

Another “old” technology David brings us up to speed on is the corporate Web site. In fact, the three most important points I got out of The New Rules of Marketing & PR have enormous implications on traditional Web development.

Those key points are–

1. The most important New Rule is CONTENT. Design is important. Technology is important. But without extraordinary content, you’re doomed.

2. Interruption marketing (think spam and pop-up ads) has given way to consumer-driven marketing. Yippee! “The Web is different. Instead of one-way interruption, Web marketing is about delivering useful content at just the precise moment that a buyer needs it.” (Chapter 1)

3. The starting point for any New Rule program is to create customer personas. If you’re going to have extraordinary content that motivates buyers to take action, you’d better know your customers inside-out.

David explains how these three principles should influence not only your corporate Web site, but every other online program you undertake.

Thankfully, David is understandable as well as instructive. One reason I’ve enjoyed his blog for over a year is his conversational, entertaining writing style. He makes learning easy (which is harder to do than you might think). Anyway, his book is just like his blog–illuminating and fun.

The New Rules of Marketing & PR presents the most complete picture of any book I’ve read. For the marketing specialist, it will fill in the gaps. For the generalist, it will open up a whole new world.

Review by Jill Konrath:

By embracing the strategies in this book , you will totally transform your business. David Meerman Scott shows you a multitude of ways to propel your company to a thought leadership position in your market and drive sales – all without a huge budget.

From my perspective, the best thing about this book is that everyone can gain value from it. There are so many places you can start applying these new rules of marketing and PR. For example, I’m an experienced blogger, considered an expert in my field and already have a strong online presence. Yet I’m immediately going to start applying the lessons in Chapter 14: How to Use News Releases to Reach Buyers Directly.

Here’s what else I like about this book:

1. The author includes numerous examples from a variety of businesses in different industries & sizes that have all used these strategies for success.

2. The book shows you multiple venues to reach your buyers directly. This circumvents the high costs of mainstream media enabling firms who are running bootstrap operations to compete with the big boys.

3. The “how to” guidelines on leveraging news releases in a web-based world are excellent. You’ll learn how to create news on a regular basis, capitalize on various distribution services, focus on key words/phrases in your writing that are used by your buyers, and incorporate social media tags.

4. The insights on optimizing a website’s online media room for search engines is another easy-to-implement technique with high payback.

In summary, I guarantee you that your investment in this book will be paid back many times.

~ Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies

Review by Amanda Halm:

Web Marketing All-in-One for Dummies saved me from going bald. Just when I was about to rip out my hair, during yet another attempt at web marketing, I found this book. I’m no longer terrified of analytics, I now know PPC stands for Pay Per Click, not Personal Pan Cod, and I SEOed my way out of permanent damnation from the google Gods.

It’s informative, easy to read, and so hefty I now have Jennifer Aniston arms just from carrying it around. I’d recommend it to anyone starting an online business.

Review by Compay:

This book is easily one of the better primers for web marketing available today. While it doesn’t serve as a replacement for books dedicated specifically to one subject (SEO, writing copy, etc), it’s an excellent starting reference with a few new ideas for experienced web marketers.

Much of the first chapter (or “book” as it’s referred to by the authors) is a basic overview of establishing a web presence. While most of their suggestions can be easily found online, the sub-chapter on writing effective copy contains useful pointers that normally wouldn’t appear in design books.

The chapter on SEO offers an excellent breakdown for anyone not familiar with optimizing a site to rank well on search engines such as Yahoo and Google. If you’re already familiar with basic SEO techniques, though, don’t expect any new tips or techniques. This particular section of the book was seriously lacking, as evidenced by the author explaining how to optimize images, but not mentioning even the most basic of tips such as use of alternate image tags.

Chapter three, which covers Web Analytics, offers in-depth explanations of how to effectively track your visitors. This is followed up by a chapter on attracting those visitors to your website through paid advertising, and their techniques would definitely make this process easy for online marketing newbies.

Most of the Email marketing advice (save for writing copy) is impractical, as many advertisers use paid newsletter services that have eliminated the stress of manual email blasts.

The two best chapters of the book are easily the Blogging and Social Media marketing ones. Chapter six will explain everything an online marketing newbie needs to know about creating a blog, coming up with blogging ideas, and promoting your posts. Their techniques are immediately followed by methods of promoting yourself through social media websites such as Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, and a variety of Bookmarking sites. One thing this chapter does well is explain how to master the art of subtle promotion without appearing to advertise.

While I thought the chapter on Search Engine Optimization was severely lacking for a book dedicated to web marketing, as a whole I think this deserves five stars as a thorough primer.

Review by Bhavana Musuluri:

I’m stealing one of the often used words in the book to define the book itself – remarkable. This book is fantastic and easy to read. As you read each chapter, the authors take you through each step in successfully marketing your products. This book is not filled with theories, but it rather cleverly explains each winning strategy which is relevant in this day and age, and then sums up each chapter with a list of things to do to implement the strategy. The best part is that anybody who is willing to invest time and brains can use this book as a reference and start creating value to their company immediately and of course build on it overtime. The book shows new techniques that doesn’t require an old-school marketing guru with tens of years of experience. In fact, a person with a little bit of creativity can use this book to REALLY get customers and sell their products.

Couple of other things that I liked about the book are the particular examples (other organizations/blog articles/etc) that were provided and the cartoons – who doesn’t enjoy a chuckle every few pages?

Absolute bang for your buck and once you pick up the book, you will finish it!

Review by Neil Davidson:

This excellent book is aimed at the 99% of the business world who are faintly befuddled by the strange world of youtube and delicious that they find themselves living in. It’s aimed at plumbers, hairdressers, lawyers and oil company executives; at people in large corporations and small businesses alike who are dimly aware that their working lives are about to change – indeed, have already started to change in disconcerting ways – and who don’t know what to do.

The premise of the book is that the old marketing is dead or dying. Gone are the days where simply throwing money at print or radio advertising guaranteed succees. Instead, you need to engage your customers. Give them reasons to come to visit your web site, and once they are there give them reasons to come back again and again. Turn your web site into a hub, stuffed with remarkable blog posts, videos and interviews. As the authors put it (they have a pleasing way with words) “ten years ago, your marketing effectiveness was a function of the width of your wallet. Today, your marketing effectiveness is a function of the width of your brain.”

“Inbound marketing” is clearly – and explicitly – inspired by authors such as Seth Godin and David Meerman Scott. But where this book differs is in its emphasis on hands-on advice. Not only is it inspirational, but it’s also brimming with practical wisdom. Sure, it talks about the power of Twitter. But then it gives you advice on how to choose a twitter handle. Sure, it talks about the rise of the superstar blogger and the death of the press release. But then it talks about how to decide whether you need a PR agency and, if you do, then how you should hire one. Sure, it stresses that your employees will need to learn new skills if they are to survive in this new world. But then it talks about what those skills are, what steps your employees need to take to get them and how you can track how they’re doing. Each chapter contains a checklist of things you should do, right now, to start improving your inbound marketing.

This is no dry textbook. It’s full of anecdotes, some from the usual suspects (Whole Foods, Zappos and Barack Obama) but from others too: accounting software, a shutter manufacturer and a PR firm among others. It’s well written, and there are cartoons too.

Inbound marketing – get found using Google, social media and blogs is an excellent, mainstream introduction to new marketing. If you want to dip your toes into the cold water of social media then buy a copy. If you know all about social media then you almost certainly know people who need this book. Buy them a copy from Amazon. They’ll love you for it.

Review by Steve:

This was not my first book in the Guerrilla Marketing series. I have a great deal of respect for Jay Conrad Levinson. His books and his writing style hook me, they’re like reading great novels, fast-paced novels at that, his books are tough to put down. I always feel like he’s had about 6 cups of coffee and can’t even contain his excitement when he’s telling you what you need to know.

I think it is problematic when Levinson writes these books with other authors. I read GM in 30 Days which Levinson co-wrote, and that book was also a little sloppy. When Levinson is the co-writer, I don’t feel the energy all the way through the book, but I do in some parts and I feel I can tell who was writing in certain sections.

So, to GM on the Internet specifically. There probably isn’t much new here if you read the 4th edition of Guerilla Marketing, where Levinson starts talking about blogs, podcasts and websites, however, the ideas are discussed in more depth, a good thing for Guerrillas. The rest of the book is rather obvious if you’re a Guerilla. I have not read any other Internet Marketing books, nor will I, so I’m not sure if this one is par for the course.

There were many mis-spelling and improper word uses in this book. A specific example, on page 133 there is a paragraph that starts “If you’d if you’d”, so again, it’s just poor oversight, probably the publisher/editor’s fault, not necessarily the authors. On page 85 the word “covert” should have been “convert”.

If I were to point out the most helpful part of the book, it would be the web links provided, these were decent and I have started trying to get myself familiar with the ones I had not heard of. In the section on podcasting, the authors were very specific with the directions for creating a podcast. I wasn’t in front of a computer when I read that section, but I felt I could see every step. However, for all the detail there, there was not as much detail given to some areas where I personally felt I could have been enlightened, for example the sections about Search Engine Optimization, Affiliate Programs and Merchant Accounts were too short and what was there was too diffucult to comprehend.

Overall, I love the Guerrilla Marketing series. I do suggest this book because even if you’re an accomplished Guerrilla, this book is a relatively quick read and could be seen as an up to date (published in 2008) refresher course. If you’re not a Guerrilla, read this book, and then go back and read the main Guerrilla Marketing book and you’ll be all the better for it.

Review by T. L. Wilson:

This book sadly doesn’t live up to the hype. It reads as an advertisement for the services of the authors and even uses one of the authors as a case study.

The authors use every old marketing trick in the book to try to sell in the new internet world. Truly long online sales letters and one page websites that try to gather user data are not revolutionary and are a true turn off to lots of folks.

It is rare that I return a book but this one is going back.

Review by Thomas C. O’Malley:

Jan Zimmerman’s Web Marketing For Dummies gives you an excellent overview or summary of internet marketing tactics and strategies. She clearly helps you determine the purpose of your website and how to drive traffic to your website or landing page. She covers many topics from search engine optimization to blogging.

This book helps anyone who is starting online marketing and it provides an excellent checklist for experienced webmarketers. In fact, her Web Marketing Methods Checklist in chapter 2 is worth the purchase price of the book alone.

When you want to “drill deeper” on any particular online marketing strategy, you will then have to explore other online marketing resources and information. For example, Peter Kent’s Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing For Dummies provides thorough information about pay per click advertising, including Google Adwords.

In short, I highly recommend Web Marketing for Dummies for both new and experienced internet marketers.

Review by Lloyd Metcalf:

As a small tackle shop owner, and not a marketing Guru, I found this (as well as many of the Dummies books) to be worth every penny a hundred times over.

Because of this book, our web site and plan got an overhaul that WORKED. Straight forward advice, links and dos and don’t about getting your website out there, useable, web friendly, and real world ideas on how to bring qualified traffic to your site.

I would suggest this before you dump money into adwords, or any other strategy you find online at random.

We found connections inside to usability studies, digital customer service tips, real working costs of aquiring new customers, guerrilla marketing techniques.

Simply put, if you have a website, or are getting one, you need this book. I will be buying an updated copy with every new release to keep on the cutting edge of what REALLY works in the digital world.