I think such books are helpful for a starter for basic concept but as Moong said SEO changes so rapidly that you always need more research and analysis and on above a good learning skills.
I was totally unaware of SEO when I first came here. I didn't even know what SEO stood for.....had to look it up. So......the book has helped me to learn some basic stuff and this forum helps me keep up with changes. Just wish I could remember all of it and apply it to my site. It sounds like something that changes everyday would cause all webmasters to go make changes on their sites every day. I'm sure it doesn't work that way.
I was an absolute noob when I started. My employer picked me basically at random from the office pool to work on his SEO project. I read the Dummies book and worked with our webmaster to apply the principles. I don't think our results were that bad - we brought our company out of nowhere to first page rankings on Google within six months. I'm planning on buying the latest edition of the book, even though my 18 mos. as a SEO wonk is coming to an end in a couple of days. I'm moving to a new organizationwhere AFAIK, I won't need to use my SEO skills!
SEO isn't all that hard, but the other poster is right that it takes more than SEO to make money. Unless you consider on-page layout and other conversion tactics part of SEO.
I started learning SEO at this new job and have realised that although it's very simple in concept, ti can be very hard in reality because of competition. I am not sure (maybe the more experienced guys can say) but I think its a "comes with practice" skills.
I think also because it is constantly changing, which isn't a bad thing, as it keeps us on our toes, its interesting to say the least, like a race that you never quite finish.
I can't believe the blind arrogance a bit of knowledge seems to breed in some people. I can only presume by this statement that the "SEO for Dummies" book contains recommendations to use the table designs you consider "stupid". Maybe we should call the publishers and tell them that JdeVAlk thinks they should recall the x million copies they've sold, and fire their SEO expert. Maybe they need to apologise to us all for publishing such stupidity. Or, perhaps you could just add some VALUE to the thread by explaining yourself to the many readers who, although possibly ignorant of SEO, are very unlikely to be stupid. Thanks, though, for leading me to explore the DP Forums "Reputation" button.
You completely misunderstood what he was trying to say. He was implying that there is a large group of webmasters that are ingnorant to SEO best practices - which creates the demand for SEO consultants and instructional books on SEO. He was responding to this: