SEO book suggestions

Beginner needs a real nuts and bolts book to walk him through SEO

[Zookeeper]

I'm pretty much a noob with this stuff. I know there are lots of online resources (such as this site) but for me to really put in the work needed for something that is bound to be a real grind I need a physical book sitting on my desk guiding me through the steps. Can anyone recommend a physical book (not an e-book) I can get that will take a novice and walk him through the steps of improving his site's search engine rankings?

[Webwork]

I suspect that by the time the physical book gets to print a good chunk of it's SEO advice will be a bit outdated. :-/

OTOH, whatever hours you might spend reading the book might be equally well invested reading the library threads [webmasterworld.com] in this forum as well as other WebmasterWorld forums.

I'm not sure where the best place is to start reading but member/admin "Tedster"'s threads about "information architecture" are pretty high on my list.

Then I'd spend some time in the Link Development Forum of WebmasterWorld . . after I spent some time reading threads about "original/quality content". No point in reading about "the best ways to get links" if your website doesn't offer anything worth linking to.

Of course the nature of organic linking may be shifting around a bit so you might was to do some reading about "social media" and "social media marketing".

SEO ain't quite all about titles, meta tags and keyword density but you might benefit from reading current thoughts on the topic.

Of course, there is the classic thread by Mr. WebmasterWorld, Brett Tabke, about 12 months to a successful site:

[webmasterworld.com...]

And his comments/analysis related to "theme pyramids":

[webmasterworld.com...]

That ought to get you started. :)

[Zookeeper]

I suspect that by the time the physical book gets to print a good chunk of it's SEO advice will be a bit outdated. :-/

I've seen that sort of statement before. By that reasoning a good chunk of the advice one could find on Webmaster world is outdated as well. For example, the two threads you recommended are 6.5 and 7.5 years old respectively.

OTOH, whatever hours you might spend reading the book might be equally well invested reading the library threads in this forum as well as other WebmasterWorld forums.

Thanks but as I stated I would most likely get more out of a structured work that systematically walks me through it. I know there are lots of posts here and elsewhere with valuable information. But swimming through an ocean of disconnected posts and articles will take far longer for me to get an organized picture of what I need to do than a well written and focused book on the subject. I'll be taking advantage of information I can gather here and elsewhere on the web but only as a secondary source initially.

A colleague recommended "Get to the Top on Google: Tips and Techniques to Get Your Site to the Top of the Search Engine Rankings -- and Stay There " by David Viney. It's on its way from Amazon now. If anyone is familiar with that book and considers it outdated (because of it's content, not because it's a printed book) I'd appreciate hearing feedback on it.