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Just finished reading How to Win Sales & Influence Spiders by Catherine Seda. The book is divided into two sections. Section one deals with online public relations and includes discussions on SEO, blogging, press releases, etc - things that would help you earn higher ranking in the search engines, as well as attracting the attention of the press. Section two is a look at online advertising and how to make it more effective for your business.

The book is a great, non-technical introduction to these topics. It is not a resource for the experienced website designer or search engine marketer - but then, it was not created for those audiences. Instead, Seda provides an overview of website marketing, online public relations and online advertising for the business owner, focusing primarily on the potential benefits of these elements.

I would recommend this book to any business person who is trying to understand how the Internet can positively impact their business.

A few years ago, my business partner stumbled across a great web copywriting resource - Net Words, a book by Nick Usborne. The book is easy to read and to apply, regardless of your particular role in your business. We read, we learned and we used many of his principles for writing effective headlines,  powerful emails and dynamic website content. I recently rediscovered Mr. Usborne and his website Excess Voice, which contains tips, articles and a variety of other website copywriting resources (including a very useful newsletter). If you’ll be writing copy for the web, whether a few pages or thousands, I strongly recommend you check out his website - especially if you are interested in creating optimized copy that will help you with your customers and the search engines at once.