The other day I was asked to review Bob Phibbs’ new book, The Retail Doctor’s Guide to Growing Your Business: A Step-by-Step Approach to Quickly Diagnose, Treat, and Cure
Of course I’m looking at this book from a different angle than others who will review it. I want to know if this book really helps small business owners dominate their space on the web. I want to know if I would recommend it to you based on that criteria. Before I tell you my answer, let’s discuss how the book addresses marketing your business online.
Marketing Your Business Online
First, the book devotes one chapter to marketing your business online. I was surprised at how well researched this chapter was. Much of the information Phibbs provides is right on the money and current. But I found one glaring omission.
On page 180, he lists 5 things that determine your web site ranking on the search engines. But he leaves off one of the most important factors in getting high search engine rankings. He doesn’t talk about how backlinks, the links from other websites to your website, affect your search engine ranking. He doesn’t talk about anchor text in your links either. Big mistake.
How Search Engine Experts Get You Higher Rankings
Most search engine optimization experts spend the majority of their time getting better quality and more backlinks for their clients. If you do everything else wrong, but have higher quality backlinks with the right “anchor text,” your website will rank higher on the search engines.
He also says your source code is the same thing as your “meta description tags.” That is wrong. Meta description tags are part of your web page’s source code – they aren’t one and the same. But your meta description tag is extremely important for search engine optimization. All-in-all this is a minor flaw.
If I were to grade the search engine ranking part of this book, I would give it a “C” or even a “D.” Omitting backlinks from this chapter is too big of an error. But the rest of the chapter contains top notch information that is fairly current. His information on Twitter and Facebook includes good examples you’re able to easily learn from.
Is there a good reason for you to read this book?
A few years back I ran a retail store called the Sportsman’s Gallery. In one year my team and I increased revenue from $240K annually to close to $500K annually. But after reading this book, I know I could’ve done a better job.
In The Retail Doctor’s Guide to Growing Your Business, Bob shares information on managing the financial health of the business. He shares information about hiring and training your team. He includes information about merchandising and store traffic flow. He also includes a lot of information on what you should be looking at weekly to keep your retail store on track for growth. He does a great job in these areas.
Despite the search engine ranking issues with the book, the other chapters more than make up for these deficiencies. There are several great lessons any independent retailer can learn in this book. It doesn’t matter if you’re a new business owner or if you own a multi-generational family business, this book teaches retail management and marketing for whatever ails you.
Interview with Bob Phibbs on Thursday, July 15th
If you want to learn more about this book and Bob Phibbs, visit this blog on Thursday, July 15th. I interview the good doctor right here. You’ll be able to listen to the interview from your computer or download the MP3.
Sincerely,
Doug Stewart
“Giving You the Power to Fight the Big Boys!”
