A new issue of the Search Engine Marketing Standard is out, larger and better.

In our review of the first issue of the only paper based search engine marketing periodical in the world, we concluded that it was well worth the price. And indeed, the second issue confirms that the magazine is a must read for anyone remotely connected to search engine marketing.

The main complaint about the first issue was that it was too thin. Moreover, Pandia as well as other argued that while the magazine was very good at delivering material useful to beginners, it was not equally well targeted towards the advanced search engine marketer.

In July Boris Mordkovich of Search Engine Marketing Standard told us that the fall issue would get 30% larger than its predecessor and contain more intermediate to advanced material as readers have requested. So it does.

Among the articles of this issue we find:

• Improving your click through rates with mod_rewrite
• Search engine reputation management
• A review of the Search Engine Marketing Kit from Sitepoint
• A case study covering the European spam filter SPAMfighter
• An interview with search engine marketing expert Nick Usborne

So there is more for the search engine marketing professional.

This remains the kind of magazine you can show to your non-SEO-savvy boss to teach him or her about the importance of search engine marketing, however. Eric Ward contributes, for instance, with a beginner’s guide to link building and Tyson Kirksey has a popular article on risky SEO techniques.

Kevin Gold’s article on landing pages is also written in a style that is easily understandable by anyone with a general knowledge of the web.

Is there still room for improvement? Yes, of course, it is human to strive for perfection and not reach it. What we would like to see next is an insider’s take on the search engine marketing business.

For instance: Who are these black hat SEO people and what are they doing. We would like to see a critical, but open-minded, interview with one of the professional search engine spammers.

Furthermore, what was really happening in the Danny Sullivan case? Brett Tabke has a great take on this story in his robots.txt blog. We would love to see the Standard bringing them both into a room, discussing the industry from an expert’s viewpoint.

To conclude: The Search Engine Marketing Standard is already an important source of search engine marketing information and analysis and it keeps getting better.

The price is US$ 15 a year in the US, a bit higher for us here in Europe. You can get it at smstandard.com.

See also: Search Engine Marketing Standard Blog