The best online marketing books don't tell you the "how" of the art, but how to apply it. So if you have a book or an e-book that you want to get into the marketing game, you must be willing to make the investment of some time and money into learning more about it.

The most common mistake people make when buying marketing books is reading from cover to cover. It's not uncommon for a person to buy a book by reading just the first page, even if they haven't taken any action yet.

More often than not, the biggest benefits of the best digital marketing books will come as you become more involved with the material. It's easy to buy a book and forget that you're actually learning something when you reach the end of it.

In truth, the best digital marketing books can save you tons of time by telling you exactly what to do when it comes to SEO (search engine optimization). If you already know this, you're ahead of the game.

A better question to ask is whether or not you're willing to invest your time into learning the things that can help you get more traffic. It's far too easy to simply toss a few dollars at a marketing book that tells you what you already know and feel good about yourself for getting what you already think you already know.

Again, the biggest benefit of the best digital marketing books is what they can do for you. There are a number of aspects of marketing that you need to understand in order to successfully do so.

For example, keyword research is a vital component of SEO. If you're going to use keywords to drive traffic to your site, you need to get familiar with how they work and how you can optimize your website so that search engines can find you easily.

But the biggest benefit of the best digital marketing books is that they'll teach you these skills and then show you exactly how to apply them. At the very least, you can see these things work in practice before you spend any money.

Quick tip: The book that shows you how to implement the fundamentals in the most effective way should always be the one that's the most comprehensive. This is because the very basics aren't as important as the next step.

There are marketing books that focus on the little things and these are great for what they are: They can serve as an introduction to SEO. So, instead of buying a book that tells you "here's how to get traffic," you can pick up a book that focuses on traffic generation.

If you're just starting out in an online business, the best marketing books out there are those that are tailor-made for you. These will save you lots of time and money in the long run because they're going to be effective.

At the same time, you'll know what to expect in terms of results in your offline businessif you're already doing something else. You won't just be wasting your time with a book that tells you what you already know.