SEO Tips from Matt Cutts (Mr. Google)

Matt Cutts is considered the face of Google which I think is brilliant because he is such a regular, unassuming guy and gives Google the persona of an approachable person.  Just brilliant!

In the video interview below with Jefferson Graham from USA Today, Matt Cutts answers questions about the “common sense” things you can do to have your website found in Google.

Below is a summary of Matt’s responses to Jefferson’s questions and my commentary:

Matt Cutts: In response to what is the #1 thing you can do to be found in Google: Use keywords in your website content which are actually being searched by people.

Bernie Borges: Duh…Absolutely!  But, this is a bit oversimplified.  First you must research keywords.  You shouldn’t assume your keywords are good.  You may be too close to your business to know which keywords are searched most frequently.  Additionally, some keywords are very competitive.  Keyword research will tell you which keywords are more and less competitive.  Often, the Long Tail keywords are the most effective.

Matt Cutts: Title Tags Matter.  Users see the Title tags first in the search results.  But, the description tag actually describes your web page listing in Google.  The description tag should be short but very well written about your web page.

Bernie Borges: Absolutely! But, many marketers make the mistake of using the same Title tags on each page.  Each page should have a unique Title tag and a unique description tag.  Optimizing many web pages will increase your chances of being found by Google. 

Matt Cutts: Links are Important: There are many ways to get legitimate links.  One of the best is to start a blog and participate in the conversations on the web.  A blog doesn’t have to be fancy.  You can talk about your customers, why you started your business, things about your business.  People will learn more about your business.  Give people compelling ideas from your blog and you will get links. Also, participate in other social media sites. 

Bernie Borges: I generally agree, but Matt makes this sound easy and it’s not.  Starting a blog requires development of a strategy, which requires research and planning.  Once you start a blog, you must be committed to it, or you’ll lose credibility for starting and stopping a blog.  Matt didn’t mention other link building strategies such as syndicating content, or SEO optimizing press releases.  Social media marketing can be very effective in link building, but it requires strategy, commitment and resources.  Not all businesses are able to make and follow through with this committment.

Matt Cutts: The most common misconception is that you have to pay Google to get listed in the organic listings.  Not true.  Google crawls web sites for free.  Another misconception is that the PPC (pay per click) listings will help your organic search engine rankings.  Not true.  PPC has no affect on your “editorial search results.”

Bernie Borges: This is aka “separation of church and state.”  Matt’s referall to organic listings as “editorial search results” is terrific.  Media firms have always maintained separation between advertising and editorial.  This is exactly the same principle.  This is 100%, indisputably accurate!

Matt Cutts: In response to: Does it take 3 to 6 months to get your website crawled?  No.  Google updates their index monthly and crawls all websites it can find for free.  Google also provides a free tool called Google Webmaster which allows you to list all your URLs to be found there in days, not months.

Bernie Borges: Absolutely!  We use Google Webmaster with our SEO clients.  It is a valuable tool which gives a lot of insight into how Google sees your website, including identifying broken links which you may not even know you had.

 

Bernie Borges Final Commentary:

While everything Matt Cutts said in this interview is 100% accurate, it is a bit oversimplified.  It’s a little like saying if you want to compete in a marathon, all you have to do is train 5 miles a day for 3 months, then 11 miles a day for 1 month prior to the marathon event.  The execution of such recommendations takes discipline, coaching and just plain hard work.

SEO is hard work!  I’m sure this sounds a little self serving, given that we provide SEO services.  My argument is that the details associated with these valid suggestions are plentiful.  A successful Internet marketing strategy requires planning, execution and measurement by resources with the know how and availability to get the job done.  Matt Cutts’ suggestions, while accurate, are also just a portion of an overall SEO strategy, for example, he made no mention of the importance of the technical architecture of your website, along with other important factors. 

Oh, one more thing.  I take exception with people who say that SEO is a one time process and once you’ve completed it you are done (Matt Cutts did not say this).  Whoa!  That is so far from the truth.  That’s like saying today is sunny and therefore I assume everyday going forward will be sunny…Others are doing SEO in your keyword space and you will lose ground if you stop working at it.  I will agree there is more effort required on the front end, but you should not just walk away from an SEO plan or you will see declining results, unless perhaps if you are a in very unique niche with little competition for your keywords.  

Your thoughts?

Sweat the SEO Details!

Below are show notes from this podcast.  Click the play button, or download it or subscribe to hear this podcast.

Sweat the SEO Details

Target Audience: SEO for marketers with websites with less than 100 pages of content. 
Content is still king
The more content the better
Search engines crawl your website to learn what your site is about
Commit to writing more content
Google measures who is linking to your content
A foundation of content is needed to get the full value of external links
Add sections to your website dedicated to content for search engines, e.g., Resources

Add “how to,” “faq,” “tips”, “best practices,’ “things to avoid.” Etc.

Links are important but content is the foundation of a good SEO plan
Great content will attract links
Add video with a text summary of the video

Home page is very important!

Has the greatest PageRank (PR)
Share home page content with other pages selectively
Don’t give away all your Google PR
Use Anchor text to link to other pages
Think SEF
Search engine friendly architecture
Good URL structure using keywords in the URL string
Use dashes to separate words in the URL
Clean, light and fast loading code
Put javascript files into a separate file and make a call to it
Meta data
3 components: Title, Description and keywords
Description very important: it’s what people read in the search engines
Test to see how your rankings are displayed.
Header tags (H Tags)
Tells the search engines which headings are intended to be noticed by them
Sitemap
Give the search engines something to crawl with links to every page in your website
Google sitemap
Give Google an XML based sitemap so they can score your site’s pages, links and other valuable statistics
Also lets you see how Google sees your website
You can fix problems like broken URLs you didn’t know existed
Google penalizes sites with technical problems
Think local
Set up a local listing in Google and Yahoo even if it’s only for your home office
Use a Google map on your contact page
Think multi media
Google and other search engines index images, videos and maps.
This outside the box
Outside links from authority sites, e.g., directories, blogs, syndication sites
Final thought
Remember that organic traffic is the most valuable traffic
More time spent, more pages viewed, lower bounce rates
Content is still king!
Links are important but must be supported by good content
Use SEF URLs
 

Content is Still King

I talk every day with clients and write often in this blog about the importance of links in any SEO strategy. Anyone who has spent more than ten minutes reading about SEO knows that back links are critical ingredient for organic search engine rankings.

One point I make often is that a good link strategy will yield limited results or no material results without a strong foundation of content. In fact, we say that (in round numbers) 30% of a website’s SEO success is based on “on page” factors. On-page factors refer to well-optimized content with good use of keywords, meta tags, header tags, search engine friendly URLs and optimized source code.

The math is obvious. We like to say that about 70% of a website’s SEO is based on off-page factors. Primarily, this refers to the extent to which others think your content is good. At first, this sounds very strange. How can others determine how good my content is? And, how can Google (and other engines) determine what others think?

Consider a comment made by a Google engineer at the Online Marketing Summit conference I attended last October. He said this: “Google doesn’t care about your content. Google cares about who cares about your content.” What he means, is when other content (on other websites) link to your content, they are “casting a vote.” for your content.

The Google technology explanation describes how this works.  Essentially, other web pages link to your content and Google considers that a “vote” for your content.

To accentuate this point consider how Google’s origin as Backrub, is based on this concept of keeping score of the popularity of your content.

So, if creating links to content is so critical to SEO success then why don’t we just go out and buy a g-zillion links to our content?  Well, some do.  First, consider that if you pay a site to link to you, that is frowned upon by Google and the other major engines.  We don’t condone it.

Let’s go back to the comment by the Google engineer.  In fact, Google does care about your content.  He went on to say that the more relevant, keyword-rich content you have (along with a search engine friendly architecture), the more links your content will naturally attract.

Then, if you pay someone to build legitimate links to your website (not pay the website to link to you), those links will be well supported by your content and provide good SEO value.

Now, let’s go back to the 30/70 ratio although, this is admittedly hearsay, not a statistic backed up by Google.  The point to this ratio is this.  If you build a strong foundation in your SEO plan with great, relevant content, then the links you get will carry weight in SEO value. 

Of course, the Google PR value of the source of the links counts as well.  The point here is that links without content are not effective.

So, it comes back to this – content is king!