Whitehat SEO Tips for Bloggers
by Patrick Havens
Shows an example of a Web Owner who thinks that Google hates his website.
“weak magnets are lose.” - this guy claims he’s being oppressed by Google. Censorship!
If you view source on the page you find a text area full of just text. Hundreds of words, in a 20 pixel box.
Edit: Matt Cutts made a post today (7/25/07) on his blog about the guy. He included graphics and a longer description of what he had done (then I had noted here).
Matt Cutts Plugin he uses:
- Akismet
- Math Comment Spam Protection
- Google analytics
- Feedburner
- Democracy
- SEO title (swap name-title)
- Love/hate WP-Cahche
Plugins he’s considering
- Brians’ threaded comments
- Comment karma
- (will posts slides on site and I’ll update)
Don’t put blog at root of domain
- What if you want something besides a blog?
- People link to a main pageand a main blog page so you get extra links
Name Directory Blog (not wordpress)
- Case you change
- If you upgrade.
SEO Tips
various keyword tools: AdWords, Overture/Yahoo
Use a varient of the word in post slug verses title.
use categories that a good keywords
- dashes are best
- next best is underscores
- no spaces are worst
Keep it simple, and search engines will like it.
Don’t change your site, its not worth the hassle.
use alt tags on your images, 3-4 relevant words
don’t forget image search and video search.
Full sentence verses a few words? the scoring algorithms don’t mind unless it actually notices the spam.
Question marks or Hashmarks? They get truncated.
Usability
- make sure your site is crawlable
- make sure post creation dates are easy to find
- Check blog on a cell phone/iphone
- I recommend ful-text RSS feeds to get loyal users. Partial feeds get page views, but not much love.
- Your blog should do standard pings.
Moving to a new webhost
How to switch from one ip to another
- (optional) reduce your time-to-live
- Back up your site. Bring up on new IP.
- Watch Googlebot & user traffic until they fetch from the new IP
- take down old site.
Try to use the same stylesheet verses different page. He sugegst different stylesheet.
use Alex Kings iphone plugin.
Moving to a New Domain
- Standard advice: use a 301 (permanent) redirect
- Even better: pick one subdirectry andmove it fast
- If the traffic stays roughly the same on teh desired domain.
- ZOtherwise take time to figure out why
- standardize your backlinks (www vs. non-www)
- Write to everyone: ask them to update their links.
Free Google Tools
- Webmaster Console
- Feedburner
- MyBrand for free
- Custom Search Engine
- AdSense
- <!– google_ad_section_start –>
- <!– google_ad_section_end –> TLA Ads?
- Google Analytics
Webmaster Console
- Test out robots.txt before pushing live
- Submit an authenticated spam report
- URL removal tool: remove URLs/directoriews for 6 months
- See your backlinks (helps moving to a new domain)
- See 404 and Crawl Errors
- Preferred Domain Name
Ranking Advice
“Get traffic from Google then get noticed?”
“Get noticed and get traffic from Google”
Provide useful service
- Sign creator that providesw PDF
- iPhone Apps
- LOLcat Builder
Getting Known
- Lonely Girl 15
- Million Pixel
- Mac vs PC Parody
- Free Hugs Campaign
- Photoshopping e.g. Perez Hilton
- Analyze someone else’s blog
- Sell your mustache on eBay
- “Say Google fast”
- Create Controversy
- John C. Dvorak
- Mention Robert Scoble
- George Bush poll
- (others)
Avoid Mistakes
Security
More Reading
And off to drinks.
—-
Matt Cutts posted the SlideShow here for download.
—-
John Pozadzides of One Man Blog has posted this video of this session.
July 22nd, 2007 at 5:47 am
Great stuff, thanks! Can’t wait for the slides.
July 24th, 2007 at 9:44 am
[...] not all Matt Cutts discussed, though. CNet News, Climb to the Stars, and The WordCamp Report have all listed some sound whitehat SEO and webmastering advice from the specialist. Some of these [...]
July 24th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
[...] Wordcamp.info [...]
July 24th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
[...] Wordcamp.info These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
July 24th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
[...] the best for last? Well the last presentation of the day was Matt Cutts of Google giving us the Whitehat SEO Tips for Bloggers. There are way too many tips for a short overview (not without leaving off a ton of good tips) but [...]
July 24th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
[...] Learn more about Matt Cutts’ tips for bloggers at WordCamp 2007 [...]
July 25th, 2007 at 1:16 am
he is not the only guy giwing advices on seo category from google. l also read his blog and others aswell too, but l dontk now why he became much populer than others. l but my domain is in the root , what should l do :O HUW, l really dont mind. nevermind. he is duumed
July 25th, 2007 at 3:22 am
[...] Wordcamp.info [...]
July 25th, 2007 at 5:02 am
[...] For more White hat SEO tips for bloggers, read WordPress. [...]
July 25th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
[...] can find a more detailed layout of his presentation here, covering topics such as the plugins he uses, usability, moving to a new domain, free domains and [...]
July 26th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
[...] at WordCamp 2007 last weekend. (Session notes available from Stephanie Booth, Lisa Barone, and P Havens.). Matt’s session was recorded… when the video is posted, I’ll let you all know. [...]
July 27th, 2007 at 1:38 am
[...] at WordCamp 2007 last weekend. (Session notes available from Stephanie Booth, Lisa Barone, and P Havens.). Matt’s session was recorded… when the video is posted, I’ll let you all know. [...]
July 27th, 2007 at 5:57 am
[...] d’une annonce au Wordcamp, Matt Cutts a affirmé que l’underscore était dorénavant bien reconnu comme un séparateur [...]
July 27th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
[...] Whitehat SEO Tips for Bloggers [...]
August 14th, 2007 at 3:02 am
[...] at WordCamp 2007 last weekend. (Session notes available from Stephanie Booth, Lisa Barone, and P Havens.). Matt’s session was recorded… when the video is posted, I’ll let you all know. [...]
August 25th, 2007 at 6:33 am
[...] out there who have kindly relayed a modern kind of Gospel – Loren Baker, Stephan Spencer, Patrick Havens, Stephanie Booth – thanks to all of you. Key SEO Takeaways from Matt Cutts’ [...]
November 10th, 2007 at 4:49 am
[...] bloggers and fans at WordCamp 2007. Matt was in top form, witty as ever. The session was blogged by numerous folks. The sessions were all recorded, so, we hope, we should see a video of Matt’s session surface [...]
December 15th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
I try to follow and read any tips Matt gives.
Thanks for the update.
January 7th, 2008 at 3:55 am
Matt has really come a long way. People look up to him and he offers genuine and simple answers to questions. Keeping it simple will always help. Thanks for the heads up.
February 8th, 2008 at 3:39 am
I have been visiting this site a lot lately, so i thought it is a good idea to show my appreciation with a comment.
Thanks,
Jim Mirkalami
February 8th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I really enjoyed watching the video. Matt’s blog tips were excellent. I will definitely setup future blogs on a separate directory rather than the main directory. Matt’s explanation makes perfect sense. Isn’t it great how hindsight is 20/20?
Thanks Matt…
March 23rd, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Yes, the video was really awesome.
June 6th, 2008 at 1:33 am
Very nice theme.
August 6th, 2008 at 4:31 am
Very useful information for me. Thank you.