5 Tips from Matt Cutts to Make Google Love Your Blog
No matter what we say and what we claim about our blogs, we all are desperately seeking Big G- Google’s love for them. We keep trying different tricks and techniques in an attempt to place our blogs and websites in the good books of Google.
Some of them are a hit and most of the others are a sad miss. Well, I suggest that you stop wasting both time and effort on the hit and miss techniques that you were using until now. Instead, use these 5 tips to woo Google’s love for your blog. By the way, all these tips come straight from the horse’s mouth, i.e Matt Cutts from Webspam, Google, who is in charge of how Google evaluates your blog or website.
Tip # 1- UseWordPress
Matt Cutts is so clear when he speaks about the advantage of WordPress over other blogging platforms. He says that WordPress is automatically geared to do most of the seo heavy-lifting for the users. This makes it all the more necessary for beginner bloggers who have limited or no knowledge of seo.
But there are certain points to take care of when using WordPress as your blogging platform. Always ensure that you use the latest version of WordPress, because as even Matt Cutts points out; it is open source. This particular feature makes it highly inviting to hackers. So the best you can do is to keep updating your WordPress versions as soon as they are available.
Tip # 2- Write for Your Readers / Customers
Majority of the business owners who have an online business rely upon search engines in a huge manner, to bring in more traffic and customers. There is absolutely no doubt about that. But turning this dependence on search engines for traffic into an obsession for adapting your content solely for search engine optimization can mean danger. When you tend to focus only on search engines, your content often times becomes unreadable and weird to human readers.
For example, stuffing keywords that do not flow smoothly with the rest of the content can make the reading very choppy and unintelligible for the readers. If readers are put off by the low quality of content on your blog, then no matter how much you try to optimize your blog for the search engines, Google is going to dump your blog so deep in the search engine result pages that it never ever sees daylight again.
So, focus on providing value to your readers and use your keywords and seo techniques in a very sophisticated manner. The latest Penguin update from Google dated April 25, 2012 clearly mentions that Google is looking to axe off those sites trying to over-optimize for seo. So, don’t go overboard with keyword stuffing, use them very smoothly and within 2-3 % density.
Tip # 3- Build Authority
Google has always stressed on the importance of back links in ranking your blog or site. The number of sites that link to your blog say a lot about your blog’s authority. But that does not mean that all links are viewed equally by Google.
The recent updates of Google have stressed upon the importance of quality of back links, rather than quantity in ranking of your blog in the SERP. So you should focus on building quality links, rather than setting out on a link collection spree. Quality links come as a natural by product of providing quality and trustworthy content, so we are back to “Content is King”.
Tip # 4- Make Your Blog Bot-Friendly
Unless the settings on your blog allow search engine spiders or bots to crawl and collect your data, you cannot expect your blog to rank in the search engines. Many a times, newbie bloggers who have very limited knowledge about settings may accidentally block the bots from crawling the blog. Check if your WordPress blog has chosen the following settings: WordPress Dashboard> Settings> Privacy Settings> Site Visibility> Allow search engines to index this site
Tip # 5- Make Your Blog Resourceful
Have a look at this video where Matt Cutts is being interviewed by Rodney Barlett.
Pay attention to the part where Matt Cutts illustrates the example of a translation business website. That site was not getting good rankings in Google because there was no information or useful resources for the visitors to the site. Google credits those blogs with loads of resourceful info that is especially created according to reader preferences. Know what your readers or visitors are seeking from your blog and make that info easily available to them.
Synopsis
It is pretty easy to get your blog indexed and ranked higher in the search engines, if you are ready to go by the rules. These 5 tips are just a few of the basic guidelines to make Google love your blog. Needless to say, there are a lot more! So keep checking back frequently for the next post on more tips to get Google love for your blog.
Category: Blogging
Hey Kavita,
nice information regarding indexing. As we all know that according to 2013 google update, google never index those blogs who are over-optimized,those are building backlinks through backlinker tools. So we have to build quality backlinks by commenting other blogs,guest posting,participate in forum discussion etc.
Rajesh Jhamb recently posted..BlackBerry Q5 full Specification
These are all very good tips. I try to avoid duplicate content @ all costs and write unique, meaningful content with the end user in mind. These tips say a lot in regards to post panda and penguin updates. Well written and thanks for the knowledgeable information.
Hi Kavita, Really interesting gossips around here. One thing I’m not cleared yet about how to make site bot friend? Please guide me
Regards,
Raheem Khan
Raheem Khan recently posted..25 Most Beautiful Facebook Timeline Covers For Football Lovers!
Like Amit, I also like the #2 point. A lot of people are wasting their a lot of time on making their post perfect for search engines, using keyword friendly titles which has good monthly searches on Google, but they are ignoring their readers.
They must write for their readers and not for search engines.
All 5 tips are must read. Thanks Kavita.
Ehsan Ullah recently posted..Top 5 Reasons Why Forums Are Important For Bloggers
Hello Ehsan, welcome to my blog. I think the best way is to strike a balance between search engines and writers. Thanks for your visit and comment.
drkavita recently posted..How to Conduct Webinars and Take Blogging to the Next Level?
Hey there Kavita,
Those are really some very important points that every website owner should know, specially bloggers. It is really important that post-Panda bloggers post quality content and that too not for the search engines but for the readers who read them.
Also Tip No 1, using WordPress, I see many bloggers who still do not accept the fact that wordpress is quite better than blogger and do not want to start using wordpress and stick to blogger. I really feel sympathy for those bloggers because they certainly are missing a lost of readers as well as search engine traffic due to their stubborn-ness, For example me, I hate visiting Blogger blogs, it is so much difficult to even leave a comment out there.
Shiva @ Blogging Ideas recently posted..OptinSkin Review – WordPress List Building Done Easy
Good to see you here Shiva! I totally agree with you about Blogger blogs. Nothing there can match the style, professionalism and functionality of WP.
drkavita recently posted..How to Conduct Webinars and Take Blogging to the Next Level?
You have been using Blogger for a long time and that makes you comfortable with that platform. But yes, you really need to pay attention to WP as well.
well thanks for those 5 powerful tips,I liked 2 point the most that write for readers because at the end of the day readers can only read and like the post,not the search engines but that doesn’t mean that we should neglect Seo.
Thanks for your comment and visit Ashish. You are right we need to strike a balance between search engines and people
It is a very interesting read. Are the google rankings affected if we do not blog on Word Press and blog on another platform such as blog engine?
Hey Sanaa, thanks for your visit and comment. Yeah it definitely matters, and there is no greater recommendation for using WP than from Matt Cutts himself
I am fully agree with No.2 Points. After Lots of update and continuse update by google we should write for readers not for SE. Then only we bloggers can survive on SERP.
BTW Nice Points. Thanks for sharing.
Amit Shaw recently posted..Guest Blogging – The Do’s and Don’ts to Follow to Get it Accepted
Yeah Amit, Google algorithms have become pretty unpredictable recently, so it makes better sense to stick with “writing for readers”. Thanks for the comment and visit
drkavita recently posted..5 Ways to Jeopardize Your Email Marketing Campaign
well mat is 100% right, but this is wrong, google created blogger and it is the best cms for beginner to pro level bloggers. Thanks
Matt Cutts maybe head of Webspam, Google Inc but he agrees that WordPress is the best blogging platform and you know he recommends WP very highly and not Blogger to other bloggers.
Must say every point there is definitely right. Getting the attention of Google is really simple it’s only we who are making things complicated.
Btw. I respect Matt there for being really frank about WordPress. As a Google main man one would have expected that he will recommend Blogger as the best blogging platform, but no, he was frank about it. WordPress remains the best no matter what many will want to say. You can quote Matt!
Thanks for your visit and comment Chadrack. Yeah, hats off to Matt Cutts for agreeing to the fact that WP is indeed the best blogging platform available right now.