Google’s Cutts Dishes On Newbie SEO

Writing by Brick Marketing on Wednesday, 25 of June , 2008 at 7:10 am

Matt Cutts from Google gave an interview in USA today that provides a basic primer for the SEO newbie on how to get your site optimized for Google. In the article Matt gave tips on increasing your site’s visibility to Google.

1. Spotlight your search term on the page. “Think about what people are going to type in to try and find you,”
2. Fill in your “tags.” When creating websites, Internet coding language includes two key tags: title and description.
3. Get other sites to “link” back to you. Google says it looks at more than 100 pieces of data to determine a site’s ranking. But links are where it’s at, once your search terms are clearly visible on your site and the title and description tags correctly marked.
4. Create a blog and post often. Blogging is a great way to add links and start a conversation with customers and friends. It will cost you only time: Google’s Blogger, WordPress and others offer free blogging tools. With a blog, you can link back to your site and offer links to others. It’s also a great way to start building content.
5. Register for free tools. Google’s google.com/webmaster offers freebies to help get your site found.

The advice offered in the article is a great starting point for people unfamiliar with SEO and SERPs, but it’s not going to be a shining beacon of ideas for webmasters and online advertising gurus. In the article, Matt does say that it is only a myth that you have to advertise to get to the top of Google’s searches. That is true, but depending on what your site is about and it’s keyword popularity, you’ll be facing steep competition for traffic. If you are a car dealer, there’s just no way that your dealership is going to show up if someone just types in “Ford Truck, Iowa.” Unless, that is, you follow some hardcore SEO strategies and have an advertising budget.

Again, it’s always nice to hear from one of the Big Boys’ specialists about what they’re considering the important factors in rankings and how to get to the top.

For the intended USA Today reader, the article was interesting but for serious business, it was a wash. If they write an article about what algorithms they’re using, however, we’ll be all over it.

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