During this talk (which runs around 45 minutes), Matt revealed some very interesting facts and ideas about SEO which I found…well…enlightening as I’m sure you will too.

If you do have the time to watch the entire video for yourself (like I said it runs about 45 minutes); see my notes below the video which gives you plenty of highlights.

In the video Matt States:

• WordPress takes care of 80-90% of the mechanics of SEO. [@3:30]
  • Mechanics = “how crawlable a website is.”
• Plugins Matt uses: [@4:15]
  • Askimet
  • Cookies for Comments
    • Spam prevention.
  • Enforce www. Preference
    • What you prefer (canonical).
  • FeedBurner FeedSmith
  • WP Super Cache
• “We crawl roughly in order of PageRank.  The more PR you have the faster you’re likely to be found, the deeper we’ll crawl, the more often we’ll visit.” [@5:40]
  • PageRank = the number of people that link to you and how important those links are.  (basic SEO).
  • Example:  A web page has a PR of 9 and has three outlinks (links heading out and away from the website) then each of those outlinks gets 3.
  • PageRank starts to “evaporate” each time it goes across a link.
  • Getting backlinks:  You want people to know you and you want them to be reputable.
• Blog posts need to be on-topic and you want to be reputable. [@9:40]
  • How to do this:
    • If you don’t love it, don’t write about it.
      • Write often, write every day.
    • What am I good at doing?
    • What do I have to say?
• Keywords [@12:05]
  • Think about all the different ways someone can describe something. Put those into your blog post naturally.
  • Jargon mis-match:  Translate [jargon] into regular language.
    • what are titles you could type that are “normal”.
  • Use Google Keyword Tool.
  • If you don’t have [a specific word] on your site you probably aren’t going to rank.
• Custom Structure on URLs “/%postname%/ [@19:15]
• Google looks at over 200 things [when determining where to rank you]
  • Things in the title
  • Things in the URL
  • Things that are highlighted like H1 tags and stuff like that.
  • Be sure you put the keywords in the title in some way.
  • Power Tip:  Use variations between the post title itself and within the URL itself [the permalink].  Not spam.  One or two variants.  Use them as separate opportunities to put keywords in.  Now you can rank for both variations of the keywords.
• Use categories that are also good keywords.
• Keywords in URL paths:  example.com/my-keywords
  • Dashes are best
  • Next best is underscores
  • No spaces is worst.
• If you’ve already done your site should you change things?
  • No.
• Don’t overdo [on page SEO]
  • After you mention a term two or three times Google knows what your post is about.
• Gaining a reputation [@25:24]
  • Be interesting. Funny, alternative opinions.
  • Update often.
  • Apply Katamari Philosophy.
    • Start small.  Start in a niche that you can do well.
    • Build up, build up, build up.  Get there gradually.
  • Ways to Get Links [@30:14 in the video]
    • Provide a useful service.
    • Do original research or reporting. Huge!
    • Give great information.
    • Find a creative niche.  One good idea can carry you so, so far.
    • Write some code.  Open source.
    • Live blogging!  Blogging as it happens.
    • Make lists.  People love lists.
    • Create controversy.  Too often sometimes can’t work well.
    • Meet folks on Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed
• Should you do a podcast?
  • Recommends videos over podcasts.
  • Videos tend to rank relatively well on Google.
• Tools you should know about [@35:55]
  • Webmaster console at http://Google.com/webmasters/
  • Google Analytics
  • FeedBurner:  MyBrand for free feeds.mattcutts.com instead of feeds.feedburner.com.
  • Google website optimizer
  • Custom Search Engine: free site search
  • AdSense
    • Use these tags to mark out the meat of your blog post so that AdSense will only target what’s contained in the tags: (highly recommended)
      • <!–google_ad_section_start–>
      • <!– google_ad_section_end –>
• Google Analytics Tip [@38:12]
  • Click Settings -> top landing pages and will tell you which blog posts get the most visitors.
  • Bounces tell you how often people come to your page and then leave.
  • Simple trick:  Show related posts.
• What NOT to do [@40:19]
  • Avoid paid posts.
• Keep your WordPress updated!
• Power Tip: [@43:57]
  • Add an .htaccess to your /wp-admin
    • This says only these two IP addresses are allowed to use the wp-admin.
    • Search for “protect wp-admin”.  Also on Matt’s blog.
• In WP core 2.8 you don’t have to worry about the rel=canonical tags.  Already included. [@44:50]

Related posts:

1. SEO News & Understanding Universal Search
2. Getting a Handle on Your Canonicals
3. Google’s Link Operator – What’s it REALLY Holding Back?

Everyone who runs a website has at one point or another worried about whether or not their site is being silently penalized in the search engines for having duplicate content.

Just to be sure everyone’s on the same page let’s first define what duplicate content REALLY is.

When you have two pages that are identical to one another on your own website, this is considered duplicate content.  And chances are you likely have duplicate content but you just don’t know it.

Here’s why that would happen…

Let’s say that you have a website located at http://www.Example.com.

You create a new web page on your site and have a few people link to that page.

• Person #1 links to you using http://www.Example.com.
• Person #2 links to you using http://Example.com (notice the lack of the “www”).
• Person #3 links to you using http://www.Example.com/ (notice the trailing slash).
• And Person #4 links to you using http://www.Example.com/index.html (notice the “index.html).

To YOU and to the people visiting your site, this is all the same page.

To the SEARCH ENGINES however, these are all different URLs. Surprised?

So as far as the search engines are concerned you have 4 pages on your site that all contain the same exact content – hence, the duplicate content issue.

You see, search engines can’t tell that these are the same URLs (I’m shaking my head as I say that because it’s still beyond me), but, the fact remains, that this is in fact, very true.

So how do you fix this issue?  Well, thankfully, there’s a few ways to fix this issue.

1. When you link internally, that is, link to other pages within your own website, consistently use the same URL.  ALWAYS use http://www.Example.com or http://Example.com -whichever one is your preferred way of linking, choose one and stick with it.
2. Additionally you can also use a 301 redirect to point to your preferred way of linking to your URL.  For example, if you prefer http://www.Example.com then set up a 301 redirect on http://Example.com, http://www.Example.com/, http://www.Example.com/index.html, etc.  (I’ve listed below the most common ways people would link to your site).
3. Within your Google webmaster tools area you can TELL Google what you’re preferred way of linking is.
4. Be sure that when you submit a sitemap for your website that within that sitemap, all of the URLs are using your preferred way of linking.

Some potential issues are:

1. If you don’t have direct control over the webhost that administers your files, you’ll have to have someone else place that 301 redirect on the URLs you want.
2. A lot of free web hosts don’t let you create a 301 redirect.
3. Session IDs on a website can create a huge duplicate content issue.  Since each page may be accessed with a different session ID in the URL, that page may be indexed multiple times; even though it’s the same page.

Now if all else fails and you simply can’t implement a 301 redirect to your preferred way of linking, then consider placing the canonical link element on the individual page.

In the head of the individual web page you’d place the following:

<head>
<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.Example.com/page.html” />
</head>

Note the trailing slash after “page.html”.  This is very important to include.

The bottom line is, using the canonical link element on your website is EXTREMELY beneficial to you.  But first and foremost, use the methods listed in the first four items at the top and if those fail, then use the canonical link element.

This information has summarized what Matt Cutts said in his 20-minute presentation; but if you want more information, here’s a few more places you can check out:

• The Matt Cutts video.
• The blog post at Google webmaster central.
• Yahoo’s blog post.
• Microsoft

And, as promised, here’s a list of URLs that are all different in the search engines eyes and that might cause duplicate content issues:

• www.Example.com
• Example.com
• www.Example.com/
• example.com/
• www.example.com/index.html
• example.com/index.html
• www.example.com/Home.aspx
• example.com/Home.aspx

Related posts:

1. Link Building for Bing
2. Tips to Get Your WordPress Blog to the Top of the Search Engines
3. 3 Guaranteed Money Making Strategies

Google Knol

At first, many thought it was a direct competitor to Wikipedia, however, the more you get to know knol (say THAT ten times fast), the more you begin to realize that it leans to more the side of a Squidoo or Hubpage.

That said, here’s some quick and easy tips to creating your own free Knol and what it can do for you.

A “Knol” is a “unit of knowledge”.  And you can create a Knol on any topic you can come up with.  Unlike Wikipedia however, where anyone can add to the content, with a Google Knol,  people can still add to your content but you have to approve it first…needless to say this will cut down on the amount of spammy content you might otherwise receive.

Here’s how it can help your business get better rankings.

One of the benefits to having a Knol is that you can, without regard, actually use it to promote your own products and websites.  If you’ve ever used Hubpages before, you know that they’re sticklers when it comes to linking up your content…even if it promotes your own site and Squidoo isn’t much better although it does allow for a lot more wiggle room.

Google Knol even states in their policy “You may use Knol to create articles for your business or to promote your lawful products or services that are not otherwise prohibited by our Content Policy or Terms of Service, unless you are in Cuba, Iran, Burma (Myanmar), North Korea, Syria, or Sudan.  There are some commercial uses we don’t allow.  We don’t allow pages that have the primary purpose of redirecting visitors, acting as a bridge page, or driving traffic to another website.  We also don’t allow Knol pages that have the primary purpose of profiting from displaying ads from any publisher network, such as pages created with little or no unique content that exist only to display ads.”

And if you wanted another reason to start a Knol of your own, consider this.  When Google first opened up Knol it said that it would no follow the links on the Knol pages…however, this is no longer the case.

But don’t think that all of your links will automatically be followed by Google.  You now have to earn “trust” with Google in order to get your links followed.  They state that “they are now at a point where we “trust” a certain fraction of authors and a certain proportion of user contributed links, and so we now use a “follow” directive for links within such Knols.”

Some links however, will permanently remain no follow including:

• Links within comments
• Our [Google's] automatically generated links to “similar content on the web”.
• Brand new pages and recently-added authors are liable to remain “nofollow” for a period of time.

Although they don’t state what that period of time is.

Here’s how to start your own Knol…

Sign in using your Google account (or get one if you don’t already have one) and simply follow along with the instructions.  It’s a very easy-to-use interface that anyone can follow.

When you’re ready to start writing, you’ll want to use some general SEO techniques such as:

• Title – Like a web page on your site, use a keyword here.
• Sub-title – Like a sub-heading on your web pages.  Use additional complimentary keywords here.
• Summary – This is where a little bit of copywriting experience comes in.  You’ll want to entice anyone finding your Knol to read further…so make it appealing.
• Publishing Mode – your Knol will not be published until you actually tell Google to publish it.  On the right hand side of the page is a section that says “Author controls” where you can click a button to publish your Knol.
• If you don’t want to moderate comments on the Knol, change this under “permissions” on the right hand side.
• The default setting for a Google Knol is to give the Knol a Creative Commons Attribution license.  I talked about this at the very beginning of the newsletter.  You can change this to the other methods you’re given.

Now, in addition to the basic steps outlined above, here are a few more ideas that will move you ahead of the pack.

Google gives high quality Knols badges and awards.  Items such as “Top Viewed Knol Award”, “Top Viewed Author Award”, “Top Pick Knol Award”, and “Top Pick Author Award”.  But in order to get these badges, you need to keep your Knol “better than the rest”.

Here’s how to do that:

• Keyword optimize your title – discussed above.
• Optimize your content – just like your web pages use the keywords you want to rank well for at the beginning of your Knol.  Use keywords throughout your content and work in related words and phrases centered around that topic. When you link out to your own site, be sure that you use those keywords in your anchor text.
• Don’t try to fake your way through a Knol.  If you know about your topic, you’ll have a much better chance of getting seen.  If you don’t, I suggest you beef up on the topic you’ll be writing about.
• Use engaging elements in your Knol.  Use things like videos, images, audios, documents, spreadsheets, calendars and more.
• A Knol is NOT a blog!  A Knol provides high-quality information presented from all sides of the issue. It is not the place to blatantly promote your own products (although you can link to them), but rather it’s a professional resource that covers all facets of the information you’re presenting.  If you aren’t sure how to write your Knol in a professional manner, visit the Knol’s that have already earned badges and see how they spoke about their content, what they added, how they presented their information.  And then use that framework to speak on your own topic.
• Keep it updated!!!  Fresh content is a plus when it comes to a Knol.

Lastly read http://knol.google.com/k/peter-baskerville/how-to-write-knols-that-rank-top-10/14j3i4hyjvi88/19# which explains to you how to write a Knol that ranks in the top 10.

Additionally, here’s another top Knol tip for you that a lot of people aren’t currently aware of.  Google is currently experimenting with Text to speech on their Knols.  What this means is that right now, only a handful of high-quality Knols have the “listen” option which will read the Knol to the visitor.

Since Google is only choosing a small number of Knols to experiment with at this time, there are some tips you can follow to be sure that if and when this becomes an option for you that it reads well for your audience.

1. Don’t use contractions in your Knol.  Use “we are” instead of “we’re”, “you are” instead of “you’re”, cannot instead of “can’t”, etc.
2. If your Knol has some kind of image or chart this cannot be translated into audio.  So when using visual aids, be sure that a full explanation of that visual aid is available for those who cannot actual view it but rather are listening or have downloaded the Knol audio into an MP3 format.

Related posts:

1. How to Get into Google
2. Guaranteed Top Ten Listings at Google!
3. Getting a Handle on Your Canonicals

The Question:
Hello,
I have a burning question and I can’t find an answer in SEO course available.
If you do this search: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=kurir&btnG=Search

You’ll notice the first result has 8 other links besides the main one (Crna hronika, sport etc.). That must increase the CTR a lot.

The question is: what makes Google do that for one site and not for another one?
What should you do with your site to get such extra links in the results?

Best Regards,
Eko

Here’s an example of what they look like:

These are called “Site Links” and the bottom line is that Google does not tell you exactly how to get these sitelinks for your own site.

However, each website that contains these sitelinks has a few common denominators:

• They’re typically an authority site.
• They have an easy-to-navigate hierarchical structure.  In the case above, there is a section for “Sports”, a section for “Stars” and a section for “Politics” as Eko pointed out.
• They have lots of incoming one-way links from a variety of sources.
• The sites are easy to navigate.
• The age of the site tends to be a defining factor.

If we pick apart the site above, there’s a few things to note about it:

• The site has a PageRank of 6.
• It has over over 100,000 links pointing to the site itself including internal pages.
• Sites such as these generally have been around for years.
• The site has lots of useful information that readers enjoy by clicking through to various pages.

You’ll generally find these sitelinks on major news sites like CNN and highly visited sites such as Oprah’s site at Oprah.com.

So while these sitelinks can be a huge boost for your search engine traffic, they aren’t easy to come by.  Google must deem your site “worthy” enough to receive these sitelinks.

If you use Google Webmaster tools, at http://www.Google.com/webmasters/tools/ and you’ve added your site, you’ll be able to navigate to the section where Google tells you whether or not any sitelinks have been identified on your site as candidates for the Google Search Results page.

The bottom line is that there is no hard and fast rule to getting sitelinks placed on your site aside from some of the factors that are believed to be important as mentioned above.

If you’d like more information about sitelinks, visit:

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=47334&topic=8523

Kristine

Related posts:

1. Using Hidden Text & Links On Your Web Pages
2. Reciprocal / Trading Links Strategy – How to Use It
3. Where to Find & Get FREE Content & Links

Related posts:

1. Link Building for Bing
2. One Way Link Building
3. Google’s Link Operator – What’s it REALLY Holding Back?