Review: Matt’s Whitehat SEO Tips for Bloggers
Posted on 18. Jun, 2009 by abbie in Search Engine & SEO
( sinau boso inggris MODE: ON )
Matt Cutts shared his words about whitehat SEO tips for bloggers on WordPress annual conference, WordCamp 2007, July 21. Matt is senior engineer at Google and the head of the web spam team ( No they don’t spam 
). They keep the spam off the search engine. So more than almost anyone in the world Matt has insights into ranking on Google and blogs, and search in general.
It’s 2 years ago and ( you might say ) now it sounds outdated. Well it’s actually not for me and thousands newbies like me who need more basic guidance on SEO. Still valid and still being used under whitehat SEO term.
Let me highlight some SEO issues that Matt had pointed out on 2007 WordCamp. For more details, you can watch the video I have posted on this blog:
- Matt Cutts: Whitehat SEO tips for bloggers ( Video Part 1 )
- Matt Cutts: Whitehat SEO tips for bloggers ( Video Part 2 )
OK.. so here are the highlights.
Google really hates spammer
Google likes sites / blogs with good quality content. Even if you had created something impossible, something irrational or out of people’s mind, you still got a chance to rank higher in Google’s search engine result page. Here in WordCamp, Matt Cutts quoted AlexChiu.com which sell a US-patented immortality device ( Serious!! ). The site owner claimed that he’s being repressed by Google because of the immortality device.
The truth is that this site has a penalty in Google because of a very small text area sized about 40px by 20px, located at the bottom of the page, containing hundreds of words unrelated to main site’s theme. Only viewable on page source, there’re celebrities, wars, hardware, God’s, devils, and all sorts of stuffs obviously written down for spam purposes.
Google didn’t like it and banned it.
Put blog at domain root? Matt said no.
( abbie: …poor me!! ) 
Matt would actually say not to put your blog at the root of your domain. Think about putting it on a subdomain or a subdirectory, and that’s what he did to his blog. Instead of putting his blog at mattcutts.com, he preferred to pick mattcutts.com/blog as the URL of his blog.
So what’s the point?
- You will get a little bit of extra page rank because people will do two links. They will link to your domain and they will link to your blog.
- In addition if you might want to leave some room for future expansion.
But it’s not a big, big deal. Matt said that he wouldn’t go changing things around if you already had all things set up. But if you’re just about to start a blog, please consider it.
Do a keyword research
When you start to write content, think about the kinds of words that people are using to search. Get a free tool that lets you type in keyword and generates the sort of related keywords as well as the synonyms.
Several tips about using keywords in your blog content:
- Use synonyms. If you write a post about Firefox, try to use the word Mozilla too. Some people will use Mozilla instead of Firefox.
- Singular and plural. Use both. Sometimes I see that singular word has more search than plural, or vice versa. Usage ratio between singular and plural should be based on the list generated by keyword tool. CMIIW.
- Do not spam keywords. Write your blog post naturally. And if you’re skilled enough to entice people to leave comment related to your post, you will get more keywords. Comments do something for your SEO.
- Use categories that are good keywords.
- Keywords in permalink. First, avoid using default permalink structure: domain.com/?p=111. Use domain.com/post-name/ and it’ll be better. More on permalink:
- Dashes are best
- Next best is underscores
- No spaces is worst
Use WordPress
Matt’s blogging on WordPress instead of Blogger. He worked for Google and that’s why some people would have expected he used Blogger blogging platform. This was one of what Matt said about WordPress:
Make sure your site is crawlable. Now if you’re bloggin on Wordpress, you’re pretty much guaranteed your site is crawlable and in a very nice way. Sites that are hierarchical, treat it like structure, things like archives, and then the posts, are perfect for search engines. So the default Wordpress install is almost optimal in terms of crawlability.
( abbie : now I know I’m right ) 
—
I don’t think I can recap all highlights here. There’re more you can find on Matt’s video about whitehat SEO tips for bloggers. If you like to have the powerpoint file used by Matt on WordCamp 2007, you can download the file here. This Matt Cutts tips on search engine optimization was 2 years ago, but IMO it’s still valid and usable nowadays.
( …sinau boso inggris MODE: OFF )
Berarti saya salah selama ini ya mas, meletakkan blog utama di domain root… Pantesan aja banyak pakar SEO lebih suka meletakkan blognya di direktori setelah domain root.
Dilematis. Mau ganti alamat, takut PR turun.. (maklum, udah 3), mau dibiarin, sangat mengganggu pikiran..
rismaka´s last blog ..Cascading StyleSheet (CSS) dan 8 Tips Optimasinya
nice post *halah*
diriku tidak mengenal engineer nya google
cuman pernah sekali dikirimin ama marketing nya blogger
kapan dikirimin lagi ya?
ngarep…
cebong ipiet´s last blog ..Tips Mempersiapkan Blog Baru
@ Rismaka,
hhh.. saya jg ya. Tp emang gak kepikiran PR sih.
Secara masih PR1, getuh..
BTW, ktnya 301 blog lama ke yg baru bisa jd solusi bt ‘mindahin’ PR mas.
Bener gak sih??
@ Cebong Ipiet,
hahaha… mbok alamat kirimnya dipindah ke alamatku bong..
diriku juga masi PR 3 mas, tenang aja, tak temenin.. eh iki kok pertanyaan angkane 15 terus tho hasil penjumlahane?
penting ndak se pertanyaanku wkkkwkww
cebong ipiet´s last blog ..Tips Mempersiapkan Blog Baru
Good Info Bro…!!!
Yuk.. Dukung Aku !!!
| Stop Dreaming Stop Action |
Dengan segala kerendahan hati saya memberikan award kepada Anda pada 30 Juni 2009. Silahkan diperiksa dan diteruskan. Terima kasih.
Ga mas. Redirect 301 tidak akan memndah PR. Seperti halnya mengganti alamat blog.com ke www dot blog.com itu tidak akan memindah PR, justru google menganggap itu sebagai alamat baru dengan konten yg sama dg blog.com. Makanya kita harus me-redirectnya dg 301 (permanent) agar tidak terjadi duplicate content.
Untuk masalah penggunaan permalink dg bentuk domain.com/post-name/ , hal tsb justru tidak direkomendasikan oleh wordpress, karena akan menurunkan performa (khussunya performa query ke database). Tapi justru permalink dg bentuk seperti itu lebih SEO friendly. Nah lho, dilematis lagi… di satu sisi saya sangat mengharapkan performa meningkat, namun di sisi lain struktur permalink yang singkat sangat menggoda selera…
rismaka´s last blog ..Free WordPress Theme : Mobile Clean
@ cebong ipiet,
dah ta’ganti tu soalnya. tp ttp aja spammer masuk.
kacao. mo ganti lg ah..
@ fachrul,
gw jg ikutan bro.
sm2 dukung ya
@ bang dje,
trm ksh awardnya bang.
pasti diterima. tunggu tgl maennnya ya.
@ rismaka,
nggak, dlu sy smpt baca sblm pindahan dr beblogger.co.cc ke sini. sy lupa linknya, tp dia blg 301 pny peran ‘membantu’ pr blog yg baru. nggak sepenuhnya mindahin memang.
lalu mslh permalink, sy mmg lbh milih %postname%.
ya bnyk yg blg lbh seo-friendly. sy nggak ngerti klo itu pengaruh ke kinerja query.
contohnya gmn bos?
I agree, in blog writing, we should do it naturally then if a keyword is mentioned, you can do your privilege. Kudos to your tips.
I agree, in blog writing, I am also having some of blogs like this and I have a nice website for Indian Free Classifieds
@ Search Engine Placement & Manual Directory Services,
Thanks for commenting. Both of your blog are full with SEO articles and tips.
I’ll be there again!
Mantab nih yg kasih petuah langsung si Matt Cut! Tapi soal subdomain banyak kendala apalagi dalam urusan make money online karena ada beberapa tempat cari duit yg menolak sub domain dan bagi saya menggunakan subdomain ini bukan urusan yg terlalu signifikan
Abi’s last blog.. Nurdin M Top Telah Tewas
@ Abi,
Jadi, mesti milih SEO apa duit ya bro.
He..he..