How to make Matt Cutts fall in love with your blog

Put yourself in Matt Cutts’ shoes. When people click Search, you give them the best results. How do you decide what really is the best?

Understanding this is the key to creating content – not just text – for Google.

It’s after quality. Yes, I know, there are exceptions to the rule but after blogging for fifteen years, certain patterns begin to emerge.

Such as:

• Think long term.
• Aim to be the definitive source in your field.
• Don’t get distracted. Trends come and go. Stay focussed.
• Study the Webmaster Guidelines.
• Use every Google tool available.
• Aim to be an expert in all things Google.
• Think like a publisher, not a blogger.
• Some of these are more important than others.

Stop blogging, start publishing. Why? The search engine is a robot. It can’t read between the lines. Cute logos mean nothing to it. It reads your text, looks for patterns, indexes some of it, and comes back again.

You have to help Google understand what you’re offering.

• Do you know?
• Explain your site in a single sentence! My site is the: how would you describe your site to a total stranger?
• Write content that is as valuable now as it will be in five years.
• Be the expert.
• Make sure others know you’re the expert.
• Create other types of content that complaint – not conflict – with your content plan.
• Banners ads, videos, and animated gifs are (almost) meaningless to Google. If you create a video, which is indexed correctly by YouTube (which Google owns) you might have a chance.
• Develop your content as though you were writing for a magazine. Write short chatty pieces, long essays, and balance it with photos and videos – but stick to the same theme.

More next week!