10 WhiteHat Blogging Tips For Bloggers by Matt Cutts

10 WhiteHat Blogging Tips For Bloggers by Matt Cutts

You will find countless blogging and SEO tips online and on this blog. If you don't trust the credibility of what other say, then you can take it from Matt Cutts, the Google guy. He is the head of the web-spam team at Google, so he definitely knows what he is talking about, as he is the person in charge of controlling what blogs get a good spot in SERPs and what blogs get penalized due to over-optimization or other SEO or blogging mistakes. During his one-hour lecture at a WordPress Camp, he shared some blogging tips and ideas that we feel worth re-sharing with other people who weren't there or didn't see the video.

File paths

Matt shared in his lecture, that in your file paths, you must not use multiple parameters for stuff like search queries etc. Also, it is better to use underscores as word separators rather than dashes, although dashes are fine too. And as far as file extensions are concerned, all extensions, such as .php, .html, .asp, .pdf are fine. The only discouraged file extension is .exe, because that's an easy way to get infected by  a virus. Avoid .exe files.

Getting onto Google News

To get a blog included in Google News, it must have multiple authors. Getting into Google News can boost your traffic, as it channels out some competition, and leaves you open to compete for an audience eager to gran hold of any piece of news information.

Create controversy

This is a great blogging tip, and Matt talked about it in some detail. And we totally agree with the notion. Creating a controversy is a good way of gaining attention. When you talk about a controversial topic, people are more likely to comment and share their views, and hence get the conversation going. Controversy doesn't necessarily need to be related to some scandal. It could be your views on technology, or comparison between two smartphones, and so on.

Contribute insightful analysis

One great idea for writing blog posts is contributing insightful analysis of the services that people ordinarily use. For example, you can look into which service gets more spam, Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail? Or, you can compare and contrast different cloud storage services. Provide data that will help people make better decisions.

Provide useful services

Another great blogging idea is to provide useful services to your audience. These can include tools, or other cool features. For example, iPhone apps, or a PDF sign converter, or perhaps a lolcat builder. The sky is the limit really. Notice how we provide some tools such as HTML Editor and Encoder, Color Code Generator etc which are useful to bloggers and other such people.

Make lists!

Making lists is also a good way of getting some extra traffic, and providing some useful information to your readers. Many people have asked us about the 'top 10' lists we've been sharing here at TDN(techedian) and especially at SEM. Well, they weren't without reason and effect. Start with something like 'top 10 plugins for...' or 'top 13 reasons why something rules' etc.

Create tutorials

Create tutorials, and teach people on how to create some forms or configure their auto-responders, and so on. The best way to go about this is to write about something when you learn about it yourself. That way, you will be able to memorize the process while educating other people.

Liveblog!

Liveblogging is covering a social event live on your blog, with regular updates and feeds on what's going on. Lots of people liveblog about conferences or seminars/webinars. It is just one of the many ways you can keep your audience engaged.

Follow other blogs for ideas

First of all, you should follow other blogs in your niche to find out what they are doing, and get ideas from there. For creative ideas, you should visit sites like Reddit, Digg, Techmeme, and so on.

Be creative

It's a well known fact that creativity inspires buzz/word-of-mouth. And that is the fastest way of getting your blog or site viral. Creating creative and original content is a sure way to get noticed. And where creativity is concerned, the sky is your limit. one particularly funny suggestion Matt Cutts gave was, 'sell your mustache on eBay' or 'Say Google fast' :). But then again, its all up-to you to decide how creative you want to be. And the more creative, the better. it almost always boils down to how original is your content.