Greetings from inside the SEOigloo!
Matt Cutts of Google recently posted an entry on his blog that seemed to make sunshine come out of my monitor. I love this post! It again affirms to me that Google’s outreach to the web development community is unparalleled by their Big 4 contemporaries – Yahoo! MSN and Ask. I sometimes come across individuals claiming that search engines hate SEOs, but it is exactly posts like these which prove that Google is all for SEOs whose goal is truly to build a better web.
To summarize the contents of what Matt is blogging about, he was trying to find an answer to a question about changing the default printer for Firefox on Linux. He queried around for awhile and could not find a complete or concrete answer to this issue, so he decided to create his own article on the subject. He talks about the process of doing this in order to give a sort of how-to for folks who are looking to fill a niche on the web by writing about a subject that lacks good resources. Discovering an important topic that no one has written well about would, in his own words, allow him to “utterly rock the search engines” – i.e. get great rankings!
To me the key point in this blog is Matt’s hint that one go after the long-tail by focusing on different ways of writing about the query subject. For example, he shows that he uses the word
change in the page’s URL, but changing in the page title. Why does he do this? Because some people might search for this topic by either of the following:
changing the default printer for Firefox on Linux
how to change the default printer for Firefox on Linux
By utilizing both variations of the query in a natural, organic manner, one makes use of that essential long tail that our firm has been focused on for a long time, now. If you are a small web business owner, this is important advice for you, and is so much more of a valuable thing for you to spend time on pursuing than something like keyword density, for instance, which we have never given much credence to.
Matt then goes on to talk about the opportunities that specialization afford to us all:
“You could be the SEO that does interviews. Or the SEO that transcribes Matt’s videos. Or the SEO that makes funny lists. Or the SEO company that provides webmaster radio. Or the SEO that makes podcasting easy. Or the SEO that specializes in a certain content management system or shopping cart. Or the SEO company that specializes in Yahoo! stores. Or the SEO that specializes in accessibility. Or the company that mocks Silicon Valley and its companies. Or the SEO that specializes in AdWords API ROI tracking. Or you could be the SEOs that write-up a summary of every panel at every search engine conference. Or the company that does cartoons. Or the SEO who pays attention to Google Base, Google Co-op, Yahoo! Answers, or Facebook. Or the SEO that provides Firefox plugins. Or the company that provides metrics and tracking for blogs. Or the SEO that talks about patents…”etc.
Rand McCarley of 14th Colony is working hard on becoming the guy who does SEO interviews, and Bill Slawski is unquestionably the wizard of explaining Google patents. Our own small firm aims at being an authority source on creating SEO-based websites for small niche businesses. How does this apply to what you do, as a small web business owner? What do you specialize in? How does Matt’s rundown of ways an SEO could specialize apply to other fields?
Say you are in the gardening industry. You could be the gardening site that sells heirloom bulbs, or heirloom flower seeds. You could be the gardening site that interviews well-known organic master gardeners. You could be the gardening site that tours the U.S.’s public gardens and arboretums and writes reviews about them. Or that reports on each year’s award-winning new veggie seeds. Or that blogs about gardening in adobe clay soils. Or that writes a gardening comic strip. You get the picture.
It’s a competitive world out there, and finding the niche that sets you apart from the crowd should be the goal of any web business owner. Thank you, Matt, for your open spirit of sharing with us and for the fun we have reading your blog!
