If you’re in the online space you should probably follow the Google Webmaster Central Channel on YouTube. Don’t let the name fool you – it’s for everyone. Recently they received an interesting question for Matt Cutts; what are the top 3 items to include in your SEO strategy. (Full video embedded at the bottom of this post)
Here are the answers;
- Optimize for speed – Cutts states that there is an SEO benefit to speed but it’s also worth noting that users will do more actions on your site.
- Don’t assume you have buy in from C-Level in your company. (“Make sure you have control of your CMSâ€)
- Think about social media marketing (Cutts uses the examples of Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Reddit, & StumbleUpon)
To point number one, Google has just launched a tool for page speed analysis, appropriately called Page Speed. It’s still in Google Labs but having played with it for a bit it seems pretty well flushed out. Mashable has written a description of the tool but it’s pretty straight forward and Google does a nice job of presenting the actionable items once run. I highly recommend checking it out.
A side note I’ve wanted to reference for a while is the use of keywords in meta data. Google has stated that they use keyword meta tags in their search results, “basically not at all†according to Matt Cutts (video below). Cutts followed it up by adding, “we don’t use the keywords meta tag in our search rankings… even the least little bitâ€.  He did add the caveat, “other search engines might, but Google doesn’tâ€.
