8 Valuable SEO Lessons from SMX West you shouldn’t miss

So, Matt Cutt’s panel at SMX West (San Jose) is over. It has been so insightful that search marketers are already looking into new directions and strategies for their efforts. Lot of information was shared by the Google Engineer today and here’s a summary of the most important take away points that every SEO must take home, memorize and chew on.

1. Authorship is the new Page Rank (sort of).

Well, Page Rank was never a prominent factor in determining search result ranks for a site, so it would be wrong to say that Authorship and Brand Identity is the new Page Rank. However, the idea is that authorship is probably the backbone of how search might function in the future.

From last couple of years, Google has been reinforcing the idea of authority and reputation, but there was no clear metric to count it. Enter Google Authorship and we have the answer. Your reputation is all that matters. Better the reputation, better the search results.

I have to comment here that, it might be wrong to count Google Authorship as a replacement to existing search index rankings. It is probably an additional layer, an important one that’s being added. Because, Authorship too has errors and is not scalable to all contexts. For instance, big brands don’t function like smaller individual blogs, and they might have trouble initially, adjusting to the new context. So, authorship is more like a reputation scale, that Google could use to validate data relevancy.

It will be interesting to see how this part of search technology evolves.

2. Better user experience = Better scores on the results pages.

Google folks have been emphasizing this factor time and again, and once again now. Websites are not all about content and links but a good user experience. Each website is a product in itself, and therefore, better user experience = more likes = more users = better ranks.

3. Bring value through guest blogging or get axed.

Guest blogging has been getting a lot of attention recently since the Authorship verification came into being. I would say undue attention, because Google Engineers had made it clear sometime back, that unless you’re doing it right, it would end up being a risk altogether. When they say, doing it right, staying away from risky behaviors, selling your authority, using ghost writers and things like that.

Interestingly, if you can use it wisely, it could reward you well. That is to say, use guest blogging only in instances where it could bring value to the table – not as a link building tool.

For instance, if Matt Cutts quotes or articles are published on another blog, it adds a lot of value to that blog. Look at it from this perspective rather than from a link building perspective – which by the way in my opinion is a retro term.

4. Authorship for rich media may be coming soon in the future.

Answering one of the questions in the panel, Matt Cutts replied that authorship for all kind of content, including pictures and video might be a possibility for the future. Though there were no time estimates mentioned.

5. Links are not dead – will continue to be a valid scoring metric.

One of the questions that arose seeing the up rise of social signals and other metrics recently, was that whether links will do down in importance and will other metrics replace them. Especially, in a scenario where it is easy to game the system. Matt Cutt’s response to this question is that links will still hold as a good ranking signal for a long time to come.

Because, Google has already put in a lot of effort into identifying bad links and have fought its way up to gamers and black hat SEOs, it stays.

I think I might disagree here. Personally, I think links will degrade in value – compared to the weightage it used to get earlier, that is – Google might not admit it, ever but links are getting taken over by manual, wisdom-of-the-crowd signals which are far more relevant and game-proof. It might not be accurate though, that part can be handled by Google’s link bots pretty well I guess.

6. Social Signals will rise in significance.

As if, we don’t know it yet. But looking at one of Matt Cutt’s answers in the panel at SMX West, it is clear that social signals are rising in significance like never before.

Personally, I think its a question of who gets the right data. Facebook has lot of valuable data that is being shared with Bing, and Twitter has some amazing data that is shared with Google (I can’t verify this). Only time will prove how the giants work out between each other and figure out what they can do with the social data.

One thing is for sure, social signals are here to stay.

7. Focus on the user, brand and recall value.

From a bird’s eye perspective, this is what I would recommend to search marketers. Rather than getting “sophisticated” with granular level details of search engine optimization (like content optimization), it might very well be a better idea to put in the effort into branding, recall value and making the user happy.

This clue has been given time and again by Google Engineers. I think the small and big brands alike can make use of this situation. Though authorship-like authority verification is not available for big brands, with their easily “discoverable” brand mentions and overall presence, bigger brands will also get some kind of authority verification soon. Again, this is my personal observation.

8. SEO is probably the wrong term, move on, evolve.

As quoted many times before, “optimization” is probably not the right word any more. Search Engine Optimization is often seen as that magic dust you spray on your content to make it look “presentable” to search engines. Not any more. As long as your content or product is “valuable”, there is no magic dust to spray.

Personally, I think it is about two things. One, building the right foundation with the right standards and markup. Much like building a showroom that’s easy for people to come in and check your products (Apple?). And two, building the right product. Be it rich content or the right app, any thing that interests people and help them in their lives, would be the “right product”.

So, the overall focus is on building great products and the right formats to support and showcase them. Much like building an Apple laptop and an even amazing showroom to display them. People would not only come but love the whole experience.