10 Things That Google Wants From A Blog

When Matt Cutts tells you blogs should do to get better rankings in Google, ya might want to pay attention.

• Be interesting
• Update often
• Find your niche
• Provide a useful service
• Do original research or reporting
• Give great information
• Live blog
• Make lists
• Create controversy
• Meet people on Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed

As 1to1million is just a place for me to occasionally rant about the whole ‘Make Money Online’ things - it is not a money site for me, nor does it lie at the heart of my business - I thought it could serve as a great example of what not to do!

…And what I strive to do with my more profitable blogs.

• Be interesting
  We’ll this should be an ongoing goal as you develop your writing skills. I tend to start writing a blog post and end up with a novel that would be better published as 10 separate posts.
• Update often
  I can go for a month without posting, I have gained and then lost PageRank. You should set a schedule and post date posts, that way you can write 3 in one day but release them according to your ‘regular’ schedule. Consistent blogging builds traffic it will ensure steady growth, stop blogging and you will loose traffic, rankings and PageRank.
• Find your niche
  I started this site with a broad market ‘Make Money Online’, I have no hope of ever ranking for it (considering the limited effort I am prepared to put in), to be really successful it needs to target a very, very specific and micro-niche.
• Provide a useful service
  This is an ongoing learning curve for me on my other websites… Always asking; Would I use this site, What can you DO here, Why should someone do it. I have one website with over 2000 pages and yet there are just a dozen that are USEFUL and USED.
• Do original research or reporting
  If you want to make money with a website then you need to provide a service. Your getting paid to do the research fr your reader and save them some time.
• Give great information
  The operative word here is GIVE, don’t be afraid to give great information away
• Live blog
  This is really about freshness and relevance. The energy you put into a site/blog is directly related to the energy taken out.
• Make lists
  Making 101 lists - example 101 lists - is the best way to get backlinks… Be worthy of backlinks. Again they take time to compile and great resources worth bookmarking. I think I made a 101 list here, but therein lies the second problem… make sure all your posts are relevant to it (your niche) and you feature that link to your list.
• Create controversy
  Saying the wrong thing is often more popular than saying everything right, it leaves room for conversation and keep your topic alive.
• Meet people on Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed
  I have thousands of ‘followers’ over a number of social media sites, but most are useless. What you want is a core number of useful people that communicate with you, develop a relationship with you, and become allies willing to return valuable favors.

Here is the slideshow from the Matt Cutts presentation http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-for-bloggers/