Google is obsessed with speed, and I admire them for that. Speed has always been an important metric to consider with your site because it improves the user experience. No one wants to be patient, even if it is virtuous. Users want the site now, and studies have shown that speed does impact their experience on your site.
If that isn’t enough for you, Google has officially announced that website speed is now one of the factors that go into their search engine ranking. It is only one of 200 such data points that Google analyzes your site for, but expect a lot of advances to be made in site performance soon. No SEO company will want to be left in the dust on this one.
Websites not optimized for speed can also increase your hosting cost. Optimized pages are smaller by definition, so less data is downloaded per user. If your site is being visited by thousands of people a day then speed optimization will save you money. This is a no-brainer that helps your users, your ranking, and your wallet.

At Inlet Media, I had not thought much about speed. I always optimized graphics, but have allowed other large files to grow. The initial analysis of this site showed that there were significant improvements I could make. This is a new metric Inlet Media will be using during the web design and development process, and I will be including it as a standard SEO service.

Hurrah for speed!

This past week Matt Cutts, who heads up the Webspam team for Google was interviewed by Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting. The long and detailed interview transcript can be found here and is a tremendous resource. For the average website owner here are some of the key things to take away from it.

The number of pages crawled is roughly proportional to your PageRank.

Every website is crawled depending on the PageRank of each page. PageRank is the overall score that Google gives the page for how relevant and useful it is. The front page of your website, which often has the highest PageRank is almost always indexed because it is has the highest PageRank. When the Google bot that indexes and analyzes your site sees a link from your highly ranked page to another page, it follows. When it reaches that page, with a lower PageRank, it loses interest. It then loses interest progressively as it travels through your site. When the PageRank drops too low, it stops.

Complex navigation structures are hard to index and should be avoided.

Your site navigation needs to be simple and shallow. By shallow, I mean that there has to be less than 3 layers of navigation for every page on the site. If a user has to click through seven links to find what they are looking for, then the user experience and your SEO will suffer. The Google bot can only do as much as an average user. They don’t have super powers, so keep it simple.

Duplicate content is still bad, but not as bad as we thought.

It is widely believed that duplicate content is not just a waste, but a cancerous tumor, eating your search engine ranking. This isn’t exactly true. Search Engines expect duplicate content, to an extent, and when they see pages that are similar or copies they merge them together. As long as the amount of copied content is not excessive, your site won’t be penalized. You will still be wasting the Google bot’s time and your PageRank. Avoid it, but some overlap is not the end of the world.

PDF files and other Non-web native formats are indexed.

Common file formats like PDF, Flash, and Word documents are indexed by the search engines. These items are harder to index and won’t be considered as valuable as a normal .html document, but it is good to know that this valuable data does not go to waste.

Trying to write something new every week is not a challenge. In fact its very easy to fill your website up with inane and pointless content. The elusive thing we are all looking for is good content. Its hard to find and even harder to write.

Every page on your website is important, and should stand on its own. At the same time your pages do not exist in a vacuum. Each page should build up the other pages. Since each page is very similar in a well built website, the main distinction between them is the content, the copy, and your photos, videos, etc. I think we spend way to much time focusing on how the site looks when we should be focusing on what it says.

I know that I would rather spend my time on a site that isn’t to interesting looking but delivers great content than on a site filled with dazzle that is ultimately one pixel deep.

The challenge for all of us, whether we are website developers or website owners is to make our content engaging. I’m not discounting good design but I know that it can only take us so far.

So what makes good content?

The best place to start is by finding out who your audience is, and what is your niche. The idea that you will ever make everyone happy with your website is absurd. Instead you need to focus on your core audience and make them happy. It can take a while to find out who you are talking to, and who you want to talk to. Often they are not the same thing.

If you love what you are writing about then it makes everything easier. I often struggle finding a topic to write about myself but once I land on one I can write it up in no time. Don’t try to write about things that are boring to you or you hate. You will only end up discouraged and ultimately won’t continue. I always tell my clients to stay on topic but also to take it easy with their blogging. If you want to talk about something besides what the main focus of your blog is then do it. Make it professional of course, but talking about how you went skiing or fishing one week is also great.

Being authentic, by showing how you have fun, and are not just some corporate man in the office means a lot. Don’t get yourself caught in the trap of writing something because you have to. If you don’t like what you just wrote, then why would anyone else?

So remember to focus on your main audience and give them what they want. You can’t please everyone, so don’t try to. Be authentic, in your business, your life, and online.

Also be sure to use at least a spell-checker before posting. Just saying.