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Recently, Google's Matt Cutts has given a very nice presentation at WordCamp San Francisco 2009 that was held on May 30. The presentation was not only a useful one, but at the same time it was exciting and fun to watch! Here is the video of Matt Cutts' presentation:

In the presentation, Cutts said that there is nothing wrong in putting keywords in URLs. In fact, if you want to rank better for alternatives to the title of your page, then it is necessary to put the keyword in the URL.

Slides from the presentation can also be found on Google Docs.

Forum discussion is going on at DigitalPoint Forums.

Microsoft Advertising, along with other ad agencies is taking part in a contest named, “The Big Ad Gig” . The contest will feature eight contestants competing for a job at a top ad agency. The New York Times Building will host the contest at 10:00 AM on Thursday, September 24, in conjunction with Advertising Week 09.

'The Big Ad Gig' will have a panel of Creative Directors, CEO's and marketing leaders from leading ad agencies like Atmosphere Proximity, Ogilvy, Crispin, Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness, The Ad Council and Microsoft Advertising. The panel will judge the eight contestants who will be vying for the chance to work a 30-day paid freelance gig at one of above top ad agencies. New York Times advertising columnist, Stuart Elliot will be the moderator at the event.

Also, one winning campaign will be produced and run across Microsoft Advertising's media properties, including gaming, online and mobile.

“Our core mission at Microsoft Advertising is to build the platforms, content and technologies that breathe life into the big dreams and creative vision of today's top advertising minds,” said Charles Johnson, General Manager of Mobile Media for Microsoft Advertising.“We are excited to help foster a new generation of advertising talent, and look forward to bringing the winning concept to life.”

Are you being kept in the dark by your current SEO firm? Do you wish the communication lines were a little more open? It’s too bad that some SEO companies view communication and sharing as a conflict of interest rather than an opportunity for reinforced, attack-at-all-sides teamwork. Amazingly, some SEOs believe clients would only stick around long enough to find out their methods and then bolt! In sharp contrast, SEO.com has found that as we share valuable information and resources with our clients, it builds the relationship and they achieve greater success.

I love the work I do at SEO.com. It is a privilege to work at one of the best, if not the best, SEO firms out there. We have consistently helped our clients rank on page 1 of Google (which holds about 70% of the search engine market share) for multiple targeted keywords. Each day I marvel at the methods we employ to help our customers achieve their desired conversion goals. I quickly gained great trust and admiration for SEO.com for many reasons, but especially for how transparent and open we are with our clients in regards to the methods and tools we use to help them.

At first, I was taken-back by it and wondered why any successful company would consider sharing valuable company tools, intellectual property, methods and training with a client who could choose to go out on their own and mimic the same techniques. But I quickly realized that there was no genuine risk and it is one of the reasons why we are so effective.

There are no big secrets in Search Engine Optimization. The work is very transparent, and most anyone can do it. Quality optimization only takes a lot of time, knowledge, dedication and skill, and that’s where an SEO firm comes in. We work for hours a day doing the tasks that anyone with SEO knowledge could do-because we have the time, and the training, to do it. We spend multiple hours every day doing keyword research, looking at our clients’ competitors, link-building and offering site optimization recommendations.

Every now and then we all need to be brave and do something different. We have to break the molds and stereotypes to step out of the norm and stop following the crowd if we want to be special and set apart. I’m proud to work for a company that does this. Many SEO firms simply do the basics for their clients. SEO.com is great at the basics too, but we also do things no other firm will-transparency with clients being only one example.

For example, a current client of SEO.com has seen phenomenal results in the year they have employed our services. During their first six months online they had no sales and only a handful of page visits. As a result of this failure, two of their four investors backed out, and the remaining two investors began desperately searching for a new firm. During their first month working with SEO.com they had 15 sales. By the third week of the second month they had between 5 – 6 sales a day. By the third month they began asking questions about what we were doing and how we were doing it. They even asked if we could show them our SEO methods, so we could work together as a team. We gladly shared the information with them. By the sixth month they were experiencing between 400 and 500 visits to their site every day and a dramatic increase in sales. At the end of their initial six-month contract they decided to double the amount of work we were doing for them and renew the agreement. Today they average between 1200 to 1300 visits and 30 to 40 sales each day!

In SEO, stepping out of the norm is usually rewarded with highly-desired results. Clients like to be kept in the loop. They like to know what is going on-especially with their money. Communication is the key. Our success and growth as a company are the result of a number of different variables, but the level of transparency and openness SEO.com offers its clients certainly deserves due credit.

Twitter has unveiled its new homepage, that features search box at the core. Then, the trending topics get a noticeable position below the search box with three categories. The top row with the biggest font features topics that are hot currently, followed by the second row with slightly smaller font featuring hot topics from the past day and the third row with topics from the past week.

Twitter has always been working to improve the site. Ever since its introduction it has evolved into a multifaceted real-time tool. It is always nice to look forward for something new from Twitter!

The Google team is constantly updating Google Maps with new features. After adding new search layers for iphone 3.0 users that allowed them to to locate specific location without even inserting the exact place where they are. Now, Google Maps has introduced Street View Smart navigation. This tool will help users navigate the world’s geographically located photos. It offers 3D navigation between Street View panoramas. It also has the option to browse user-contributed photographs that match Street View images.

Here’s an example:

Many Panoramic users have uploaded a wide range of photos, which have been taken from different angles, at different times of day and zoomed into different regions. In order to link all these images into Street View, Google Maps has launched a new feature that allows users to navigate between similar user-contributed photos. The feature is useful especially when one photo is zoomed in region of another. The first image shown in the photo viewer, a small set of zoom polygon are displayed which indicate that close-up photos are available to explore.

To view an image just mouse over one of the polygons. Then, double-click the image to view it. After viewing one or more images, the back button appears next to the photo title. The button will allow you to move back through the selected sequence of photos. This new feature will surely allow you to explore wide range of photos in an entertaining and interesting manner.

The team of Google Webmaster Tools has named their current update as “Summer Shine.” For every update released they have code names.

Following are some of its highlights:

• The site selector now lists all verified sites that you own, as well as allows you to search as you type.
  
• Block non-homepage sitelinks.
  
• View URL removal requests submitted by other users for sites that you own, and revoke them if necessary.

  

• Easier navigation on Google’s “Home” page. There is a clear distinction between verified and unverified sites now.
  

It was recently noticed that Google had used breadcrumb data in its search result’s URL area. This means that Google is trying to read and understand breadcrumb data.

Here’s the screenshot:

Interestingly, in the above example, the structure of the page title is quite similar to the breadcrumb structure. Therefore, if you’re not using breadcrumbs in the architecture of your website then it is time that you start using them.

However, Rob Hannond who noticed this first disclaims that if this is because he has CustomizeGoogle Firefox extension turned on instead of this being Google’s output?

I don’t know everything. I’m really, really close though. In fact, I pretty much have everything down except for the finer points of string theory. That, and how Roland Emmerich (Director of Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow) was able to make more movies after the Godzilla catastrophe.

In all honesty, there are actually a lot of things that I don’t know, and more importantly, a lot of things that I can never know. Like Women. It’s just the nature of the universe.

Here are three items that SEO’s just don’t know, and CAN’T know. It’s not that we don’t want to know them; it’s just that they are either kept secret from us by the search engines, or it is a physical impossibility (meaning we can’t look into the future).

1. Google’s Algorithm. We don’t really “know” Google’s, or any search engine’s algorithm. When it comes to actual calculations, or how a search engine brings up a specific listing, we don’t know anything specific. Search engines keep it an extremely closely guarded secret. Some SEOs suspect that even if we did obtain access to the algorithm and code, it wouldn’t change our practices anyway, so there’s no point in trying.
2. When a site will rank. This should be obvious, but it is still a big issue for many site owners. When it comes down to it, we have no certain knowledge of any timeline for SEO to work. Any estimates that SEOs provide are based off of past experience and successes. Even then, the ranges can vary greatly, especially from industry to industry. Some sites see (some) progress in a month or two, others take as long as 6 months to a year.
3. Where a site will rank. Anyone who claims to get you to a specific position in Google is lying. For that reason, be extremely cautious of guarantees and promises incorporated with SEO contracts (look at my earlier post about shady SEO deals). Just like the timeline for when you will rank, we can create estimates (never guarantees) for where your site will finally place.

Any rational person may think, “You don’t ‘know’ anything!” In response, I reply, “That is true.” Except that these are the things that SEO experts DO know:

1. We know what Google and other search engines are looking for. Google wants relevant results that motivate surfers to return to the search engine. We understand Google’s guidelines, from information provided from the search engine, as well as from years of testing and experimentation.
2. We know that good SEO Practices WILL make a site rank. Although the timeline might be hard to pin-point, if work is put into the site, and the right SEO practices followed, ranking is the natural by-product
3. No one can claim that a site will be #1 in Google, as there are numerous factors that play into that, many of which are unknown or misunderstood. Be careful thinking that you should be #1, because sometimes it’s just not possible.
4. Your rank will be better with SEO than without. You absolutely will see results from SEO.

One word changed my life forever one day back in late 2007. I was a blogger then, frustrated with a blogging platform that couldn’t satisfy my needs. Why didn’t I have simple root access to my blog, enabling me to change whatever I felt like? It was my blog, with my name emblazoned on the front page, yet I couldn’t command it to perform tasks not already pre-formed in its little e-head.

Ok, enough with the sappy story. For real now. Two years ago I took friend’s advice and moved my first blog from Blogger to self-hosted WordPress. I have never looked back. Today I would like to make the case to you that a WordPress blog is what you need to give your web presence the lift it needs. Let’s not talk about the hosting and the domain name purchase, and the code, and all that stuff. That is for another day. Let’s talk about a few features WordPress provides that will make it easy for you maintain an SEO-friendly blog.

First, WordPress makes changing your URL structure effortless. Why should you care about your URL structure? Well, would you rather be telling Google that your site is at “http://www.mysite.com/?p=123″ or at “http://www.mysite.com/my-first-post/”? That is correct. You want to put your site’s best face on for Google, and WordPress makes it as easy as typing a few letters into a blank field. Brilliant.

Next, WordPress uses “plugins” to make a whole host of SEO tasks as simple as can be. One of these plugins automatically creates an XML sitemap for your blog, effectively giving Google a map to your site. This makes for a much faster indexing in the search engines, since it is never a bad idea to throw a bone (or a fly) to search engine spiders. Another plugin puts a little bit of text at the bottom of blog posts that contains a list of related posts. I like that one because it links to other similar posts I wrote in the past but maybe just forgot about.

By far my favorite plugin for SEO is All in One SEO Pack. This plugin takes some of the most important site optimization tasks that lots of folks just might not know how to do, and makes them ridiculously easy. These people might have heard that they need a good keyword rich title tag, good H tags, meta description, meta keywords, and so on. But they just don’t know how to change them. All in One SEO has a field for all those things, plus a bunch of other title formats and header options. Don’t even think about messing with code when there are plugins for things like this.

Finally, WordPress makes updating your main site content almost enjoyable. You already know that you need fresh content every so often to keep the search engines happy with your site. But writing a post in WordPress doesn’t require any knowledge of tagging, categorizing, pinging to notify others of your new content, or anything of the sort. You don’t even have to know how to write the code for a link. Perhaps that’s commonplace these days, but the process is simply seamless in WordPress.

If you are looking for a way to be able to accomplish some SEO on your own time, and you want a solution that will do pretty much anything you want it to, give WordPress a try. There are so many people out there designing plugins and attractive themes for WordPress that it’s impossible to keep track of them all. All I know is that you will find a solution that is a pleasure to work with, and it will do a lot of good for your site with the search engines.

For more blogging tips, check out Scott’s recent post on 25 Freshest Summer Blogging Tips.