• SEOmoz, Thursday, June 19, 2008 2:16 PM

Brent Payne recaps the latest interview with Matt Cutts (by Eric Enge, SEO and author of the Stone Temple blog) and distills Cutts' "Google-speak" into a few useful tips. For example, paying for links outright is still a no-no. But paying a social media consultant to help you craft articles that snag a first page spot on Digg (and the ensuing links) is not. "Google's algorithm likes Digg and will like Digg for the foreseeable future," Payne says. "Googlebot sees Digg as a clean source of link authority. Hire social media marketers, people!"

As for working with widgets as linkbait, make sure to include the actual widget on your site. This way, users know what they're clicking a link to (or signing up for), and you get more PageRank juice from any ensuing links back to the widget that they create on their site.

And when it comes to manipulating link anchor text, err on the side of caution. "Don't get too many links pointing to your domain/page with specific anchor text," Payne says. "Have some with anchor text 'blue widgets,' some with 'widgets,' some with 'blue,' and some with 'domain.com/page.' Create some noise to make sure you don't 'over-optimize' a site/page."

Read the whole story at SEOmoz »