5 Tips to get Matt Cutts to answer your questions

If you are up to date with SEO you will know that Matt Cutts usually answers the questions from SEOs all around the world in their YouTube channel.

On the last round Matt received more than 440 questions in a period of 2-3 days. He obviously cannot answer all of them, and these go through Google Moderator, where approximately 25 of the most popular questions will be answered.

Out of the 441 questions that were submitted last time, four of them were mine. And guess what. Yes, he answered two of them:

• Will Google personalize results based on user IP location?
• What will happen to paid links implemented using JavaScript?

50% is a very good ratio of response if you take into account that he only answered about 5% of all questions.

How did I manage to do it? I guess he likes my name. But seriously, take some of this advice home.

1. Be fast.

It is important to be the first one to ask the question. If you let someone else do it, they will do it wrong. Whether it is because the wording, or because they will put emphasis on the not-interesting part of the question, it will be wrong.
In addition, the first few questions in Google Moderator will get the most votes. It is well worth it to spend 30 min just in Google Moderator thinking about your questions.

2. Be futuristic.

We, SEO people, think that we know (almost) all about the present. If you ask about what will happen in the future other people will vote for your question. Past? No, thanks. SEOs are all about the future (or that is what we want to believe…).

3. Be generic.

If you start writing about your business site or even why you have a certain issue, it will never be answered. The point of the videos is to help as many people as possible. If you have an issue in particular, try to rephrase it so it affects as many people as possible.

4. Be realistic.

Let’s face it, Matt will never give anything away that may change drastically the way you work. Ask for doubts that while are just a small bit of your optimisation, they still matter.

5. And finally, be interesting.

This is a obvious one, but the most important too. Ask for something that is truly interesting. I find semantic search particulary interesting…

And why am I writing this post? Well, according to my predictions (that may and probably will be wrong), Matt does not have that many more videos to publish, therefore he may be opening a third round of questions soon. I want to get as many interesting questions out there as we can. So now you know, spread the word!