08 Feb 08 Google Pagerank And You

At some point, I’m sure you’ve heard of Google Pagerank (or PR). What you may not understand is why it matters to your website.

Google is, of course, the leading search engine on the internet. As a result, once your website or blog is indexed, it will more than likely become the largest source of “natural” traffic. At least, if you play the game correctly.

Pagerank is Google’s “grade” of your website, ranging from zero to ten. The higher the number, the better your PR. Google’s algorithms compute this score using a variety of measures, but general consensus is that backlinks are the most important part. The more sites that link to you, the higher your PR, and sites that have a higher PR than you pass along more “link juice”, boosting your PR more than a link on a site with lower (or no) PR.

Believe it or not, that’s the simplified version.

Pagerank isn’t updated in real-time; Google performs an update every few months, with no set schedule. (The last PR update was at the start of January 2008, so the next one will probably not happen before March or April 2008)

The question most people ask when discovering PR is “Does it matter to me?” Opinions vary on that question, but here’s my answer: For the most part, no. (I would like to take this opportunity to ask Google to please not destroy me.)
PR can be a good indicator of the success of your marketing efforts, since the higher your pagerank is, the more relevant and well-known Google considers your site to be on its subject.

However, I disagree with those that feel that PR is a measure of your website’s worth. For example, let’s compare two hypothetical sites:

• Site A has regular traffic and generates an average of $1000 per month in revenue, but only has a PR of 3.

• Site B is a blog, has quite a bit of traffic, a PR of 6, but has generated a grand total of $100 in revenue since it launched a year ago.

Which one is more valuable?

If you go strictly by PR, the blog is twice as valuable as Site A. However, if your goal is revenue, then it’s a fairly obvious choice. However, I’m not saying you shouldn’t try to grow your pagerank, and here’s why:

The steps you should take to increase your Google PR are the steps you should already be taking to grow your website. 

• Fill your site with original quality content
• Network your site with other websites
• Market your website
• Make sure your site is SEO optimized, to give you better placement in search engine results

If you do these things, your online business will succeed, and your PR will go up as well…even if you never know it.

Popularity: 6%

Tags: Google, pagerank, search engine

05 Feb 08 A Customer’s Life: The Hunt For Help

When someone has a problem, need or desire, their first stop on the internet is usually Google.  For example, if a business owner is looking for a way to process credit cards for payment online (and they have no knowledge of this area), a trip to Google and a search for “credit card processing” will return a link to Authorize.net as the first non-sponsored response.

Why?

There are quite a few reasons, all of which are covered under the umbrella term of SEO, or Search Engine Optimiztion, and SEO is something an online business cannot afford to ignore. SEO basics can be learned relatively easily, but to do it well (and with good results) is something that takes a specialist’s touch. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t take steps to improve your search engine placement.

• Your keywords should be well chosen…you may not want to compete for search results with the keyword “credit card processing”…try to choose keywords with less competition that are still relevant.
• Your url and website title should include your keywords.
• You should use “header” tags on your page (<H1>), making sure your keywords are included in the header.
• Backlinks, or links to your page on other pages, are also vitally important to your search engine performance.

All of this sounds simple if you understand basic website construction, and it looks like Greek if you don’t. However, even if you use a freelance web developer, there are some things you can do to optimize your SEO.

• Make sure your keywords are included in your page or post titles.
• If you’re using a blog, make sure you leave comments on other blogs in your niché, linking back to your website. (In some cases, these will count as backlinks. In all cases, it increases the chance of the blog owner linking to your website…as long as your comments are useful.)
• Become active in online forums that are relevant to your keywords, making sure your forum signature contains a link to your website.
• Actively seek out link exchanges with relevant websites.

These are very simple, basic steps anyone can take to improve their search engine results ranking. Are these steps enough? Not in the slightest. But if you’re new to the concept of SEO, they are a start.

Popularity: 8%

Tags: search engine, SEO, SERP