Page Rank

What is Page Rank?

Page Rank is Google's method of measuring a page's "importance." When all other factors such as Title tag and keywords are taken into account, Google uses Page Rank to adjust results so that sites that are deemed more "important" will move up in the results page of a user's search accordingly.

A basic overview of how Google ranks pages in their search engine results pages (SERPS) follows:

1) Find all pages matching the keywords of the search.
2) Rank accordingly using "on the page factors" such as keywords.
3) Calculate in the inbound anchor text.
4) Adjust the results by Page Rank scores.
It’s worth noting that Page Rank is a multiplier and is not just simply added to the score. Thus, if your
page had a Page Rank of zero, it would rank at the very end of the SERPS.

How is PageRank determined?

The Google theory goes that if Page A links to Page B, then Page A is saying that Page B is an important page. Page Rank also factors in the importance of the links pointing to a page. If a page has important links pointing to it, then its links to other pages also become important. The actual text of the link is irrelevant when discussing Page Rank..

How can you tell what a page’s PageRank is?

To learn what a page’s Page Rank is, you can download a toolbar for Internet Explorer from http://toolbar.google.com. Once installed, there will be a bar graph at the top of the browser showing a version of Page Rank for the page you’re browsing. When you hold the mouse over the bar, you see a number from zero to ten. (If you don’t see the number, you may have an older version of the toolbar installed. You will need to completely uninstall it, reboot your computer and reinstall the latest version. Once this is done, you should be able to see the Page Rank number.)


How accurate is the Google toolbar?

The Google toolbar is not very accurate in showing you the actual PageRank of a site, but it’s the only thing right now that can give you any idea. As long as you know the toolbar’s limitations, then at least you know what you are viewing.
There are two limitations to the Google toolbar:

1. The toolbar sometimes guesses.
If you enter a page, which is not in its index, but where there is a page that is very close to it in Google’s index, then it will provide a guesstimate of the PageRank. This guesstimate is worthless for our purposes because it isn’t featured in any of the PageRank calculations. The only way to tell if the toolbar is a guesstimate is to type the URL into the Google search box and see if the page shows up in the SERPS. If it doesn’t, then the toolbar is guessing!

2. The toolbar is just a representation of actual PageRank.
Whilst PageRank is linear, Google has chosen to use a non-linear graph to portray it. So on the toolbar, of to move from a PageRank 2 to a PageRank of 3 takes less of an increase than to move from a PageRank of 3 to a PageRank of 4. A comparison table best illustrates this phenomenon.

How significant is Page Rank?

The significance of any one factor in search engine algorithms depends on the quality of the information it supplies. A factor’s importance is known as its weight. To demonstrate how weighting is arrived at, it's easiest to move away from Page Rank for a second and look at Meta tags.

In theory, the Meta keyword tag was a very good indicator of what the page was about. However, as most are well aware – the weighting for the keywords tag is fast approaching nothing.

Two things have contributed to this:

1. The ease at which Webmasters can manipulate it.
2. The level of manipulation by Webmasters.

Tips for Creating New Blog

1. Post early and post often. If it’s a news oriented blog you should be posting 3 to 5 times each day. An authoritative blog can get away with 3 to 5 times per week, but each post should be unique and of high value.

2. Make the blog look and feel like the feeling of the content of the website. Work with a designer if you don’t trust yourself to do a good job.

3. Outbound links should be of web sites and other authoritative blogs. Think quality when you are thinking about your outbound links.

4. Create and distribute a press release. Don’t necessarily concentrate on the main stream press, they have a habit of ignoring blogs and websites. Instead, send the press release to other blogs and websites that would be interested in the kind of content your feature.

5. Thank other bloggers if they mention you on their blog. The best place to thank them is in the comment section of their post that mentions your blog.

6. Use sticky posts for the posts that you really want the readers to see. Sticky posts will stay at the top of the blog rather than letting them fall down as new posts are added.

7. Create unique content. Even though the Internet if full of pages that link to other pages, the best way to get people to link to your page is to give them something new.

8. Optimize the wording in your title. Don’t let a software create the title for you. You should gear your title to the reader and not the search engines, even though the search engines do look at it.

9. Don’t show your Feedburner badge until you have at least 100 subscribers. Keep it a secret a little while, you will look much more professional after you can show 100.

10. Use new technologies on your blog. Posting video from sites like YouTube and audio from audio blogs and radio stations. Post your Twitter link as well as MySpace and Facebook links and post from other users. Google Earth widgets are good content for drawing visitors. Jump on any new technology that comes along, especially if it is a networking technology.

11. Use Full Text in Your RSS. This pulls readers in much easier than just the few words that most people use for their RSS feeds. That is what the competition is doing and you need to beat the competition.

12. If you have the gadgets, create a video blog or audio blog regularly on your site. These bring in different visitors who might not want to read. Video is much more popular than audio, but audio’s popularity is increasig as more iPods are sold and people are looking for stuff to fill them up.

13. Get your own domain. Even if you use blogger to run your blog, get a domain of the name of your blog. It gives a more professional appearance. This is good for possible advertisers who might want to buy ad space on your blog.

14. Be sociable with your visitors. Post links to their websites if the content if of quality and meshes with your blog. Answer questions and email that your readers send your way. This can help turn them into loyal visitors.

15. Get a niche. Blog on a topic that is a little different, a little more specialized than the other blogs in your category.

Pay-per-click

PPC is an online advertising format that allows you to buy your way to the top of search results pages for search phrases relevant to your business. Businesses buy advertising on specific search phrases, and are then charged each time a person clicks through to their website.

How does this work?

Try running a search on a major search engine like Yahoo or Google for a common consumer product like ‘DVD players’. When reviewing the results, you'll likely see a set of results labeled as ‘Sponsored Links’ or ‘Sponsor Results’. Some results may appear in the same format as the main search results on the page, while others are listed within colored text boxes along the site of the page. All of those results are paid advertisements from the sites listed within the ads.

The ads are ranked based on how much a business is willing to pay to advertise on each search phrase. (The ranking order in Google is a combination of the bid amount and the popularity of the ad.) In the example search for ‘DVD players’ the current top advertiser is currently paying $0.81 per click, one penny more than the #2 advertiser.

The ads are purchased through PPC advertising suppliers, and the two largest happen to be owned by Google and Yahoo. Google's program is called Adwords and displays results on Google.com, AOL, Ask Jeeves and many smaller search engines. Yahoo's program is run by an acquired company called Overture, and the results appear on Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista, and many other syndication partners.

Why should I pay for traffic?

For businesses that have had success with search engine optimisation, the idea of paying for visitors is not particularly enticing. However, if you can make more money off a visitor to your website than it costs to get them there, why wouldn't you pay for those visitors? Keep in mind that you can choose exactly what search terms you want to advertise on, and you only pay when a searcher actually clicks on your ad, so it generally comes down to deciding how much you can afford to spend for those visitors rather than whether it's worth doing at all.

How much should I spend?

The main factors influencing how much money can be spent on a PPC campaign are:

* How many searches are conducted per month using phrases relevant to your business?
* How much are you, along with your competitors, willing to pay for those terms?

The average monthly ad spend on PPC advertising is a couple of thousand dollars, but this varies immensely from less than $50/month for regionally targeted and niche businesses to millions a month by large national retailers.

The goal of any advertising campaign should be to bring in more money from the campaign than it costs to run it. PPC is no different, but the level of detail you can measure in PPC is significantly higher than most types of advertising. For example, with relatively inexpensive (some are even free) tools, you can determine which ads are generating sales or leads for your business. Beyond that, you can determine how much money you spent on a specific ad to generate a sale or a lead. By measuring what's working, you can aggressively advertise on terms that prove to be winners for your business while shutting down ads that don't deliver.

Tips for Success

1. Advertise on a large number of relevant search phrases. Brainstorm beyond the first dozen terms that come to mind to describe your business. Advertise on the terms used to describe your products, the product names, product codes, and the questions a prospect might type into a search engine that your services answer, and more. Read our article, How to find good keywords5 for more on this.

2. Build unique ads for each search phrase. It takes a lot more time to write a unique ad for each search phrase relevant to your business rather than creating one ad for all of your search phrases, but the extra work will definitely be rewarded. Ads that are aligned with the corresponding search term receive more clicks, which will mean more targeted traffic, and in some cases paying less per click (on Google Adwords) due to the intricacies of how the advertising is priced.

3. Send visitors to the most appropriate page of your website. If you place an ad for a specific product within your online store, don't send visitors to your homepage and force them to dig for what they just searched. This will frustrate your visitors and increase the chance that they'll hit the dreaded Back button.

4. Track your results. Spending money without measuring the return on your investment is not a good business practice. At the very least, consider installing the free tracking tools available through Google Adwords and Overture to measure which terms are delivering results for your business. Beyond that, consider using a 3rd party statistics tool with conversion analysis to compile the results of your various pay per click programs into one easy to manage interface.



People are searching for what you sell at this very moment! If your site is not showing up near the top of the results, your competition thanks you.