You’ve just built your website and you want to show up on the search engines. You start reading about SEO and one of the first things that jumps out at you is something called “Google PageRank.” You know about the big dog of the search engines, but what is PageRank and why is it important in what you’re trying to do?
Any good marketing coach can explain that easily. If your site is placing high in free (organic) search results, you’re getting free advertising. Notice the word “free.” That’s always a good thing. Building a strong PageRank (PR) by getting good quality links coming in to your site takes time, but it isn’t going to eat a hole in your pocketbook.
You want to work on raising your site’s PR to get “authority” with the search engines. A site with “authority” gets better visibility in search results. Really understanding the algorithm behind your site’s PR will likely have you reaching for a bottle of aspirin. In the beginning, just concentrate on understanding the basics and how they relate to your efforts to promote your site.
How Is PR Defined?
Google says PR is all about the “uniquely democratic nature of the web” and “using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value.” Basically, a link from one page to another is a vote for that page. However, not all votes in this democracy are equal. Some votes come from higher-quality pages and are weighed more heavily. (Other factors in determining PR include the relevance of search phrases on a page and actual traffic to the page.)
How Is PageRank Expressed?
PR values are expressed on a scale of 0 to 10. Sites from 0 to 2 are probably pretty new to the Web and have few incoming links. Sites that have made it to PR3 to PR5 are fairly well established; PR6 and above are really popular and have a lot of high-quality links. There are very few sites that make it to the PR7 to PR10 range.
The ones that are ranked that high are usually owned by big corporations or major media outlets like the Wall Street Journal (PR8). Improving your site’s PR by getting relevant, high-quality, incoming links is one of the most affordable SEO methods at your disposal. Rather than trying to get to a specific number, just concentrate on improving your number.
Is My Site’s Index The Only Page With PR?
No, each page in your site will be assigned a PR, something that is emphasized in marketing coaching as a valuable tool. You can use relevant interlinking to distribute PR throughout all your pages.
Huh? Well, just hang on to that thought for a minute. For right now, just understand the concept that some pages in your site may earn a higher PR than others, and that you can use that to your advantage.
PageRank Passes From One Page To Another
Here’s how it works. A page with a high PR passes some of its value to a low PR page over a link. You can use this to promote your site in a couple of ways. When your site’s pages are interlinked in a relevant way, PR gets distributed more evenly throughout the site. Also, you can “court” relevant sites that belong to other people through your link-building campaign. This is really how your site starts to gain “authority.”
Start By Building Your Index Page’s PR
Generally, marketing coaches will tell you to begin by working on your home page’s PR. This can be time-consuming, and not just because you’ll be building relationships with other site owners. You have to do your time in what’s popularly called the Google “sandbox.” This just means that new sites like yours probably won’t get any PR at all for the first few months you’re on the Web.
How Do I Check My PR?
There are a number of free, online tools for checking PR including PRChecker and SearchStatus. At PRChecker you type in a page’s URL to see its PR. SearchStatus is a FireFox extension that show a site’s PR at the bottom of your browser. (It also shows your site’s Alexa rating, another method to measure online “importance.”) You an also install the Google Toolbar for Firefox or Internet Explorer and enable the PageRank function.
Is Building My PR All I Need To Do?
A marketing coach will tell you that having a strong PR is only one part of your SEO campaign. For instance, say you’re looking around for a site to link to yours. You find one with a high PR, but it’s a site that sells links. Move on. Their high PR number doesn’t do you any good because a link from that site to yours will have a lower quality and will pass less authority to you.
Understanding the basics of PageRank is essential in putting together a high-quality link-building campaign for your site, but don’t get fixated on the PR number and ignore other important facts. Just gain a basic understanding of what PR is and how it functions and use that to your advantage in building a reputation of authority for your site.
Article previously published here.
…
Marketing online since 2004, Paul Marshall can help you market on a realistic budget. He’s a Marketing Coach offering professional marketing services (and d-i-y Coaching). He also offers Read more articles written by Paul Marshall
Related posts:
- Link Building in Online Marketing: Tougher Than It Sounds
You probably don’t need to read the latest advice from the online marketing consultants to figure out the basic idea behind link building. Without links, your site won’t develop authority. Without authority, it won’t move up on the search engines. But even the most savvy online marketing consultant would have... - How Many Links Does It Take To Get To The Middle Of Google Page One?
Everyday it seems, people are asking me the optimum numbers of inbound links they need to acquire for their website in order to rank well in Google. My answer is going to seem a little flip, but it is the honest, best answer. Answer: You need more inbound links –... - Understanding The Challenges Of The Link Building Game
Many webmasters who have been following the discussions about Google’s dislike of paid links have been confused about what constitutes bad links and good links, in the eyes of the search engine companies. In this article, I will seek to answer many of the questions people have on this topic.... - Tweak Your Landing Page Design, Supercharge Your Sales
One of the newest and most talked about Internet marketing strategies these days is Landing Page Optimization. Your Landing Page Design can make or break your conversion rate. All the search engine optimization (SEO) Internet marketing and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising isn’t going to create the sales you want with bad... - List Building – 9 Steps to Creating a High Converting Squeeze Page
With a high converting squeeze page, an online business will make more use of the traffic they drive to their website. With more email leads an online business can promote to, there are more chances of buyers for your products and services. Generating traffic is hard work so you want... - The Difference Between SubDomains And Add-On Domain Names Basics
Let us assume that you have a very good domain name with you. Did you ever know that you could add and compliment another domain in addition to your existing domain name? These domain names are known by the names like sub domains or add-on domains. However, they are almost... - Online Branding – the Basics
The term “brand” has been around for many years and can be used to refer to a company name, a product name, an advertising campaign or a logo. Branding is used to create an emotional attachment to a product or company. It can also create a sense of perceived higher... - Going into the Seminar Coaching Business? Charisma Matters!
If you want to take your Internet marketing expertise on the road, then offering both online and offline coaching seminars may be just the ticket. Of course, you will need to do more than just present a dry recitation of facts and figures. Like any type of public figure who... - Article Marketing — Building Links to Your Business
Online marketing has been a vast and rapidly growing outlet over the past decade. Obviously, there are many approaches to online marketing, but very few that come close to the effectiveness of article marketing. Article Marketing has provided a large portion of the visitors for some of the web’s most... - Online Marketing: Can You Achieve SEO with a WordPress Site?
Experts in online marketing consulting emphasize a primary goal: getting your site indexed and ranked with the search engines. Not long ago, they would have said a blog might help you do that. They likely wouldn’t have recommended that a blog serve as your main site. Thanks to advances in... - Interview Coaching: A Home-Based Business on the Cutting Edge
You name it – Blackberry, Skype Connection, Cell Phone, iPhone – these are the tools of this trade. Who would believe that someone with a home-based business could reach out to someone in a far away country and work with a client via a Blackberry and a cell phone? Picture... - Video Podcasting Understanding RSS
Since both podcasts and video blogs depend on RSS for their success, it is important that you have a clear understanding of what RSS is, and how it works. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, or Rich Site Summary, or RDF Site Summary – whichever you choose. As you can... - Online Brand Management: Brand Protection Basics
One of the greatest strengths of the Web is that it gives everyone with a connection the ability to publish content, period. Anyone can register domain names and build attendant webpages, often for what amounts to a pittance. Some domains cost as little as ten dollars to register, or less... - Internet Telephone Calls: VoIP Basics
You’ve seen the commercials and read the news advertisements for telephone service using your computer: very cheap monthly fees; make all the calls you want; keep your telephone number forever; and voice quality as good as a landline. You’ve heard the claims and you’ve heard the term “VoIP.” Here’s the... - Natural Skin Care: Beautiful Basics
Most of us try to look and feel our best with diet and exercise. Few consider the most important measure of our health should be given to our skin. The epidermis is the body’s largest organ and also the most telling when something is wrong. Unfortunately, the largest organ frequently...