|
 PageRank (PR) is one of the most
important concepts in Internet marketing. It is widely
considered as the most important factor in the Google
search relevancy algorithm that determines ranking of
websites on Google’s search results. Having a high
PageRank is a must if you wish to attract visitors or
customers to your website.
The PageRank principle is simple
The higher the PR of your site the higher will be its
search engine position. So the goal is to get lots of
sites linking to your site. But quality is much more
important than quantity. The higher the PR of the sites
that link to yours the more they boost your sites PR.
When planning your effort, always remember than one link
from a PR-6 or PR-7 site is worth indefinitely more than
hundreds of links from PR-0 or PR-1 sites.
In addition, you should aim to include your link on pages
with as few other links as possible. Pages with over 25
links have little value. Additional factors that go into
the algorithm include the amount of different sites that
point to yours (10 links from 10 different sites count
much more than 10 links from the same site) and the
inclusion of your keywords in the text of the links.
As a general rule of thumb, a one-way, high PageRank link
will give your site a PR two points below that of the
linking page. So a link from a PR-8 site should get your
site a PR-6. However, at the lower end of the scale, I
have seen a PR-5 turn a new PR-0 site into a PR-4.
The effects of having a high PageRank (PR)
Most industries, market niches and business sectors only
have a PR5 or PR6 site as the top ranking result. The
implication is that you can dominate a niche or local
market on search engines without investing too much money
or time. For example, you can buy keyword rich text links
on networks of sites that have a PR of 8-9 for $ 500-2,000
a month. Doing this is likely to get you a PR of 6 or 7
right out the gate. The implication is that your site will
appear as number one when users search Google for key
phrases related to your market niche.
Where to start
Before starting to actually work on improving your PR, be
sure to install the Google Toolbar on your browser. The
Toolbar shows a value (on a log scale) of 0-10 for each
website that corresponds to the underlying PR of that
page. The average website with little or no marketing
support is typically PR1 to PR3. Google is updating the PR
level it displays in the Google Toolbar about once every
three months so patience is required until you can see the
results of any PR building campaign.
Since PR is all about links you’ll have to know who
already links to you. You can either use the Google
Toolbar by selecting "Backward Links" or type in
Google “link:www.yourpage.com”
The easy ways
There are two easy ways to get a site with high PageRank:
Buy one – at any given time there are thousands of
websites offered for sale on ebay and other sites with
moderately high PR. You can buy one in an industry of your
choosing and adapt it to your needs.
When your site is new you will have a PR of 0. But
that’s not a problem if you, or a close friend, own
another site with a high PR. Lets say the other site has a
PR5 website. If you link to your new site from all the
pages of the high PR site, then the new site would
automatically get at least a PR4. If you don’t own a
high PR site and neither do your friends, don’t worry.
There are other options.
Buy Links with High PageRank
You can easily buy PR buy renting text links from sites
that have high PR. Links can be acquired through numerous
intermediary sites such as Linkadage, Linkauctions or
Text-Link-Ads. Typical rates for high PR links are:
PR5 text link: $7-20/mo.
PR6 text link: $25-$50/mo.
PR7 text link: $65-$100/mo.
PR8 text link: $100-200/mo.
PR9 text link: $ 700-1300/mo
But buying links is best if used as
a short term strategy to support a campaign for several
months. For long terms purposes, move away from the pay
for high PR links and seek other methods such as high
quality reciprocal link partners, directory listings or
improved content.
Directory Links
The most popular directories are Yahoo and DMOZ. But
paying $299 a year for inclusion in Yahoo’s directory is
usually not a wise investment since too many sites are
listed in each page and the PR benefit you’ll receive is
inadequate. Inclusion in the DMOZ is free and important
but unfortunately most sites get rejected or ignored.
You should seek those directories that have a high PR on
their homepage but more important also on the category
that interests you. The PR your website will receive from
inclusion on these directories is also a function of the
number of other links on the page where your site’s link
will appear. The fewer links, the higher the PR you will
receive. So your top priorities are directories with high
PR and few other links in the relevant category page.
Visit Directoryarchives to find lists of niche directories
to submit your link.
Some of the older directories have over time built up a
PR6 or PR7. But the smaller and newer directories
typically buy their PR through text links ads on more
popular sites. In turn they typically charge a $ 25-40
registration fee. Some of these newer directories have
smaller category structures which mean that you may buy a
link that will deliver a PR4 or PR5 that may last many
years for that one time fee.
Copy your Competitors
It's quite easy to find out where your competitors get
their links from. If you don’t know who your top
competitors are, all you have to do is query Google for
the main key phrases in your market and the result page
will list your top competitors. Next, Visit the homepage
of each competitor, and in the Page Info dropdown box of
the Google Toolbar, select "Backward Links". You
will then see a list of pages that link to the page you
are visiting. It won't list every page, but will list all
the ones worth getting a link from. Write down the URLs
linking to each competitor and continue until you have
some one hundred URLs from about 10 competitors. Than,
send a personalized email to the owner or webmaster of
each of these sites requesting a link or a reciprocal
link.
Link exchanges
A common practice to increase PR is to exchange links with
other sites, a practice also known as reciprocal linking.
You can start by looking in a directory such as About.com
or DMOZ for reputable sites with a topic somehow related
to yours. If at all possible, your partner's link page
must be accessible from their homepage, have a decent PR
and not contain too many outbound links. Open each URL to
learn a little bit about each site and find a contact
email and than send a personalized email asking for a
reciprocal link.
In addition you should set up a links page that is easily
accessible on your site to offer reciprocal linking
opportunity.
You should note however that link exchanges and reciprocal
linking are slowly becoming a thing of the past as this
technique has been abused, and search engines have
increased their capabilities to detect it. There is strong
evidence that search engines give more weight to one-way
links (such as links from directories or from articles).
Writing articles
This is a great way to get links from important pages with
high PR and it is successfully used by many top marketers.
Basically, you write articles related to your field, and
allow others to publish them for free in websites and
newsletters. At the end of your article, you include a
resource box (a small bio) with a link to your website.
The link should include the full URL spelled out (http://
…) since some sites copy just the text and delete the
links. Now you’ll have to publicize your articles by
finding sites that post articles. Type your main keywords
+ “articles” in Google to find potential sites. Before
spending the time to send your articles check each site to
verify it has a PR of at least 4.
As your articles get published, your links will spread
like wildfire and your PR will increase. The bonus is that
many of the sites that publish articles are respectable
portals or news sites and such sites are likely to have a
high PR.
Getting Links without Even Asking
My favorite way to get links (but the most time-consuming)
is to simply have the best site on the Internet in any
specific niche. Even if you think there is nothing unique
about your website try to find a small niche where you can
specialize. Interestingly enough, if your site is focused
around a theme and is well written, providing tons of
useful information and is constantly updated, you often
won't have to seek out links at all. Other sites will
simply link to yours. The better your content, the more
one-way links and reciprocal link offer you will get over
time.
Guest Book Signings
Another linking strategy is guestbook signings, as most
community-based sites allow free signature links in forum
posts. So participating in popular forums related to your
industry is likely to increase your PR. You can search the
web the old fashioned way. Find a guestbook, drop a note
with your URL or signature and move on, or you can pay a
guestbook signing service a few dollars to auto-sign your
name and site URL in several thousand guestbooks.
Keep in mind, that this technique is questionable since
there is a dispute among search engine optimization
specialists if this technique is effective or not. It is
speculated that search engines may apply filters to
prevent guestbook links from increasing PR.
 Get a Blog
Blogs are the newest hot trend on the Internet and are
also valuable as an online marketing tool. They make it
simple for the average joe to write online and even add
content to their site on a daily basis with just a few
clicks of the mouse. This dramatically changes the way
information is shared and distributed. With blogs anyone
can easily become a source of valuable information. The
search engine companies recognize this and make it a point
to spider the blog networks on a regular basis.
There are in fact several blog programs available that you
can either load into your own domain with ease or that you
can use from a third-party, remotely-hosted server. One
popular service is Blogger.com by Google. Adding a blog by
Blogger to your new website will ensure it gets spidered
within days.
There are actually a few ways to get one-way inbound links
with blogs. The first way is simply to host a blog on your
website and update it frequently. People tend to link to
blogs because they provide content that is constantly
being updated. The second way is to submit it to blog
directories. Just like website directories, there are tons
of blog directories you can submit to for free. Just do a
search on Google for "blog directory" and you
will find them. The third way of getting inbound links
with a blog is to host it somewhere other than on your
website. Then, provide a link from your blog to your
website. After you have done that, you can submit your
blog to directories for the extra page rank and added
exposure.
|
