Who’s Afraid of PageRank: The Smart Way to Increase Ranking
by Carrie Hinkel on November 19th, 2007
Recently, Google’s page rank “smackdown” created a frenzy of confusion among website owners – leaving them wondering how their page rank dropped one, two or even five slots down. Well, the answer lies in Google’s new guidelines regarding links:
Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
So, basically, Google is on to you! They know all the linking tricks – everything, including paid links. And, if they catch you participating (and you know they will), then your site will be penalized by a drop in page rank. Google, as well as web surfers, want the most relevant sites to be at the top of a search page, not the sneakiest ones.
So, while the rules have changed, there are still plenty of ways to use linking to your advantage in order to increase your rank on Google’s natural search listings.
How to link, while still playing by Google’s rules:
Get other sites to link to you – These are the most coveted links and the ones that search engines love the most. This is when a website links to your site, without a reciprocal link on your end. The trick is getting websites to mention your link on their site. However, there are plenty of ways to do it. Here are just a few:
* Create a newsworthy Press Release.
* Show your website to webmasters and bloggers who may think your site is relevant to them.
* Create an interesting blog on your site, so others will want to link to it.
*Get your customers to link to you.
Post on forums – It’s important that the sites you are posting on are actually relevant to your category of business. So, if you sell dog toys, don’t bother posting on a baseball memorabilia forum. Be sure your information is useful and post regularly. Then at the bottom of each posting you can leave your signature – which will include your website address.
Post on Q & A sites – There are plenty of question and answer websites like askexperts.com or Yahoo! Answers; posting your answer provides you with an opportunity to get your website link on yet another website page. Just be sure the topic is relevant to your company’s offerings, otherwise you are wasting your time.
Submit articles to websites – Since you have a website, you also have plenty of knowledge that you can share with others about your industry. Writing an article is a great way to share information and get a link to your website. It’s important that your article is newsworthy and not just a promotional piece. Your link will appear as part of the author’s signature. There are a ton of article submission sites you can try: articlebase.com, articlegeek.com, etc.
Of course, these aren’t all the linking strategies, but it’s enough to get you started on the road to increasing your page rank. The most important thing to remember is that if linking is going to be a strategy for your website, you need to do it regularly – like several new links, several times a week (or even each day). PageRank is not something you have to be afraid of – just be smart.