When it come to search engines, Google is THE most popular and therefore the most used by the general consumer public. Getting Google to view your site as important is crucial for having high rankings. So how do I have a high Google ranking? By having a high PageRank…

So what is PageRank and how do I boost its value?

PageRank (PR) is a literal value (0-10, 10 being the highest) that Google internally assigns to your web pages. It is an indication on how important Google considers your page to be.

You can think of PageRank like a voting system. The more a page is linked to by other pages and websites, the higher the number of votes and the more important the original page is considered to be by Google. Not all votes are of equal value though, a link from a high PR webpage is worth more than one with a low PR. So a link from IBM to your webpage is likely worth more than one from the local Joe’s Computer Store. Keep in mind, a link from MacDonald’s though, is worth less if your website is about computers and have no relationship to the food services or restaurant industry. In another word, the links should be relevant and related in some way to your website’s content or you will run the risk of Google flagging your website as having too many “unnatural link distribution” resulting in a negative SEO.

VOTE

So once you understand the voting system, it is just a matter of having quality
link partners by providing valuable contents that others could “vote” for. You can provide link exchanges, offer a discount or a valuable article for a link or you can simply ask high ranking websites to link to your contents. Be creative and use your imagination, but think “win-win”.

So once you have completed the first step, PageRank is the next critical factor in improving your websites overall SEO.

To recap:

  • Google decides how valuable your webpages are via PageRank which is a value between 0-10.
  • To improve your PR, get links (votes) from high quality websites that are related to your industry
  • The higher the PR value, the more important your webpage is deemed
  • The more important your webpages are, the higher your overall ranking

 

Click here for the previous SEO step.

Click here for the next SEO step.

For the entire blog on the seven steps to improving the SEO for your business online see the post on Finding Link Love.