How to Gain PageRank in Google
Gaining page rank in Google can be a tedious and challenging task, especially if you are new to the world of web design and SEO. With so much competition in Google's results, many companies resort to paying for traffic at cost, rather than focusing on their natural or "organic" traffic. Google's algorithm, which calculates the ranking and position of websites, can change up to 500 times a year. With so many factors tying into your search position, making sure your site stays relevant, and on top of search results can be a difficult, although not impossible task.
So How Does Google's PageRank Work?
We knew you would ask that, so we decided to answer. ;). While no one outside of the labs of Google knows exactly how Google's algorithm works, we can look at some deciding factors that can help increase your page rank, and increase visits and relevancy of your web site based off of years of data and research.
Choose the right keywords. many businesses make the simple mistake of choosing the wrong keywords to target their audience. Taking the time to analyze the correct keywords choices is one of the first steps to finding the terms that consumers are searching for, creating a conversion, and making money. The great thing is, Google already offers free tools to help you with locating the keywords that matter. Google Analytics allows you to see how visitors are reaching your site, and how they are interacting with your content once they get there. You may be surprised to find out that a keyword you thought was very important, actually is very low on competitiveness and search queries. A great way to target local keywords, is by using the Google Keyword Planner (formally called the Google Keyword Tool), to see exactly what matters in search for your local area. Remember, if no one is searching for your keywords, no one is searching for you.
Get More "Votes". Think of Google like a poll office or voting booth. Then think of trusted, relevant backlinks to your site as votes. Just as it works in the political world, the more "votes" you have for our website the better. And, just like in the real political world, Google considers some vote more important than others. PageRank is Google’s system of counting link votes and determining which pages are most important based on them. The scores that are returned are then compiled with other information, and used to determine where your site will come up in search. If you want to hear it directly from Google, this is a quote from the Google Technology page.
"The heart of our software is PageRank™, a system for ranking web pages developed by our founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University. And while we have dozens of engineers working to improve every aspect of Google on a daily basis, PageRank continues to play a central role in many of our web search tools.
PageRank Explained: PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at considerably more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; for example, it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.” Using these and other factors, Google provides its views on pages’ relative importance."
Confusing? You bet. You can break it down a bit more simple by stating that a link back from the relevant category of the New York Times, will be a more credible and trusted link than buying a link package off of the internet.
Target Phrases, Not Just Keywords. We can never determine what a user will type to get to your website, but you can generally get a pretty good idea by searching for your own product as if you were a consumer. For our own personal site, one of our highest ranked pages uses the search term "St Louis SEO Company". By adding a few extra words onto your keyword phrases, the results can change dramatically. It helps to think of a keyword phrase as something that would be said in a natural conversation. In a aforementioned example, it's highly unlikely a person would say "St Louis SEO" in a sentence, but when you add the word company on the end, it adds more meaning. This isn't something you want to do however. Remember, if it looks spammy, it probably is. Google Trends is another free tool (because we know you love free) to see what search terms are trending up, and which keyword phrases are trending down across the web.
Gaining Web Authority Status
Be Social and Link Generous. If you haven't noticed, Google likes verification, and information. Creating business pages on high pagerank, trusted sites like Facebook or Twitter can help to verify your company's identity online. Any link back to your site, from any post or article that you write, (providing it's relevant and high quality) can help to bolster your pagerank, and let Google know you are what you say you are. Don't think of the Google bot as a human entity, but rather as an intelligently programmed piece of software that looks for the number and quality of links and relationships between the two. You can also try becoming an admin on Wikihow, where you can create articles that link back to your site.
Being generous when linking out of your website can also help provide additional resources for Google to crawl. By not linking out of your own webpage, you create a limited resource for Google to crawl. If you are already having trouble establishing page rank, internal-only linking will not help solve your troubles. Another way to think about external linking is this; Google has to crawl all of the pages you link to, to establish their ranking. While they crawl the site you linked to, they will spot and analyze the link to better establish the ranking of the page they are crawling. Even if the other site does not link back, it can be an easy way for the Google Bot to pick up on your web page, and any new content you posted.
We hope that these simple tips will help you in gaining additional pagerank, and success for your website. If you have any questions, you can contact us here, or by calling 314-499-8253. We look forward to hearing from you, and helping your business with it's online marketing and seo efforts.
Posted By David Kley - December 17th, 2013
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