Rule #1: Make More Pages.
You can forget worrying about that little green PageRank bar in your toolbar ever again - it's time to focus on what REALLY matters.
Links do NOT create PageRank (no matter WHAT you may have heard otherwise). The only thing that creates and holds PageRank is a web page.
See, there's only a finite amount of PageRank available to share among all the pages in Google's search index. Think of Google's index as a apple pie. (I like apple, but you can think of your own flavor…)
Every single new page that gets added to the index is like cutting the pie into one more slice. Now with billions of webpages, we're talking about some really tiny pieces of pie - but all the slices of the pie still only equal one pie when you add them up.
This is important, because more pages in the index means a bigger chunk of that PageRank Pie is yours to control and profit from.
Rule #2: Your competition dictates how much PageRank you need.
Research your competition - see how many pages they have in the search indexes by using "site:" searches for their domains on both Google and Yahoo.
Going to Yahoo may seem strange since we're trying to rank better on Google, but Google's page-count numbers are known to show as much lower than what the true number of pages Google has indexed.
Yahoo shows a much higher (and more accurate) estimation for the number of pages it has indexed from a particular site.
You can use that to "guesstimate" how many Google has, because chances are, if Yahoo has indexed a page, Google has as well.
Once you know how many pages your competition has, you have a target to aim for. It's time to get to work, and the goal is: MORE. Generally speaking, you want to try for more pages than any of your competitors.
But only as many more as you need to beat them - There's no special prize for winning by a mile. 1st place is the best you can do, so aim just above whoever is there now so you don't overwork yourself for no return.
ADVICE: Put some effort into these pages - there's no point in putting trash pages into the index just to have "more" - you want the content on these pages to be WORTH linking to, and WORTH finding in the search engines.
Rule #3: Improve links between your pages
WARNING: This is NOT about getting external one-way links to your pages. That's great and all, and WILL improve your PageRank, but we want to focus on pages you actually control: your own.
So we know that every page in Google has a little bit of PageRank assigned to it just by existing. But the real MAGIC of Google is that any page's PageRank score can be manipulated using links.
To use that "pie" example again, incoming links will make a page's "slice" of the pie bigger, but any outgoing links will make the "slice" smaller.
(Ok, the way it really works is a bit more complicated than slices of pie, but the metaphor will make you money, even if it won't get you a PhD.)
The bigger a slice is, the better it will rank in the index, and the more links coming into any given page, the bigger that page's slice of the PageRank pie will become.
That's why we wanted to make so many pages in Rule #1. Once we have all these slices in the big pie, we can actually manipulate the size of each slice by controlling how we link between them.
Here's the right way to do it:
Internally, we make sure that all our least important pages ALWAYS link to our most important, money-making pages. But ALSO make sure that your most important pages NEVER link to your least important pages.
In this way we "sacrifice" the PageRank on unimportant pages only to boost the PageRank where it matters. Once we "fatten up" a page with all that sacrificed PageRank, we want to keep it there.
By now, some of you may be thinking that building a website with all these crazy link structures and limitations might be hard. After all, how is a customer supposed to find your stuff if you link to some stuff and not others?
For example, SOME non-money pages should obviously still be LINKED to, but really shouldn't get any of your precious PageRank. Pages like "About Us" and "Contact Us" come to mind in the Health Insurance Website.
Obviously, you want every single page on your site to link to those for customer usability. But how can you do that without also "leaking" precious PageRank juice?
This is really easy. You simply use the rel="nofollow" method in the "a" tag on any link that you don't want passing PageRank.
Ex. http://www.YourSite.com" rel="nofollow">Click here
That HTML would allow both human visitors and search spiders to follow it to YourSite.com, however none of the PageRank from the linking page would be passed on to the linked page. Once you've closed the gap, then you can worry about optimizing your links to tweak your PageRanks and funnel it to your best pages.
Remember, we want to work smart here.
Running an online business can be a lot of work already, so there's REALLY no sense in wasting effort on something that won't return maximum benefit, right?
Have a Great Weekend!!
You can forget worrying about that little green PageRank bar in your toolbar ever again - it's time to focus on what REALLY matters.
Links do NOT create PageRank (no matter WHAT you may have heard otherwise). The only thing that creates and holds PageRank is a web page.
See, there's only a finite amount of PageRank available to share among all the pages in Google's search index. Think of Google's index as a apple pie. (I like apple, but you can think of your own flavor…)
Every single new page that gets added to the index is like cutting the pie into one more slice. Now with billions of webpages, we're talking about some really tiny pieces of pie - but all the slices of the pie still only equal one pie when you add them up.
This is important, because more pages in the index means a bigger chunk of that PageRank Pie is yours to control and profit from.
Rule #2: Your competition dictates how much PageRank you need.
Research your competition - see how many pages they have in the search indexes by using "site:" searches for their domains on both Google and Yahoo.
Going to Yahoo may seem strange since we're trying to rank better on Google, but Google's page-count numbers are known to show as much lower than what the true number of pages Google has indexed.
Yahoo shows a much higher (and more accurate) estimation for the number of pages it has indexed from a particular site.
You can use that to "guesstimate" how many Google has, because chances are, if Yahoo has indexed a page, Google has as well.
Once you know how many pages your competition has, you have a target to aim for. It's time to get to work, and the goal is: MORE. Generally speaking, you want to try for more pages than any of your competitors.
But only as many more as you need to beat them - There's no special prize for winning by a mile. 1st place is the best you can do, so aim just above whoever is there now so you don't overwork yourself for no return.
ADVICE: Put some effort into these pages - there's no point in putting trash pages into the index just to have "more" - you want the content on these pages to be WORTH linking to, and WORTH finding in the search engines.
Rule #3: Improve links between your pages
WARNING: This is NOT about getting external one-way links to your pages. That's great and all, and WILL improve your PageRank, but we want to focus on pages you actually control: your own.
So we know that every page in Google has a little bit of PageRank assigned to it just by existing. But the real MAGIC of Google is that any page's PageRank score can be manipulated using links.
To use that "pie" example again, incoming links will make a page's "slice" of the pie bigger, but any outgoing links will make the "slice" smaller.
(Ok, the way it really works is a bit more complicated than slices of pie, but the metaphor will make you money, even if it won't get you a PhD.)
The bigger a slice is, the better it will rank in the index, and the more links coming into any given page, the bigger that page's slice of the PageRank pie will become.
That's why we wanted to make so many pages in Rule #1. Once we have all these slices in the big pie, we can actually manipulate the size of each slice by controlling how we link between them.
Here's the right way to do it:
Internally, we make sure that all our least important pages ALWAYS link to our most important, money-making pages. But ALSO make sure that your most important pages NEVER link to your least important pages.
In this way we "sacrifice" the PageRank on unimportant pages only to boost the PageRank where it matters. Once we "fatten up" a page with all that sacrificed PageRank, we want to keep it there.
By now, some of you may be thinking that building a website with all these crazy link structures and limitations might be hard. After all, how is a customer supposed to find your stuff if you link to some stuff and not others?
For example, SOME non-money pages should obviously still be LINKED to, but really shouldn't get any of your precious PageRank. Pages like "About Us" and "Contact Us" come to mind in the Health Insurance Website.
Obviously, you want every single page on your site to link to those for customer usability. But how can you do that without also "leaking" precious PageRank juice?
This is really easy. You simply use the rel="nofollow" method in the "a" tag on any link that you don't want passing PageRank.
Ex. http://www.YourSite.com" rel="nofollow">Click here
That HTML would allow both human visitors and search spiders to follow it to YourSite.com, however none of the PageRank from the linking page would be passed on to the linked page. Once you've closed the gap, then you can worry about optimizing your links to tweak your PageRanks and funnel it to your best pages.
Remember, we want to work smart here.
Running an online business can be a lot of work already, so there's REALLY no sense in wasting effort on something that won't return maximum benefit, right?
Have a Great Weekend!!
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