What is Google PageRank and why is it so important to your site?

Google PageRank is designed to determine the relative importance of all pages on the internet. It is like a voting system where a link from one page to another represents a vote for that page in the eyes of Google. A page with alot of other pages that link to it gets a lot more votes as far as Google is concerned and so has a higher PageRank. If links come from pages with a high PageRank this also represents more votes as far as Google is concerned. The whole process of determining PageRank is a complicated affair, but there are some simple things that you can do in terms of site design to help with your Google PageRank.

PageRank is all about linking, so in terms of site design it is important to look at what incoming links you will have to your site. Remember that an incoming link is a vote for your page and so will help with your Google PageRank. Links from pages that already have a high PageRank in Google will greatly assist your PageRank value. There are a number of ways that you can get incoming links to your sites including writing articles and posting them to an article directory with a link back to your site, posting in blogs with a link back to your site, links to other sites you may have, sharing links with your suppliers, and you can buy links.

In Site links are also an effective way to increase your Google PageRank. When I design a site I try and maximise the number of links between all pages on the site. These links also represent votes. Given that if you have a new site and all of your pages have low PageRank value then these votes may be small in the eyes of Google, but as your traffic starts to increase these votes will assume greater importance. I believe that this element of site design is largely overlooked by individuals and small businesses, so talk to your site designer about maximising the number of internal links within your site.

External links are something that you need to think very carefully about. Lets say on the Home Page of your site you have some incoming links from articles you have written about your business or products, and some links from your suppliers. This gives your page a number of votes that are then distributed across the internal site links from your Home Page and any external links that you may have. Too many external links means you are giving away too many votes to these other pages that you are linking to. My advice is to be careful with external links and to not get carried away with all sorts of widgets, counters, and other things on your Home Page. These all contain links to the people that created them and helps them to get a higher PageRank value. What they do to your PageRank value is water it down. So be discerning in how you make external links to your site, otherwise your PageRank value will suffer.

So, to maximise your PageRank value you need to get high quality incoming links to your site. Or alternately a number of lesser quality links will also help. Maximise the internal linking within your site, and be careful with external links so that you are not giving away too much of the value of these incoming and internal links to other sites.

The web can be a complicated place and many individuals and small businesses struggle to get an online presence. Stephen is the founder of http://www.webdesigntipsonline.com and specialises in helping individuals and small businesses design effective websites. Check out http://www.webdesigntipsonline.com

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Posted on November 17th, 2008 by 1prank
Filed under: Uncategorized