Improving your Google Page Rank

Posted on March 17, 2008 by timethief

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No sooner than I had posted Technorati: The Six Month Link Window when I heard that some bloggers are noticing that their Google Page Rank has dramatically descended. If you are among them then maybe these blogging tips and blogging tools will be exactly what you need to improve your page rank but, first, a definition is in order.

Page Rank calculation is Google’s way of deciding relative importance of a webpage. PageRank is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web. Google figures that when one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important the page must be. Also, the importance of the page that is casting the vote determines how important the vote itself is. Google calculates a page’s importance from the votes cast for it. How important each vote is is taken into account when a page’s PageRank is calculated. It matters because it is one of the factors that determines a page’s ranking in the search results. It isn’t the only factor that Google uses to rank pages, but it is an important one.

Source: Google’s PageRank explained and how to make the most of it

My blogging tips:

  1. Learn from the experts.
  2. Check, maintain and tracks your links.
  3. Use relevant keywords in titles and in the body of blog posts. Use Google Suggest. As you type into the search box, Google Suggest guesses what you’re typing and offers suggestions in real time. This is similar to Google’s “Did you mean?” feature that offers alternative spellings for your query after you search, except that it works in real time. By suggesting more refined searches up front, Google Suggest can make your searches more convenient and efficient by keeping you from having to reformulate your query. Google Suggest might offer suggestions that you will find novel or intriguing.
  4. Validate your html in your draft posts and clean it up prior to publication.
  5. Validate the html on your front page and correct all errors.
  6. Register with the search engines, set up a Google Webmaster Account, verify your blog and submit a sitemap and use Google webmaster tools
  7. Use the resources at Google Webmaster Center.
Automatically inform Google when you update your pages
Google Webmaster Tools provide you with detailed reports about your pages’ visibility on Google. To get started, simply add and verify your site, and you’ll start to see information right away.
Discover your links and see how users are reaching your site
View, classify, and download comprehensive data about internal and external links to your site with our new link reporting tools.
Enhance and increase traffic to your site
Learn which queries drive traffic to your site, and see exactly how users arrive there.
Learn more at Webmaster Central
Visit our Webmaster Blog, Help Center and more. Get the latest news and info on webmaster issues and browse through hundreds of frequently asked questions.

Tips from Experts

These are the positive factors that Google’s algorithm takes into consideration:

1. Keyword Use In Title Tag
2. Global Link Popularity Of The Site
3. Anchor Text Of Incoming Links
4. Link Popularity Within The Site
5. Age Of The Site

These are the negative factors that Google’s algorithm takes into consideration:

1. Server Is Often Inaccessible To Googlebot
2. Content Which Is Very Similar Or Duplicate to Existing Content On The Web
3. External Links To Low Quality Sites
4. Participation In Link Schemes or Actively Selling Links
5. Duplicate Meta Tags On More Pages

Google Optimization – Key Factors

  1. Make sure your new pages link to your old ones (related posts).
  2. Add a sitemap to your blog.
  3. Use title optimization
  4. Use but do not overuse relevant keywords in your posts.
  5. Submit your site to web-directories.
  6. Use robot.txt files to prevent non-relevant content from being scanned.
  7. Submit your site to Google for site verification.
  8. Write blog content for your readers – not for search engines.

Optimising your images

  1. Google seems to prefer images of a reasonable resolution, and that makes sense because so do people. If you have to use small thumbnails on your page, make it link to a bigger image of 800×600 or bigger.
  2. Name images in the format “/images/my-image.jpg”
  3. Do not rename or move an image unless you really have to. The Google image bot is very slow at indexing images, so by renaming an image it may disappear out of Google for 6+ months.
  4. No upper case filenames (nothing to do with SEO, but for your peace of mind when you move that Windows site to Linux)
  5. NO SPACES in filenames
  6. Use rewriting where images are dynamic
  7. Name your image to match the phrase you want to be found for, where appropriate
  8. Use relevant alt attributes on the images that include the phrase you want to target. Try to include the phrase in the alt attribute and filename
  9. Use the search phrase in text in close proximity to the image. A caption below the image is perfect. Source: Just because Google hates your site doesn’t mean it hates your images.

Related posts:
How to structure a reader and search engine friendly blog
How to: Google site verification (superceded)
How to fix alt and title image tags in the new wordpress.com
Why, how and where to create a site map

add to del.icio.us :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: seed the vine :: reddit :: furl :: TailRank

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Posted in: Better Blogging, Blog Promotion, Blogging Tips, Blogging Tools, Building a Better Blog, SEO tips, WordPress, wordpress.com, wordpress.org