Improving Your PageRank

Below are suggestions for publicising your site - and improving its PageRank - based on our experience getting the word out about Google Guide.

Include useful high-quality information on your site.
Create content that users want and will share with others.

Submit your site to various web directories and reference sites.
A web directory "specialising in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links,” according to HighSearchRanking.com. Post your site’s URL (web address) to popular web directories including Open Directory Project (ODP), Yahoo!, and LookSmart. Also post your URL to online reference, e.g., Wikipedia, industry-specific expert sites, blogs, etc.

publicise your site to everyone with whom you communicate
Add your site’s URL, e.g., www.googleguide.com, to every piece of communication you initiate. The TechSoup (The Technology Place for Nonprofits) article, Publicizing Your Web Site: Getting the message out there, recommends that “your Web address should be listed everywhere that your phone/fax number and mailing address,” e.g., Business cards, Letterhead, Newsletters, Brochures, Press Releases, Fax cover sheets, Email signatures

Write a newsletter and send it out.
Inform people what’s new or noteworthy on your site. The newsletter will remind people about your site and encourage them to visit to find interesting content.

Ask other high-quality websites to link to your website.
Getting other “good” websites to link to yours usually helps your website’s PageRank and ranking on Google. Note: If your site links to delisted websites, your website might also be removed from Google’s index.

Provide motivation for highly ranked websites to link to yours.
Getting highly ranked sites to link to yours will improve your ranking more than getting many poorly ranked sites to link to yours. Note: If Google suspects that you’ve traded links with other sites for the sole purpose of improving your ranking, it might penalize or blacklist your site.

Check out a site before you link back.
When you receive a request for a link, check the site before you link back. Is it a site worthy of your link, i.e., vote of confidence? Would a link be of value to your page’s visitors?

Keep your website up.
If your website is not accessible for an extended period of time, Google may reduce the ranking of your site.

Give away content.
If most of your site’s content is commercial — e.g., pages about your business — consider adding other pages with useful information for the public. For example, if you sell bicycles, include pages or a blog about bicycle paths, bicycle gear, or with tips on bicycling. Publicize these and encourage others to link to them.

Search Google for your website.
Instead of entering your URL into your browser, search Google for your site. Google is more apt to improve the ranking of a site that users seek and visit than one that gets no traffic from Google.


For Google tips, tricks, & how Google works, visit Google Guide at www.GoogleGuide.com.