The Quest for PageRank - How to Increase PR

Google As we learned before, getting links is the only way to increase your Google PageRank. So the question that would follow is, how do you get links? But there’s a little more to it than just getting links. Some links have more influence than others… the better the content the greater chance of links… so there’s more to it.
Now, I know this horse has been beaten to dead, so I won’t make this complicated.
Without further ado, let’s dive into increasing PageRank.

First of all, good content gets you links.
Plain and simple.
If you don’t have good content, no one will link to you - no matter how many strategies you use.
Beyond that, it’s mostly chance and timing.

But what can be done, I’ll share.
Different strategies work better for some people, and others work better for others.
So I’ll share what has worked for me.

In my experience, commenting on other blogs is the best thing you can do.
In the past, commenting on other blogs has been my greatest source of visitors.
By posting high quality and in-depth (that’s key) comments on similar blogs, you get the attention of that blogger and it’s regular readers and commentators. Then that blogger (or those readers) will get an interest in your blog and check you out. Those visitors will then (most likely) subscribe to your RSS. When they’re subscribed to your RSS, they’ll stay up to date with your articles, and give you links.
Further more, if the blog you’re commenting on has DoFollow enabled (Learn more about DoFollow), then you’ll get some PageRank credit from that as well.

After commenting on other blogs, participating in forum with a link in your signature would probably be best. The same principals apply - so I shan’t repeat myself.

Another great link and traffic source is Wikipedia
Wikipedia is ranked 8 by Alexa (11.28.07) and it’s traffic is still climbing. That’s a lot of visitors. Granted, they’re browsing a lot of pages, but why not get a link to a page on your web site on this traffic monster?
Note: Your link MUST pertain to the article. If the link isn’t relevant, and you’re persistent - your entire web site shall be banned from Wikipedia. (Read the Wikipedia policy on External Links for more info.)
I have done this for one of my previous sites (that is now offline) - and I got a lot of traffic. I don’t remember the specific statistics, but I got most of my traffic from links from about three Wikipedia pages.

Ok…
so those tips weren’t out of the ordinary…
but sometimes we all need to be reminded of them.

Do you have any other strategies that work for you?

Further Reading: Freedom Ideas: Make Your Site Known - Link Building Strategies and Tips

 

10 Responses to “The Quest for PageRank - How to Increase PR”

  • [...] tips on how to increase your page rank? Check out the next post in The Quest for PageRank series: How to Increase PageRank. Don’t know your site’s PageRank? Find you’re site’s page [...]

     

  • Yep, commenting on other blogs is a big one for me I think. I developed quite a few backlinks and think it’s a direct result of the work I did when I first opened my blog. I would spend about an hour each night commenting on other blogs. Usually the author of that blog would visit my site and sometimes I was lucky enough to get a backlink out of it.

    My other one is develop an icon set or something similar that people can link too. I’ve gained a TON of backlinks to my site simply because of my icon set.

     

  • Aye…
    that icon set..
    I considered doing one several times.
    lol

    But I actually will through the WDA. I’m creating custom icons for it - and I’m gonna offer them for download.

     

  • Your suggestions work really well. I wish I had the time to post on as many blogs and forums but I alas other things take precedence. However, one hour a night is quite reasonable.

     

  • He he he, wrote them in my notebook. Thanks for the good tips.

     

  • I think investing in a $25 stumbleupon campaign is money well spent. I haven’t had much success with forums, but maybe that’s because I don’t spend a lot of time on them.

     

  • I think comments without Blog content is not worth it especially for a new blogger.

    When my blog was new (under 20 blog posts), I would comment on others blogs with links to my own. But, I would receive few backlinks. why? Well, it comes back to your first point. Content is king, but I think there is more to it than just good content.

    A Blog needs consistently fresh good content that is timely.

    Let’s look at that.
    1) Consistently Fresh Content - I think in order to increase your page rank, the content can not go stale. It needs to be changing, you need to change the messages and the content over and over on a consistent basis. Whether that is quarterly (changethis), monthly (alistapart), weekly, daily (zenhabits), hourly (lifehacker), or even more often (twitter). If the content changes on a consistent basis, I think you’ll have more consistent readers. They know when to read.

    2) Good Content - What is good content? Good content is different depending upon your blog and website goals and your target audience. In fact, I won’t espouse about good content just yet, but to be honest you can tell what is good content by who links to you and how many comments. That’s one way of determine. Really, your content will get better the more you write.

    3) Timely - What is timely content? Well, for example, let’s say that Apple releases a crazy completely wireless TV tomorrow at Macworld 2008. If you were to write up a blog about 10 ways to use a wireless iAirTv while Camping in the Woods, that would be timely. I just recently reinforced this lesson to myself accidentally. I noticed an article on MSN health about the flat belly diet, MUFA (mono unsaturated fat) and weight loss. I said, hey that sounds a lot like every other diet I have ever heard about that is successful. So, I wrote up a blog post about it. Little did I know that a book was just released by prevention magazine and the author would be on one of the US major morning tv news shows. Guess, what, my incoming links for the google search MUFA Weight loss has increased my page views dramatically.

    Why?

    I’d like to think it happened that I wrote content that was good, fresh, and timely.

    So, I think your first step is correct, Content is King. Without good content, you will get no links that can not be stressed enough, and I think you have to build good content while participating in the conversation (blog comments and forums).

    I’ve always wondered about wikipedia. I’ll have to look at that. Doesn’t wikipedia practice NoFollow relationships in the links? Would that increase your pagerank?

     

  • Very nice points Scott!

    Actually, I’m not sure if Wikipedia practices NoFollow…
    :-/
    Even if they don’t, having a related link on Wikipedia would bring in interested visitors.
    Like I said, I received a lot of relevant traffic from Wikipedia on one of my previous web sites.
    So, might not increase PR… but will bring visitors.

     

  • i have a question.. is there any minimum number of months before a blog can have a page rank? I always update my blog almost everyday (2-3 posts) but still my PR is 0.. my blog is just 2 months old.. hope anyone can help me regarding this issue..

     

  • There is not a minimum amount of months.
    Google updates PageRanks about once a month.
    You could miss the next PageRank level just barely one month and have to wait a month.

     

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