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Trying to get good page rank for your website can be a most frustrating experience for webmasters. After all, what is page rank and why should you care about it?

In the simplest terms, page rank (PR) is how much of the Google toolbar for page rank that is filled in with green. If the page you are looking at has a PR1 then 1/10th of the bar will be filled with green. If it has PR4, then 4/10ths of the bar will be green. Mostly only Google gets all of the bar filled green for a PR10, which is the highest possible rating.

To get the Google toolbar, which has the page rank bar, go to http://toolbar.google.com/ and download Google’s toolbar. It will sit on top of your browser. The toolbar will not only provide you with lots of Google resources but it will also give you the page rank bar so you can see the page rank of your site and also that of any other site that you visit it.

But what exactly is Google’s page rank system? Well, Google doesn’t tell us exactly. However, we do know page rank relies primarily on Google’s algorithms for determining the “importance” of the site or individual pages. The higher your site’s PR, the more often it will show up in the SERPs (search engine results pages).

I can’t speak officially for Google, but what webmasters have learned is that page rank is based primarily on the links to your site (called backlinks) that determine for Google how important your site is.

Google relies on a fairly democratic system by using its vast link structure to determine a page’s value. Very simply, if your page gets a link from another site, that’s a “vote” for your site. The more votes, the better.

However, Google also analyzes where the “votes” come from. If your site gets links from high-quality, authority sites with high PR, then your site benefits more from links from those high PR site sites than from links from non-authority or low PR sites.

Furthermore, if you put your link on another site with thousands of other links to other websites, then just be aware that Google will take that into consideration and will give your link its relatively small slice of of the other site’s PR divided amongst all of the other links, if the site has any PR at all. So putting your site’s link on a page that has a lot of other links may not do you that much good.

It’s just good business to always check the PR of the sites with which you may want to exchange links by using the Google toolbar. Also, be sure to check out the page the other site wants to put your link on so you know how many links they are publishing. Less than 100 links is what you are looking for and less than 20 links is ideal.

Also, realize that reciprocal links (where your site links to their site and they link to yours) is less valuable in Google’s eyes than one-way links to your site.

Once you get the Google toolbar and start seeing the PRs of other sites, you will be able to see the sites that get good PR and be able to model your site after those. I can’t stress enough the importance of having the Google toolbar …

Karen Kirby has over 25 years’ experience in the computer industry and an MS in Computer Science. She has been helping people with Internet marketing since 1995. For more tips on generating website traffic, see http://www.belowtheeight.com/Internet-Marketing-Strategy.htm
— get a free copy of “Internet Marketer’s Guide to Free Traffic” at http://www.aimbright.com/survey2.htm.

There are many tactics you can use to increase traffic to your website. However, three particularly effective suggestions include search engine optimization, keyword articles, and trading links with other web pages. When you incorporate these three strategies into your overall Web site strategy you will be sure to increase your traffic.

Tip #1 Search Engines and Optimization

You need to be sure your web page is listed with as many search engines as possible and that it is optimized to return results. The more web sites that have your information the more visitors you will attract, it is as simple as that. Also, optimizing your website to be returned in the search engines is also very important. You will be able to do this through keywords included on your pages. The more keywords you have that are directly and indirectly related to your content the better because the higher the keyword content the higher ranking you will receive through the search engines. You should be focused on writing short articles that focus on specific keyword phrases for your website. The more keywords you include and variations of keywords mean the more people you will be able to attract to your page.

Tip # 2 Trade Links

Trading links is another great strategy to use for getting people to your web page. What you should do is evaluate your target market, the product you are selling, and other related products. Then, for the other related products you do some research to find the best web pages that sell these products. Then, simply suggest a link trade. That website will post a link to your web site and you simply post a link to theirs. This will not only result in your web page being returned higher in the rankings, but also more visitors because you will have access to the visitors on other web sites as well. However, be sure that the sites you want to trade links with are good quality sites. And in order for them to want to trade with you, your site will need to be of good quality. Keep this in mind before making any contacts.

Tip #3 Submit to Directories

You should also submit your URL to as many popular directories as possible. However, in order for directories to be willing to list your web site, in is important to have a good site and layout. If you are still working on that then you should hold off on contacting directories until you do. Also, your web pages will have to be completely finished and not works in progress. However, if you get some of the popular directories to list you website you will have better rankings than others which will result in increased traffic.

Michael Turner shows you exactly how to increase web site traffic in his free 7 part mini-series. Grab it today at http://www.powertraffictactics.com/

Writing Links

In the first part of this article we learned some techniques to build a solid potential
link partner list for your website. Those sites aren’t any good to you if you don’t use
a strategy for writing the textual content of those links. Yes. I mean those few
little words that are underlined in blue. In the right order they give the key to your
website door to the world. In the wrong order, they don’t budge the cylinders in the
lock.

Number of links takes second place to quality of links. The words you choose,
varying them for each targeted link site, and incorporating some tried and true
direct mail standard tactics will make your links more popular in the search engines,
which is our ultimate goal. So lets get started!

As we said earlier, links are a crucial part of attaining high search rankings. The key
to writing good “link content” uses the same tactics for writing all good web
content. Namely, don’t write for the search engines. Write for your readers and
target audience. After you do that, then go back and tweak the little details to
optimize for the engines. Why? The search companies attempt to give results for
human readers, and because a number one search engine position is worthless if
the description of your site is the most boring thing anyone has ever read.

You have humans that are examining your site to see if they want to link to you.
Even if you pay for links someone has to make the decision that you’re worthy of
being on their site. And further, you’ll never sell your product or service or attain
any readership. Let’s take a simple step-by-step approach and make sure your
links are lively, catchy, searchable and gushing to be clicked.

Pretend you’re the owner of a pumpkin company website. You sell all things made
from pumpkins.

Step 1- Review Your Keyword List

Those are the words and phrases that you want to rank highly with in the search
engines. They are the starting point for your link text. Note: “link text” is the
clickable part of the link, the underlined blue type. Let’s take some keywords and
apply a few tactics to them to develop a good link.

A few keywords might be:

Step 2- Create variations on those keywords.
Think of phrases that someone might enter into a search engine. Using that
thought as the core, build outward by elaborating and specifying. Ask yourself
“what type of ____?” to help you expand. For example, take the few keywords above
and make them a bit more specific to:

Note: When coming up with additional keyword phrases (for use within your page
elements and link) try this tool. www.inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/
suggestion/ is part of Overture sponsored listings (now Yahoo) that will tell you how
many times a phrase was searched in their engines on the web. Target the phrases
with the most hits.

Step 3 Word Varieties

Your link should contain enough words so that when read out of context it still
makes sense. Not so many words that it becomes blurred when a reader scans
through a page.

Take the list you just made vary your keyword links using all of those keywords.
Search engines raise an eyebrow at seeing “pumpkin recipe” on 50 sites with the
exact same phrase all pointing back to you. It doesn’t see natural. Mixing up your
link text with “pumpkin pie recipie”,”pumpkin bread recipe”, and “cooking pumpkin
seeds” and the rest of your list keeps you well diversified without danger of
spamming. And your keywords are more focused and targeted which gives you a
better chance of being ranked higher.

Step 4 Incorporating Direct Mail Tactics

Now we have the words that will make up our link text. We’re almost finished. We
need to give people some motivation to click.

The simplest of direct mail programs or incentive marketing campaigns all have a
solid “call to action.” We need one here too. Why should a reader go to your site?
What’s in it for them? They’ve got better things to do.

So many websites use the phrases “Click here,” “Learn more,” or “More info”.
There’s a definite boundary between keeping things simple and clean on a web page
and just copping out. When I see those phrases on a link I think the writer didn’t
have time to get me excited about their product so I don’t have time to go look.

It doesn’t take much to write a simple call to action. For example:
Instead of “pumpkin pie recipe,” say “Grandma’s pumpkin pie recipe and all things
pumpkin at The Orange Pumpkin.” Now your reader knows the name of your
business (which will also be indexed), and thinks if it’s made by Grandma it’s
probably good… I think I’ll have a look.

Step 5 Put it all together

Take your keyword phrase and surrounding text and create your link. The coded
form looks like this.

Grandma’s pumpkin pie recipe and all things pumpkin at The Orange
Pumpkin.

Every single link doesn’t have to be different, but you should have quite a variety if
you follow these steps for all your keywords.

Don’t forget to use those keywords within your page too!!

Step 6 Final Thoughts

Stay away from link farms and free for all link sites.

List in as many Directories as you can, especially ones that are of the same nature
as your site.

Try to get one-way links. You might be able to buy some from someone fairly
cheaply. If you have to get a reciprocal link, stick to sites that are similar in theme
to yours. They don’t have to be identical, but in the case of The Orange Pumpkin
Company, a link from a car dealer is a waste of time…unless that car dealer happens
to have a collection of the world’s greatest pumpkin recipes on their site. If that’s
the case, then try to get a link on the page with the recipes.

Even though you’re goal is to rank high in the searches, write for the end user.
Then go back and fine-tune things for an optimized search engine friendly page.

Good luck and happy linking!

John Krycek is the owner and creative director of theMouseworks.ca. Read more articles on the insights
and secrets of website design and development and internet marketing in
easy, non-technical, up front English!

Have you ever noticed how much everybody talks about Internet marketing? It seems to be one of the hottest topics on the Internet over the past few years.

The funny thing about it is that with all the talk that has been going on very few people actually understand some of the fundamental principles of Internet marketing.

For example, what is the most important aspect of your Internet marketing campaigns? What is the most important area to focus on in order to make your business succeed?

If you answered “getting traffic to my website” then you are not alone. This is one of the most troubling subjects on most webmasters’ minds.

But it is the WRONG answer!

What you should worry about most is “What do you do with the traffic that your website already receives?”

Are you throwing it away? Perhaps you are only really holding onto about 1% of it, maybe even less!

Before even considering what you are going to do to drive more traffic to your website you need to consider this topic first.

For example, let’s say that you are already getting 500 visitors a day (that’s rather healthy). You sell some sort of product that costs $50 and make on average 2 sales a day (not bad at all!).

However, you want to double your sales. There are two ways you can do this. It is obvious that for every 500 visitors you are getting 2 sales. That means that you could increase your traffic by 500 visitors a day in order to obtain your goal. That’s pretty easy math isn’t it?

That’s what most people do! They say: “Well, I’m making $50 a day with 200 visitors, so if I get 400 visitors a day then I can make $100!” Then they go off to spend their money on increasing their traffic. Hey, if they can double their traffic for less than $50, then it’s a good deal!

HOWEVER, there is another way to double your sales. Think about it this way: You are only converting 2 out of every 500 visitors into customers! That’s a 0.4% conversion rate.

What you could do instead is improve your website so that you double your conversion rate. That means that you would get 4 sales for every 500 visitors. And guess what? You are already getting the 500 visitors!

Don’t look at it as if you are making 2 sales a day; look at it as if you are losing 498 sales every day. How much longer do you want to lose 498 sales?

So how do you increase your conversion rate? Well, your website probably can’t get any worse than it is right now, so why not change it?

Here are a few basic things that you can do:

1. Track everything that you do.

If you don’t know the conversion rate of your website, look up your traffic logs and write down the average number of visitors you get every day. Then look up your sales records and find out how many sales you get every day. Write this down.

2. Make small changes to your website.

Don’t change a lot. Maybe clean up your navigation menu a bit. Change the header on your sales letter. Change the background color or image. The key here is to only make small changes.

3. Track what happens next.

Now watch your traffic and sales for the next week or so. Did you notice a difference? Did it get better? Did it get worse? If it got better then keep whatever it is you did. If it got worse, then revert back to your old design.

4. Repeat steps 1 to 3.

Now go back and record how you are doing. Make another small change and see if it makes a difference.

This may sound like a lot of work (and it is), but I guarantee that it will help you to make higher profits on your website, without spending a dime on advertising!

If there is one difference that I have noticed between successful marketers and unsuccessful marketers it is that they test and they track EVERYTHING that they do. If you don’t know how well you are doing, how are you going to improve?

Matthew Glanfield is an Internet marketing veteran of 3 years. Receive his free email course on how to start your own Internet business by visiting http://www.internetbusinessformula.com.

It is an open internet promotion secret that the more
you give away freebies, the more you attract customers
the way honey attracts bees, because people
like freebies.

1. Checklists-
Create a list of things to check for a
particular process related to your business’s topic.
Eg: a checklist for creating a web site.

2. Templates-
Design a template that will make a
certain action easier for your target audience. Ex:
a template for writing a resume.

3. Text Workbook-
Publish a text format ebook so your audience can
learn and practice a certain skill.
Ex: a text workbook for writing ad headlines.

4. Transcripts-
Create an ebook of text transcripts of a related live event.
It can be a seminar, speech, class, interview, etc.

5. Dictionary Of Terms-
Publish a web directory or ebook dictionary of terms
relating to your specific business industry or subject.

6. Advice Service-
Offer a live chat room were you or your employees
can give your visitors and customers advice on your
business topic.

7. Human Research-
Offer a free service were you will search for sites or
information your visitors or customers can’t seem to
find online.

8. Plans-
Create ready-made plans for a particular
project your target audience wants to accomplish.
It could be marketing plans, landscape plans, etc.

9. Forms-
Offer printable, ready-made forms your
visitors or customers would use regularly. It could
be legal forms, organizational forms, etc.

10. E-mail Reports-
Publish quarterly e-mail reports that contains new
research discoveries, surveys, and statistics about
your related industry.

May you succeed in your internet promotion and make
a lot of money.

Warmly,

I-key Benney, CEO

I-key, a Millionaire CEO from New York City is the creator of “Mscsrrr: Millionaire Secret Cash System”, (work from home) program, which has helped thousands of ordinary people from all over the world to attain financial security and shining success during the past 2 yrs.

Mscsrrr Millionaire Cash System helps you to generate $1,500+/Week for life, from home or office, part time or full time. No large investment or hassles. Win $1000-$2000 free “cash”…