To most people this doesn’t mean a thing, but over the last few days Google appears to have rolled out a Page Rank update.
Most of my sites have stayed static, while one site saw an increase, and another site saw a decrease. But does it really matter?
In a word, yes, page rank still has a bearing on the SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Positions), but it is one of many factors. If your website is beating all the competition for your targeted search terms then your page rank is irrelevant. However, if your website has been well optimised, then it could be that your offsite SEO needs work. This is where you can use your page rank as an indicator of your offsite SEO.
If you have a page rank of 0 or 1 then you still have a lot of work to do as far as building links back your website.
I know a lot of people get hung up on their page rank, but it should be used in the same way as the Alexa rank is used – as a guide to give you an idea of the current state of your website.
Most people I talk to think that getting to the fabled number 1 position in Google leads to untold wealth!
Unfortunately, that isn’t the case!
The web is a vastly different place to the one that existed 10 years ago, when all the big online brands made their name – there was very little competition.
Of course, if you get your site to number 1 in Google, then you have the chance to dramatically increase your sales, but it will not happen if your site is not to your customer’s tastes.
Creating a website that converts visitors to customers needs to be designed and developed with your customers in mind, while also being technically correct to please those pesky search engine spiders.
If you are serious about your website, the days of throwing up a site that your friend’s son has built for £20 are gone. There is more to a website than any one aspect – a good website that works will encompass good design, good development and a good user experience which will automatically help with your SEO process.
Within the last week an argument has raged about the existence of search engine optimisers and whether they are scammers or a legitimate profession.
The argument started out as a blogger decided to make a rather wild statement accusing anyone calling themselves a search engine optimisation specialist, a scammer.
The post was really quite immature in the way it was written, but the gist of it was that if website developers did their jobs properly, then search engine optimisers wouldn’t be needed. This is actually true. If every website was built following the basic principles of web design then the search engine optimisation industry wouldn’t need to exist. But not every website has been built by a professional web developer – some small business owners build their own site, and unfortunately, not all developers understand how to make a website SEO friendly.
The very fact that there are websites out there in the big wide world web that have basic errors that the website owners don’t know about means that there is a very real need for search engine optimisers – legitimate ones anyway!
If you’ve only just started thinking about setting up your website, you may have heard the term ‘seo’ bandied about.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation and it is what can help catapult your to the top of Google if done correctly.
The SEO industry seems to have got itself a bad name because the world and his wife thinks they know what SEO entails, and the problem is that there is no one way to get to the top of Google.
Many companies come unstuck because they don’t understand what SEO entails and so they don’t want to pay a lot for it. But consider this. You may have the best looking, best working website in the whole world, but unless it gets visitors, it is a waste of money.
It is also important to remember what SEO is supposed to achieve. Asking your SEO to get you to position 1, 2 or 3 on Google is not the most important thing – targeted traffic is. The aim to generate sales or leads from your website and not massage your ego over your Google positions.
In addition, rankings tend to bounce around a bit – Google has thousands of servers and you won’t always get the same results as those servers get updated at different times.
The upshot is that you should consider how important your website will be to generate leads or sales for you, and so you should give your website a budget to match that importance.
It is also important to find an SEO you trust. I always try to make sure my clients understand why I am doing what I am doing, but it is important to remember that SEO can be a timeconsuming practice, so don’t expect miracles if you are not prepared to pay for ethical search engine optimisation.