Importance of PageRank In Online Marketing

If you are planning to embark in an online marketing you need to have a working knowledge in the subject of Search Engine Optimization or commonly referred to as SEO.  SEO is quite a broad subject but nevertheless, you cannot discuss SEO without touching the issue of Google PageRank or the PR.

The PageRank of a website indicates how Google views the importance of a page. It usually looks at the number and quality of links pointing to a certain page.  These quality links can be equated as “votes” being casts to a certain page.  The more quality “votes” your website have the more popular and more important it is to Google.  PageRank is scored on a scale of 0-10, 10 being the highest.

According to Google itself, PageRank reflects our view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results.

PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a vote, as votes from some pages are considered to have greater value, thus giving the linked page greater value. We have always taken a pragmatic approach to help improve search quality and create useful products, and our technology uses the collective intelligence of the web to determine a page’s importance.

How then the PageRank can affect your online business and why would you want to have higher PageRank?  Well, there are lots of good reasons to want to rank higher, but for businesses, the primary reason is to generate revenue.

Practically, there are millions of people use Google and other search engine like Yahoo and Bing everyday searching to a particular product, services or information.  And these millions of people are you potential client looking for your particular product or services to offer.   When the potential client is searching for something, there are two ways for your online store to show up on the result page.  The first way is through paid advertising, and to tell you frankly paid advertising is expensive.  The second method is through “organic or natural” search.  Organic search results are free and are dependent on Google’s (or Yahoo or Bing) estimation or how relevant and credible is your website.

Aside from being free, organic method are often works better than paid advertisement.  If you can rank number one in a certain keyword, it is comparable to being featured centerfold in daily news, everyday!  It’s a great way to grow your business and find new clients.

The next question is, what will you do to be in the number one rank?  The answer would be back in Search Engine Optimization and PageRank.  PageRank of your website can be improved considerably by two methods. One is to build a website with such quality and content that other websites would automatically want to link with. The PR would improve dramatically on its own.

Web Pages Must Live Forever

Online marketing is growing in such a fast pace and everyone seems to be jumping into internet marketing bandwagon. Lot of people wanted to build a commercial internet site and reap huge fortune out of it. Reaping huge fortune online is a reality. It can be very possible, but first you have to learn on how to create web pages that can live and must live “forever”. For commercial Internet sites, your pages must live forever. Here are the four primary reasons concluded by professional web developers why you should make you web pages live forever:

  1. Customer Bookmarks: Because customers may bookmark any page on your site, you cannot remove a page without running the risk of losing a customer who would not find a working link. Every time a customer encounters a dead link, you run the risk of losing a potential customer.
  2. Links from Other Sites: Like your customer that bookmark any pages, other sites may link directly to page within your site; removing a page may result in losing customer referrals.
  3. Search Engines Referrals: Because search engines are often slow to update their databases, this is another source for old and dead pages.
  4. Old Content Adds Value: Some customer may find significant value from old content. The first three issues discussed above are reasons why your web pages must live forever. In addition to these are the practical issues like credibility and usefulness of the site. Many users may actually find value from old content. Old contents also enhance the site credibility and integrity. Old content can remain useful to users because of historic interest, old product support or background information for recent events. In other words, when users bookmark a page and return to your site, this link should return something useful to the user, otherwise you run the risk of losing the customer.

Things to Avoid in Designing a Website

Designing a website is not easy as some may think it involves more than just picking appropriate colors, putting in heavy-loaded contents and embed state-of-the-art flashy plug-ins.  Adding in a little of that and a little of these, putting in a swirl of a magic wand that provides great color and lots of animated graphic doesn’t make your website standout.  In designing a website there are things that we have to do and to avoid as well.  On this article I will share to you the things you must avoid in designing a website.

1.  Using Cutting-edge Technology. Sure, the latest and the most advance thing are cool to see but you but always remember that some (or maybe most) your visitors do not have the latest version of browsers or plug-ins installed in their system to view your site.  Always make sure that your site would run and viewed on a minimal system.

2.  Anything That Looks Like Advertising. Since the World Wide Web is a jungle full of advertisement, Web users are becoming annoyed and wary advertising.  According to research on Web traffic, Web users have learned to stop paying attention to Web advertisement.  Make sure to avoid designing any legitimate information in a manner that looks like advertising such as banner, animation, and pop-ups.
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Big Leap Towards Personalization

In previous topic I have discussed the tips on how to build trust and loyalty to your customers.  In this topic we will discuss another topic that could build your customer’s trust and loyalty.   Another way to increase loyalty and to convey trustworthiness to your customers is to provide a personalized content on your website.  Personalization means that the content of your site is based upon the personal preferences of your customer.   To site an example, when you register and made purchased on Amazon.com they made a record of your activity in their site, and each time you visit the site you are presented with a customized page based upon your prior purchases.

A personalized site “knows” your customer every time they visit to your site they are presented with new personalized content without having to enter any additional information from them.  With this your customers could develop a personal attachment toward the site.  This method of personalizing website content is a success because users do not have to anything to set it up, and customer would feel comfortable on this site that “knows” them.

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Web Design Consistency Matters

Maybe you thought that your website is a statement of your personality or a canvass that should be filled with your artistic inspiration, and maybe you are correct on that assumption. A good website must reflect the spirit of a person or a business that it represents. A good website must also be artistic enough to appeal to the visitors, but not too much. Most of the web designs nowadays favored the fresh, elegant but with less combination of colors. But no matter what you choose on your web design, always remember that site consistency matters.

Website consistency refers to the reasonable or logical harmony between each part and each pages of your website. A consistent “look and feel” on your website conveys the image of professionalism, proficiency and reliability. Nobody would take your website seriously if you have different background color and different font in every page. A site with high consistency is also much easier for the users to navigate and it is much more natural for the website user to expect the meaning of links.

From a practical point of view, it is unwise not enforce a standard look and feel on the entire website. Inconsistent web design is a nightmare in terms of maintenance. Try to imagine reconstructing or maintaining a website that has different colors, fonts, plug-ins and other web elements across the numerous of Web pages within the site. It is a total disaster!

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Building Customers’ Trust and Loyalty

Trust and loyalty is two most important characteristic that online business should seriously build unto its customers.  Trust and loyalty is the lifeline of any online business, without it your business would vanish before you could even renew your hosting account.  Building trust and loyalty is like building an indispensable portfolio.

In order for your site to become the “preferred site” for your clients, they must feel the site and their data is secure.  There are many ways that the design of the site can convey the sense of trustworthiness to its customers.  Just like a saying goes “Trust is earned not bought,” customers trust is built from the positive and pleasant experiences interacting with the site.

According to Jakob Nielsen, a web design guru, web designers can convey trustworthiness in a Website in the following ways:

  1. Quality Design: A Website that has a professional appearance and comprehensible navigation conveys respect for customers and implied a promise of good service.
  2. Correct, Reliable and Up-to-Date Content: Having up-to-data content conveys a commitment to provide users with the most up-to-date information.  Information posted must be correct and reliable, otherwise it could promote distrust.
  3. Up-front disclosure: Disclose all necessary fees, warranties and policies in clear and concise manner.  This could help to convey an open and honest relationship.
  4. Be connected to the rest of the Web: Having linkage to other websites is a sign of confidence and credibility.  A site that is isolated would feel like it may have something to hide.

In addition to what is mentioned above, protecting the customers’ entrusted data will be a significant factor for promoting a trustworthy image.  A site that is trusted by its customers is a site that is worth all the loyalty the customer has to give.  Trust and loyalty always goes hand in hand.  Loyalty is a product of trust, with trust there loyalty.  Failure to consider the issue of trust is a big indicator that web design is doomed to fail too.

$500 SEO Contest Deadline

The search index already reach at almost 100,000 of pages and 46 entrants with 52 blog entries already registered for the Claremont Design’s $500 contest. We decided to put a deadline on submission of blog entries so that we could finalize the entries. Remember if your entry or entries are not registered (not found on the table of valid entries) and in case it wins the first position or any winning position on the specific DC of the search engine mentioned on the contest rule then you will not be qualified to win any prizes. As the rule says only registered participants are qualified for any prizes.

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Claremont Design $500-SEO Competition 2009

Claremont Design, provider of high quality web designs, ecommerce and SEO services with LA Toy Store, leading distributor of different kinds of toys ( wooden toys, autism toys, therapy toys and other special toys for children) would like to announce today the $500.00 search engine optimization competition for 2009.

Leaderboard (03/22/2009)

Here are the rules / mechanics of this search engine optimization challenge:

  1. Start date is 1st of March 2009 (Sunday 12:00 noon Philippine Time).
  2. End date of the contest is 3rd of May 2009 (Sunday 12:00 noon Philippine Time)
  3. On your blog, simply create an article about the key phrase or just about anything, but optimize it so that it becomes the top Google search result for the contest key phrase. (see key phrase below). The article should not contain or should not mention about it as a SEO contest. Indented listings or results are not counted on the rankings.
  4. Your blog/s DOMAIN or SUB-DOMAIN used for the entries should not contain any part of the key phrase.
  5. The entries should have a visible link back to this website and LA Toy Store. Use the code below for the valid link code to be embedded on your entry posts or you can revise it as long as it follows the required URL/Anchor Text/Title of the links.

    The code will look like this:

    Claremont Design + LA Toy Store

  6. There is NO limit on the number of entries/post you may make and submit but only articles posted on or after March 1, 2009 are valid and as long as the post contains the link code specified on the rules.
  7. To register, leave a comment here with your entry/entries or you can send your entries to claremontdesign @ gmail . com. I will provide a place to list valid entries for the contest so check it at [ List of Valid Entries ].
  8. No pornography, no discrimination and no illegal behavior are permitted.
  9. Only registered entrants and valid entries are eligible to compete and win the prize.
  10. The prizes for the said competition are as follows:

    Prizes:

    $300 for Rank #1

    $150 for Rank #2

    $50 for Rank #3

  11. Prizes will be sent via PAYPAL.

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You can check your current ranking via

target-keyphrase

12. Required links should be on the entry post all through out the competition and should not be removed. The organizer and the host of the competition have the rights to disqualify a participant if they find the links  removed or tagged by the entrants as NOFOLLOW during the competition.

Note: To encourage us to conduct more of this competition, we advice that the entry posts should stay even after the competition. Thank you!

Free Website and Blog Templates from Claremont Design

Claremont Design has been providing web design consulting / services for several years. We have programmers, designers and search engine optimizers with years of experience in developing custom websites, CMS (Content Management System), blog templates, Ecommerce sites and many more. Check out our free templates. We have full dynamic flash web templates, static websites that uses CSS/HTML/PHP combination, Word press themes, Blogger theme and even themes for different forum platforms.

We can customize any templates to suit your needs. Just fill up the form on the contact us page and provide us with the item number or link of the template you would like to use and we will contact

Why our Service is Far Better?

Do you know why our services are far better compared to other web design company existing today? It is because we build websites that possessed the quality it needs to become very competitive online. We believe that your success is our success. We will guide you in every step of the way to achieve your goals. Our talented people behind Claremont Design are highly competent and skilled. They are carefully chosen so that we only provide the best talents to touch every single element of your web ventures. We always make sure that life will be easy for you so that you could concentrate on things that you really do best, which is doing business.

Our highly customizable content management systems (CMS) allow you to manage it easily without our aid. We can also provide a marketing campaign for your websites to boost traffic – SEO services.

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