* * * Articles * * *

8. 5 Easy Ways to Boost Your Google PageRank.

First I would like to note that there have been a lot of new blogs (including me) popping up in the niche that I’m most interested in, which is making money online. The cool thing about this is that most of them that I’ve ran across are pretty good! There are a lot of potential A-Listers in the making and one of the more important aspects of how much money they will make in the future (after gaining readership and traffic) is obtaining a decent Google PageRank.

The last Pagerank update was around late April/early May if I remember right. Anyway, the experts say that a PageRank update takes place on average every 3 months. That’s perfect for the newer breed of bloggers out there because that’s plenty of time prepare for the next update and at least get some kind of PR out of it. What I would like to show you is 5 quick ways that you can boost your PageRank starting today!

1. Check out my list of DoFollow Blogs. You’ll see a better description of what that means on by visiting that page. Basically you can leave a comment on one of those blogs that are on the list and Google counts it as a link to your site. Two important things to remember here:

a. When leaving a comment on a DoFollow blog, make sure it’s sincere! No one wants junky, generic comments just so you can snatch up a link. Most of the time the crap comments are moderated out anyway.

b. When you are about to leave a comment, put one of your main keywords in the “name” field. This isn’t necessary, but it sure as hell won’t hurt your keyword rankings if you are going after a certain one to garner more “organic” traffic. Overall, these extra links that you receive from leaving a comment will help you all around (technorati, Google, more traffic, etc…)

2. Get links from power players in your niche. This is so important, I can’t stress it enough! You see, when Google crawls for ranking purposes, if they see a link from a PR6 site coming in to your site, that scores you big points. It can do wonders for your search engine rankings. There are a few ways to obtain big time links.

The easiest way is to pay for them. On most of the “A-Listers” blogs you can buy link on their site for a monthly fee through a link broker such as Advolcano, Text-Link-Ads, or even a private sale. Purchasing a link is not always an option though, as they can be VERY expensive for a very popular site. No worries though.

You see, a lot of these “big player” blogs/sites have a review exchange or something similar going on, which usually involves you writing a review of their blog/website, and then they will link to it from their site using the anchor text of your choice. An obvious review exchange that someone in my field would do is the one over at John Chow. Check that one out and you’ll see what I mean. For about 10-15 minutes of your time, you can write a review and get a very nice link back to your own site. Well worth it in my opinion.

Last but not least, there is one more way to get linkbacks from these big sites/blogs. It’s free and only involves your creativity. Can you guess what it is? Content! Write a kick-ass article and there is a good chance that it will get picked up in one of their “speed-linking” sessions or if you’re lucky they might even write an article on your article! This can bring you a ton of traffic and it will also do wonders for your future PageRank. That leads me to my next point….

3. Content, content, content! Without good content, a blog is doomed to fail. Google LOVES unique content and will index it pretty quick, especially if it contains good keywords and an original perspective. This is strategy that will help you over the entire life of your blog. The more content that you put out, the more times Google will find it and index it, and in turn you’ll get more links, traffic, and readership. If your stuff is good enough and ranks high in the search rankings, you’ll surely garner some good PageRank out of it several different ways over. So keep those articles coming, they all help!

4. Directory submissions. These can play a tremendous effect in your Google PageRank as Google recognizes a lot of directories as “experts” or “authority” sites. So getting an inbound link from them is HUGE! There are a few ways you can go about doing this. There is a website out there called Add URL.nu which lists 945 directories that you can submit to which is pretty handy to have around. Another option to make the process a little faster (believe me, it’s VERY boring and slow submitting to directories) is by downloading a free program called Directory Submitter Standard or Directory Submitter Gold. I’m here to tell you - this program is a miracle. It speeds up the tedious process of submitting by quite a bit. I can submit to five directories using Directory submitter in the time that it takes me to manually do one. The standard version is free and includes a list of 350 directories which is great, but the Gold version costs like $47 and includes over 1700 directories! I could go on and on about this prog, but I’ll let you check it out for yourself. It’s a great way to get your blog listed in all the major directories - for free! Again, gaining inbound links from directories will score you big points when the next PR update comes around.

5. Article marketing. I have to recommend you to a great post about the art of article marketing by Courtney Tuttle. Article marketing is new territory to me, but so far I love it! As you can see from the above 4 entries, link building and link popularity are key to getting you a good Google PageRank. Basically article marketing can get you known out in the writing world and you even have the possibility (if the article is good enough) of gaining hundreds or even thousands of incoming links from relevant sites/blogs after they pick up your article. Again, be sure to read Courts post on this, it’s very helpful and will explain the fundamentals of this popular form of marketing your original content.

I hope some of those ideas help you in your quest to obtain a decent Google PageRank when the next update comes around. Start doing all of the above and I’ll nearly guarantee you a good PR out of the deal. The best part about the above mentioned steps is that not only will you gain PageRank, but you’ll also receive crap-tons of traffic and readers, short-term and long-term. Combining all of the steps is a sure way to grow your blog in many different, yet important ways.

If you have any more tips on how to prepare for the next PageRank update, I would love to hear them in the comments section below. Share your knowledge with us so that we can all be ahead of the game next time. Thanks!