Behind Google search, it's pagerank... what' s behind Google pagerank?

In my previous article, Improve Alexa rank; make money online I discussed the need to improve Google Pagerank and Alexa website ranking, in order to gain presence over web and increase your internet marketing revenue. I listed some easy and practical ways which I used to improve my Alexa website ranking and I am still using them, I proudly say that my rank have improved from a level of 2,035,653 on 22 June’09 to 528,246 on 22 July’09, within one month, don’t you think it’s great.
As I had promised earlier, here I have share simple methods, which I am using towards improvement of TechZee.com Google Pagerank. Following these methods, during last pagerank upgrade, my Google Pagerank improved from 0 to 2, within one and half month of starting my blog and I am confident, it will touch new level this time.

Before jumping on to tips, let me discuss background about Google search engine and pagerank.

Google search engine and Google pagerank

Google Search Engine is undoubtedly the best way to increase website traffic and attract customers. It won't ensure top billing for your site but it will increase the likelihood of higher exposure. At the back of Google Search Engine, Google pagerank plays it’s game; higher the Google pagerank, more chances of your site being indexed on top of Google search engine query.

Google Algorithm for calculating pagerank

Google ranks a page according to the number and quality of links leading to that page. For example, if your page has 100 quality links leading to it, it will rank higher than another page that has only 50 links pointing at it.
Quality links come from pages that are themselves important, in Google's own terminology. You can read this at Google pagerank technology.
Google uses automated programs known as spiders or webcrawlers, which scan the Web regularly and rank Web sites according to a number of factors. Google claims, that its uses more than 100 factors to determine page ranking. It’s web site has a lot of important tips that can give you insight into their process and includes some Google search engine optimization tips to improve your pagerank.
Google periodically changes its method towards calculating page importance, thereby resulting in shifts in website ranking, this is termed as a Google Dance. In-spite of that, some factors remains consistently important.

Quality content

As I have already mentioned in my earlier post Improve Alexa rank; make money online, “Quality content is the mantra of success and attracts large audience and maintains their revisits. This will also help spreading your links across the web and result in an all round improvement, hence focus on developing quality content for sustainable growth”.

Search engine appreciates fresh and quality content. More often you add content, search engine crawlers will come back to your site and increase chances of your page being indexed higher on Google and other search engine.
Avoid copying content in full from other sites, instead quote the relevant part from the original source and never forget to include a link to the original source. Linking content only to homepage of original source is considered as copying data by Search engine.

e.g. "Quality content is the mantra of success…quality content for sustainable growth” is the content from Improve Alexa rank; make money online, which is linked to http://www.techzee.com/improve-alexa-rank-make-money-online, this is OK but if you mention the source as TechZee… Online, update and smile and further link it to http://www.techzee.com/, this will be considered as data duplication by search engine crawlers.

Generating links

Inbound links (external)
Google spiders move from site to site across the web following hyperlinks. Google algorithm generates pagerank by counting the number of links a site has pointing to it from unrelated sites, hence increasing the number of links to your site will increase your chances of ranking high on search engine.
Also understand, that all links are not equal and you get higher weight if your site is linked with sites considered as more important by Google, so make sure to register your site with web directory like Yahoo web directory and Open Directory Project.
Include few outbound links to high quality external sites in every page of your site, this will ensure quality connection between your site and external site but don’t include too many links on single page; Google suggests less than 100.
While linking to these external sites, use relevant keyword text in them rather using “Click here”; this will rank your page higher in search engine results.

e.g. a link with the text Problogger.net is preferred over "for Problogger.net click here".
Don’t use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages or auto generate link, don’t buy traffic and don’t buy links, this all violates Google Terms of service and may lead towards penalizing or blacklisting your site.

To ensure quality connection, consistently add comments to related articles on external websites ranking high on search engine, this is also the top recommendation from most of the successful bloggers including Steve Dembo of Teach42, Comment unto others.

Internal links
Well organized and easy to navigate site is always preferred by Google spiders, also make sure, you don’t have any broken links, spiders don’t like dead ends. Also this cross linking will help in balancing your Google pagerank across the site and your readers will find it easy to navigate across your site. This will further make your site sticky, increases average time per user on site and contributes towards improvement in Google pagerank; you can read through advise from Darren, Problogger.net.
Adding sitemap to the site is always preferred, it helps spiders to reach every corner of your site. Read more about Google Sitemap Generator.

Valid HTML code and spell check

Spiders read your site as text so things like JavaScript, DHTML and Flash makes it hard for search engine to crawl your site, also you should always spell check your content before publishing as Google doesn’t like misspelled words.

Search Engine Submission

All search engine include a link as "Add a site”; with this you place your site in queue for crawlers. By this way crawlers get an indication that some unexplored content is placed at your site and it will make a visit to your site. Submit your website here; Google Search engine submission, Yahoo Search engine submission.

Search engine optimization techniques

With this I am not at all making a point, that you should rush for some SEO services and pay them hefty amount for your website optimization, but you can definitely make use of some search engine optimization tips.
For buddies on Wordpress, easiest way is to download All in One SEO plugin and start using it.

Simple SEO tips

• Title pages properly – Search engine read only portion of long titles (60 – 90 characters, 15 – 20 words)
• Meta tags – Although its importance has reduced, but who knows how important it is, so why to take chance.
• Keywords – Include relevant keywords on your site (explained in this article) and take care of keyword density (number of keyword term usage per page, Google considers keyword density a large factor in ranking pages in search engine results. (Avoid keyword spamming – using irrelevant keywords upfront or as hidden text will negatively affect your site ranking, that is for sure.)

For selection of keywords, look into Google adword keyword tool and extract keywords by adding content or website URL. You must include Average CPC and Search volumes while selecting your keywords.

On the basis of these keywords you can optimize your-

• Content
• Tags
• Headings
• Permalink
• Post and image description, Alt tags on images
• Meta keywords and Title

Related website plugin

This is a recent plugin from Kevin of BlogtrafficExchange; this is a unique development and result of out of box thinking. According to Kevin, “All links are randomly rotated both locally per page load and globally every 24 hours, and though a proprietary traffic balancing algorithm rewards blogs who send diverse traffic into the exchange with more frequent placement, relevancy is NEVER compromised”, so it gives a chance to improve your Google pagerank as links are standard HTML and contains do follow instruction.

Google search engine

Instead of entering your URL into your browser, every time search Google for your site; this will have a positive impact on your site ranking.

Towards end, a piece of advise you are designing your site for two customers Readers and Spiders, you have to decide who is more important for you, in order to improve your Google ranking, never lose sight of your reader and don’t sacrifice the user experience by focusing only on spiders.

There must be several other ways, which have worked great for your site, share them here.
What all things you do, to promote and increase website traffic to your site?