Race For Rank: Series Post
All right, I’ll be the first one to admit that I don’t necessarily agree with PageRank. Generally, it’s a large mystery and the only thing we know for sure that will work to increase PageRank are the tried and true messages sent from other bloggers and webmasters.
Yes, there are those famous backlinks but ranking in the SERP (search engine results pages) is just as important. And here’s where that handy dandy search engine optimization comes in to get you working to get your site ranking.
After the last PageRank update, I have to admit that I’ve been looking at the ranking of the many various sites that I visit just to see where they rank.
Imagine a bit of my annoyance that brand new site, less than 3 months old, starting at 0 and shooting up to PageRank 4 in just one single update. Higher than where I’m at after 2 years of blogging.
What are they doing different than me to achieve better PageRank?
And here’s where this post series starts.
Race to rank will be an ongoing series of posts explaining and exploring ideas of what I’m doing to achieve better rankings for my site across the board with various different sites, not just PageRank.
PageRank
To achieve better PageRank I’ll be working on gaining backlinks, connecting with other bloggers, and networking with those in my niche. To do this I’ll be finding blogs that are useful to me and the topics that I largely blog about.
Additionally, I’ll be working on improving what I’m doing for SEO to rank better in the SERPs.
PageRank Goal: Next update, index goes to 4.
Currently: Index page is at 3.
Technorati
With Technorati it seems that I need to rank better by having more “blog reactions” which is simply having a blogger link to you in a post.
To accomplish blog reactions I need to focus on “linkbait” articles and generate buzz that others want to talk about and others want to link to. This will help with both Technorati blog reactions and PageRank’s backlinks (providing they are followed links but I’m OK with either follow tag used).
Technorati Goal: Reach Authority 100 by April 2008.
Currently: Authority 65
Alexa
This may be the hardest thing for me to accomplish alone. Because Alexa’s rank is based on those who use the Alexa toolbar, it’ll be hard to measure how I can accomplish this.
However, because webmasters generally understand the importance of Alexa rank, most of them search using Alexa. Because of this, I may have a larger audience using Alexa than I actually know.
At one time, it had been believed that you couldn’t use Alexa with Firefox. But with the new addition of the sparky add-on, Firefox users can be counted in Alexa traffic. Installing this very add-on for my blog has already proved to be invaluable for my own rank.
Alexa Goal: Reach 100,000 by April 2008.
Currently: 168,322
There you have it.
Because I am completely sure that I have a lot more to learn about better rankings across the board, I’ll be researching and reading what others have to say on ranking better with all three of these sites.
What I come up with, learn about, and find working for me I’ll share and report my process.
If you have any tips, tricks, or tried and true knowledge of how to rank better with any of these sites: please share! Your input and advice is very welcome.
January 28th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
[...] friends. I am always learning new things. That is why I enjoyed reading Katy’s new blog post, Better Site Rank. If an established blogger like Katy is still working hard to improve her blog statistics, I am [...]
January 28th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Excellent points, Katy. Like you, I’ve got a couple of sites that are at PR3 (one used to be a PR5, the other was a PR4) prior to the Google Spank of October 2007. I rested on my laurels and did some work for a company that I won’t name and — whump! — watched my PR dip.
Fortunately, the PR5 only went to a PR3. The other went to PR0 but it’s up to PR3 now.
Working on it. Always working on it.
I’ll be looking forward to seeing how you do.
January 29th, 2008 at 1:47 am
Alexa computes traffic rankings by analyzing the Web usage of millions of Alexa Toolbar users. Google rank web pages according to its popularity and importance based on inbound.
January 29th, 2008 at 5:10 am
Google is rough on people sometimes with the PR and other times they are giving. It kind of upsets me at times that one company has so much control over the internet. I thought the free spirit behind the www was better than that.
January 29th, 2008 at 6:59 am
Kate » Yes, I know that company name well… as you know. Part my “race to rank” will include removing code from said site. I heard a little rumor but that’s a blog post for another day.
Martin » Thank you for the explanation of Alexa, I completely get how the rank is generated.
Tracy » Like any company, they only do what they believe is best for them. The trick is to learn to use their system without being a “trained monkey.” It’s a fine line and one that many are successful at walking. This will be my attempt to do the same.
January 29th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
We’re all on the same boat I guess. I’m also trying to get as many backlinks and “reactions” on technorati. I actually compiled a list of resources to write a great linkbait. I thought you might be interested.
February 2nd, 2008 at 5:39 am
Nadim » It’s all of us being in the same boat that has lead me to starting this series. I’m not an SEO expert, I don’t have an SEO blog… I’m your normal, average everyday blogger. So if I can do this to improve my ranks and share what I’ll learn, it may help others.
Thanks for sharing your article link. I’ll be checking that out and following up!
February 5th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
[...] get specific, the post Race for Rank was stumbled several times which brought 617 visitors to my site directly from [...]
February 8th, 2008 at 9:44 am
[...] of us blogging for the money? It means exactly what today’s Morning Must Read suggests: the race for rank never [...]
March 12th, 2008 at 7:49 am
[...] last update I’m Blogging That now sits at an Alexa rank of 104,297. You may recall that when I started my Race for Rank series on January 28th, my Alexa rank was sitting at [...]
April 15th, 2008 at 5:53 am
I think the pagerank is the more dificult to raise, unfortunately :(
April 15th, 2008 at 6:42 am
Generalities » Yes, I’d have to agree that trying to improve PageRank is more difficult. However, that’s what makes this challenge that much more fun. Each ranking level has their own question marks and level of difficulty. Finding out what it takes wins the challenge.
April 29th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
[...] Better Site Rank has a 2 Better Alexa Rank In 5 Days has a 2 Gain Authority with Top Commentator has a 3 How to Use All In One SEO Pack has a 4 Don’t Worry About Your Alexa Rank has a 4 [...]
July 9th, 2010 at 3:23 am
Nice post. I being reading your post for a while,
dropping a message to express thanks.