Google PageRank is one of those measurements that is completely transparent in that it is right there for anyone to see, yet totally opaque in that no one is completely sure what it actually measures or what effect it has on SEO in general. Below is a look at what some webmasters say about PageRank, but keep in mind, these are completely anecdotal and things can vary from site to site.

What is PageRank?

In short, it is Google’s level of confidence in the stability and quality of the site. A PageRank of 0 means the site is either new or has very little connectivity to the rest of the Internet, while a higher PageRank denotes an older site with more incoming and outgoing links.

What Effect Does it Have?

According to webmasters, a higher PageRank means that content posted on the site tends to get indexed faster. Additionally, when choosing which of two identical pieces of content to actually list, the decision leans very heavily in favor of the higher ranked site. The last rumored effect of PageRank is extra weight to links, as a bit of Google’s confidence in the site is passed on to the site being linked.

What Constitutes PageRank?

While there are many rumored contributors to a high PageRank, the only one upon which everyone agrees is seasoning – in other words, the longer a given domain has been registered, the more easily a site attached to that domain gains PageRank.

After age, the most consistently agreed upon way to improve PageRank is backlinks. Quantity is always a good, measurable characteristic when dealing with SEO matters and high PageRank sites tend to have many incoming links.

A less measurable statistic is backlink quality. When dealing with backlink quality, we again leave the realm of measurement and enter the realm of opinion, but there is some consistency and logic to this opinion. Obviously, links that are not indexed are virtually useless. There is some evidence that do follow links are better than do not follow links. The closeness to the base domain has been said to have an effect. In other words, a link from www.examplepage.com is better than one from www.examplepage.com/examples/moreexamples/deepintopage.html

While the specifics of how much impact PageRank has are debatable, the logical conclusion is that if Google measures it, then it makes a difference and is something everyone who owns a web site should be interested in raising.

Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest have become such titanic presences in the consciousness of frequent web surfers that it is only natural for webmasters to wonder exactly how social media affects SEO. Below is a look at the two areas social media will most likely affect when it comes to other websites.

The first major effect is backlinks. Social media is about interaction and each time someone links to a given web page, it is an indicator to search engines that a trustworthy site finds that page of value, traditionally the most heavily weighted factor in search engine rankings. Since the resulting links may seem like a very small deal to most webmasters, it is good to remember the difference between average and extraordinary. In virtually every field, the measurable difference between average and extraordinary is a few tiny percentage points. In the 2012 Major League Baseball season, the difference between the best batter in baseball and the tenth best was a mere .034, thirty-four thousandths!! In other words, every little bit counts and those minor backlinks from social sites could be the difference between a page that is #1 in search engines and one that is on the second page of results. Additionally, beyond the SEO benefit, social media sites are a pretty terrific source of direct traffic in their own right.

The second effect of social media sites on SEO is the ability to “+1” a page. The ability to quickly vote for a page is something that will undoubtedly become a larger factor in search engine rankings moving into the future. The reason there are algorithms that determine page rank is that there are so many web pages (and the number is growing exponentially) that it would be impossible for search engines to retain enough staff to individually asses the value of those pages. When someone records their approval for a page through a “like” plugin on a page, they have just done what is impossible for search engines – put a pair of human eyes on the page and found it worthy. With billions of people voluntarily doing their job for them, it is simply impossible to imagine search engines not taking advantage of this unpaid work force. As with backlinks, these likes and pluses can bring tremendous traffic direct from the social networks.

Many people dislike social networks. It is a running joke that people really do not need to know what kind of sandwich their favorite celebrity just ate. Even for those who never use social networks themselves, it would be irresponsible and foolhardy for any webmaster to ignore the impact that those networks are having on SEO and the likelihood of that impact increasing in the future.

Since the birth of the Internet, marketers have been concerned with trying to work their way to the top of search engine results. The resulting SEO (Search Engine Optimization) content writing is undergoing a continual evolution as search engine technology changes. Following are two crucial factors in writing good SEO content.

Do not Keyword Bomb

Anyone who remembers the tiny blue creatures called Smurfs has probably chuckled at their tendency to substitute the word “smurf” for half the words in a given sentence. The resulting sentence often sounds like this: “Papa Smurf always says that a Smurf who smurfs smurfs will end up smurfed!!” Years ago, SEO writing also sounded this way. The gurus of the day suggested keyword densities of up to 15% as the best way to let search engines know what the page was about. The keyword density indicates the number of times per hundred words that a given keyword will appear. Imagine a two or three word phrase appearing fifteen times in a hundred word paragraph and it’s easy to see how rubbish content proliferated throughout the Internet.

In the new world of search engine algorithms, super high keyword densities will get an automatic Google slap, likely followed by a Bing slap and a Yahoo slap and so on as Google tends to set the trend for all the search engines since they have the biggest budget and therefore the most quickly evolving data sorting methods. Avoid artificially inflating the keyword density of web content like the plague.

Write for Your Site Visitors

This may seem counter-intuitive since attracting search engines and pleasing site visitors have always been targets that were very far apart. The distance between the targets was not deliberate on the part of search engines. It was a limitation imposed by the technology. Writing for people will serve two essential purposes in web content. It will gain the approval of those readers. With “likes” and similar social network voting methods being more common every day, search engines will be placing increasing weight on these end user votes to determine search engine rank. The second SEO boon of writing for people is that such a style will naturally include many LSI terms. LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) is a highbrow way of saying words that are associated with the main keyword. In other words, it is very likely that an article about insomnia will contain the phrase “sleeping pills”, so that is an LSI match for the word. Again, LSI associations are being given progressively more weight by search engines and there is no indication that the trend will not continue.

Long gone are the days of web pages containing nothing but repeated keywords ranking well in search engines. Today a content writer must do the same thing that search engines hope to do – give the site visitor a good experience.

Facebook has become an internet juggernaut. Each day more people use it to connect to those who share their interests and every day more businesses are turning to the social network giant in an effort to raise awareness of their product. With the snowballing impact the site is having on the Internet in general, it is a good idea for webmasters to understand how to make the most of what Facebook offers.

When it comes to content marketing on Facebook, there is a single simple correlation to remember: The more interactive the campaign, the more successful. In other words, having followers and fellow group members who ignore posts instead of responding to them is the kiss of death. With that correlation in mind, here are a couple of statistics to keep in mind to maximize the potential of any campaign.

People Love Photos

This is simply a matter of human nature. Imagine a white web page with nothing on it but some black text about dog training. Now, imagine the same page with the exact same information, but with pictures of dogs added to the page. The page with pictures now creates more of a sense of immersion. While a purely emotional response, the fact is including photos in posts increases the likelihood of people both commenting and liking a page.

People Have Short Attention Spans

Long posts tend to receive far fewer comments and likes than do short posts. It could be explained by the fact that people do not read the entire post, or it could be that the longer, more difficult to digest post has simply left them in “listen” mode as opposed to interact mode. Either way, the fact that long posts dampen interactivity cannot be ignored. Many things simply can’t be said in 140 characters or less. Instead of being an obstacle, these things should be viewed as an opportunity. By spacing the message over several posts with a teasing tone, interest can be kept high and opportunities to interact kept more numerous.

People Like to Express Their Opinions

Posts that ask a question to which people will want to respond get far more comments and likes than posts that make a simple statement. A post that says, “Rottweilers are the toughest dogs on the planet.”, will receive little feedback compared to one that says, “I think Rottweilers are the toughest dogs on the planet, what do you think?”

By keeping an eye out for opportunities to increase interactivity on Facebook, any webmaster also increases the likelihood of a successful content marketing campaign.