Will I gain Page Rank if I write one post a week?

Ok I know I just wrote an article to slat Google pr however I am interested to see if I can get a Google pr on this blog so I am going to write at least one article a week to see if I can. As of today this blog is an n/a pr, so lets see what happens, I will not bother to promote the site via an links or marketing I shall just add content on a weekly basis.
Just as a side note I have a blog smartstart-toys.blogspot.com which I have written an article once a week for 5 months and it just went from a pr n/a to a pr2 however I have promoted this blog via blog directories and twitter (note too that smartstart-toys.blogspot.com only ranks on Google for the first post I made, so even with a pr 2 it does not rank as well as my brand new blogs with pr 0) so this is why I want to try this blog with no promotion. Stay tuned to find out what happens.

Google Page Rank, What is it good for, does it help your serp’s?

Well I have been working with a number of different clients who have Google page ranks from n/a to 5 and it seems to me that their page rank has nothing to do with their serps (search engine ranking positions), so what it is good for.
Here’s an example for you to see:
Type ‘classy basin taps’ into Google.co.uk or click here and you will see http://bathroomflooringideas.co.uk/basin-tap is number 1 or 2 position.
Now this is a post I made on one of my blogs less than 2 weeks ago and yet it is ranking in position 1-2 for the key term ‘classy basin taps’. This blog has no links pointing to it so how is it ranking so high, so quickly? Also note that the page pr (page rank) of the page is only a pr 0 and yet its position is higher than pr 2s and pr 3s.
Many webmasters believe that the higher a pr is the better a link will be from that page. So if you have a website that only has pr 0 links this will not rank as well for its serps as a website that has pr1’s and above links. Well I have just developed 10 websites this month and 7 are pr 0s and 3 are pr n/as. I have used these websites as a resource to put links to other sites to improve their serp’s and the result was that they ranked higher than those websites with back links of pr 1s and above. So just because a website is new does not mean that links from that website are no good, they may well be better links than from a pr 3 website. The only thing I think Google pr is good for is if you are selling links, as it seem webmasters will pay more cash for higher pr links I was in fact quoted 12 x the pr per year for a link, so if the pr was 4 they wanted $48 a year for a link! Wow, good money if you can get people to go along with you.
If you listen to some so called SEO experts they will tell you that title tags and meta info is not important to Google anymore, well that’s all this page has SEO wise with the key term ‘classy basin taps’ so it must be these factors that are making it rank, remember there are no links pointing to the website. In the actual post I have not mentioned ‘classy basin taps’ just ‘basin taps’, so it cannot be the content.
Also this website was only created 3 weeks ago and it already ranks on page 1 for its major key term ‘bathroom flooring ideas’ and only has a home page rank of 0. If you listen to the same SEO experts that told you don’t worry about title tags and meta info, they will also tell you don’t worry about URL as this doesn’t matter anymore! Well hey guys just take a look at this. I get a URL named www.bathroomflooringideas and 1 week after it going live its page 1 on Google. With no links!! Now hold on, I here you cry, that’s just one URL and the key term is not that difficult well here’s another homeandgardenideas again page 1 for ‘home and garden ideas’. My point is this, some of the basics that SEO experts will tell you are not important anymore are important.
It is important to find a URL that will work well for your important key terms as this will mean less SEO work is required to get it ranking on page 1.
If you are looking to start a website selling preschool toys then choose a URL with preschool toys in it whether it is greatpreschooltoys or preschooltoys4sale this URL is going to rank quicker for ‘preschool toys’ than clarestoys. Also, make sure you do your title tags and meta info as this will all help to get your website better serp’s, let’s put it this way it won’t hurt will it.

Facebook, can it really help business?

Facebook is well known by nearly everyone that uses the internet, even my 72year old mother her is using it to upload photos to share with me and her grand children. However, the question is; Is Facebook any use for online business? Well the simple answer is, yes it is. Why? Because it gives you the oppotunity to share your business with over 175,000,000 Facebook users.
How do you use Facebook to promote your online business? Well, in much the same way as you would use a blog, well the layout is the same and you can direct key word links to pages on your website. There is another aspect to Facebook too. You can now use Facebook in a similar way to PPC on Google and Yahoo, paying them each time your advert is shown the advantage to Facebook is that you can pick sex, age, location you want the advert to reach, this is marketing to a specific target audience with no hassel any good marketer should be interested in that.

Life after Google

Is there a life after Google, well I guess we will have to wait and see in the meantime though people are begining to use other methods by which to carry out searches on the internet and I am not just talking about other search engines I am also talking about bookmarking and social networking sites. If you are looking for new ways to get visitors to your website you have to be looking at social bookmarketing and social networking in order to get the widest possible audience, we shall look at this a lttle later.
In the UK Google lead the way with 80% of internet users using Google as their main search engine. So does this mean that we shoul only be worried about our websites positions with Google? Well, without doubt if you are seeking to market your website you should always be looking to get better positions on Google, but do not neglect these other search engines as it is possible that you can double even trebel your websites traffic by looking at other search engines.
To make the point, we had a client who was getting around 300 hits a day via search engines after having carried out some onsite optomisation and built a number of forum links we had doubled the amount of traffic comming to the website to 600 hits a day. Now when we looked at the data what we saw surprised us the search engine that had brought the most traffic was a search engine called 'Search'. We had not heard of this search engine prior to working with this website and what this proved to us was that you can generate a lot of new business through other search engines and not just Google.
A good SEO campaign really can only start if you can get some stats for the website before you start, why? Because you then have the ability to show your client that figures (number of hits) have increased whilst they have been using your services.

How can blogs help with SEO?

Ok so how do blogs help to promote a website? Well apart from the obvious which is that you are reading this blog and may decided to go and view my website there are other advantages to blogs.
Blogs give you the oppotunity to point links back to your own website, with the advantage that you control the content that surounds the link. Meaning you write good content that relates well to the key term that you are looking to promote. Example:

My kitchen is fitted with all the necessary accessories for the basic chef I have a just installed a ......(key term)

So you can see that the link is within the context of the writing, the content is kitchen related. Obviously you would be writing more content than I have in my example but hopefully you get the point. You are able to write good content about the product, service you are looking to promote.

Blogs should be regularly updated, the more you update your blog the more likely people will subscribe to your blog and read them and link to them. The golden rule with blogs is to try and avoid advertising your services, products in an traditional advertising way. You are looking to engage your readers and make the content imformative, give free advice and always respond quickly to comments made on your blogs. If others start to subscribe to your blog this will help to build backlinks to your blog and so others will start to see your blog.

Can blogs help with search engine traffic? Well if you are pointing links back to your website and in turn others are linking to your blog then this all helps to gain better positions on search engines.

What is SEO?

OK, so we talk about SEO (search engine optomisation) a lot, or at least I do with my clients and I'm hoping in turn that those who are viewing my posts are involved in some way with SEO. SEO search engine optomisation, the idea is that you get more traffic to your website via search engines. Why is it important to look at search engines? Because nearly everybody in the world is using them!!
So if we know that search engines are important what are we going to do to make sure our website is number 1 for its key terms? Ha, ha, ha!! Let's not fool ourselfs, if you have just launced a website selling mobile phones do you really think any SEO company is going to get you number 1 for the key term mobile? Well if you do you need to take a deep breath and re-think your marketing campaign. Why??? Well here is the simple answer, for the last 10 years there have been websites set up to sell mobile phones, these websites are 10 years ahead of your brand new website!
Ok, that's the reality check, now here's the good news. There are 1000's of key terms that people type into search engines each and every second of the day and what we need to do is find the right key terms that we can build your business and your website upon.
Google is God! Every website should be ranking on page 1 of Google for its key terms! IMPOSSIBLE!! How can every website rank in the top 10 of Google for its key terms? Think about it, how many websites are there selling Kitchens, can they all be on page 1 (top 10) of Google? No, they can not. 80% of people from the UK will use Google this is an important fact. A good SEO campaign needs to include how the website will be promoted on Google but do not think that Google is the only place that you can improve website's traffic.
Ther were a recorded 165,745,689 internet users and this figure is increasing every day, so what if your not on Google there is still an estimated 33,150,000 people that are not using Google. Are these people not worth reaching? And of the Google users, are they just using Google? Of course not. People are getting more sophicicated with their searches on the internet and this includes using more than search engines, we will leave that for another day, so don't be fooled into thinking that if your not top of Google you cannot generate more business for your website.
I have recently had a client that had double the traffic to his website via search engines, however most of these unique visitors came via a search engine called Search. Have you heard of them? Well I hadn't either but this search engine had increased their unique visitors by 65%. So there you have it there is life before and after Google.

Forum Link Building

How do you build links from forums? Many forums give you the oppotunity to have a signature at the bottom of each of your posts so each time you reply to a thread (topic, discussion) or start a thread you leave your signature just under your post. Not all forums allow you to place a link in your signature, so you should view this as a sort of 'thank you' from the forum for adding content to their website and so PLEASE make sure the content you add is relevant to the discussion and DONT SPAM forums. The better or more interesting your posts are the more likely you will recieve comments back and in turn have people click onto the links you leave. This means you will have direct traffic going to the website you are linking to because you have made a good post. The one thing to remember about building links in forums is to make sure that your posts are interesting and relevant to that forum.
How do I set up my signature? First you will need to register with a forum having done this you then go to profile settings and then edit signature, here is where you place your link (rememeber to use key terms see my earlier post on link styles) make sure you click the box that says add signature to all my posts. Now each one of your posts will leave your signature and thus leave a link to the website you are trying to promote.
Forum link building is one of my my favourite form of link building. Why? Because it gives me the oppotunity to interact with others on the internet and try to discuss and enlight others about my clients websites using the various forums that relate to their key terms. Forums are a great place to learn about anything and everything from babies to cars there are forums to suit all tastes.
Here is an example of 2 forum links I built click this link 100 years romance if you look at the num 1 position (forums.buddy.com) that's my link, look at num 9 (womenonlyforums.com) that's my link. Each of these links are built from forums what is important to note is that these are starter threads (meaning I started the thread or topic) and this enables me to give a title to the thread which in turn gives me the ability to get my title in the title tags and meta information which search engines look at when ranking web pages.
Imagine if my forum posts are ranking position 1 on Google for their key terms - how good are these links? Good! I have managed to move clients onto page 1 for their key terms, sometimes with very few of these links.
What is important when building forum links is to try and find forums that are of the same theme as the website you are promoting. Example look at my num 1 link http://forums.buddytv.com/romance/73065-100-years-romance.html you can see that although buddytv is about television programs I have gone to the romance section to post my link, therefore I am now building a link from a forum that has a theme of romance. If you look at the link I have left in my signature it is the key term romance. Thus I have now built a link from a themed forum.

2 Styles of link building

Firstly let me lay out the two style of links you can build and then we will cover the 5 different sources from which you can build these links from to increase traffic to your website. Please, if any of you reading this feel you would like to ammend or add anything I would greatly appreachiate it, as I claim only to know so much and after all what is the internet if not a tool for learning and gaining valuable input from others.

Here is the first style of link one can build www.naturallinkbuilding.co.uk you will see I have used the url (the url is address of the website you are linking to) as the link. This is a very natural way to build links for instance if you like a website and you recommend your friend to use it you would normally forward the url to them.

The second style of link building is to use key terms in the anchor text of the link for instance bespoke SEO (you will see 'bespoke seo'. this is the key term, you may have many different key terms) now if you click on this link you will find that it still takes you to www.naturallinkbuilding.co.uk. What is the purpose of building links this way? The purpose of building links this way is that search engines pick up the key terms in the links and so the more you build the higher positions you will get on search engines for the key terms (well, that's the principle). However bare in mind that when you are marketing your website using links you should be hoping for a certain amount of direct traffic from those links, not just using the links to gain positions on the search engines.