Page Rank Myth
Breaking the Myth about Page Rank (PR)
by: Christopher Smith
The most difficult challenge most web designers face is getting traffic to your site. There are plenty of companies who promise to send traffic your way. Sadly, most of this traffic is not qualified. Yes, your hit counter will move higher, however, if its not qualified, you may find you have unhappy visitors to your site. Unhappy visitors will not click on your ads or purchase your products.
Once you have optimized your site, consider submitting it to every search engine. If you want to get spidered quicker in Google, have a web page with a PR of 4 or higher point to your site. Your site will be spidered within a couple of days!
One myth I would like to bust is that PR is a measure of a web site. Its not. I receive countless emails offering a reciprocal link with their PR5 or PR6 site. Unless my link is appearing on the main page, or a page that has PR6, I am not getting a share of PR6. Most likely, my link will appear on a page that has a PR2!
Page rank is Google’s ranking of that specific page’s relevance. Just because the main page has a PR of 4, does not make every page on the site a PR4. Beware of sites who claim that they will exchange links with you and its to your benefit since they have a PR5 or PR6. Where is your link appearing? If its on a page that has a PR of 4 or 5 or 6, great!
Reciprocal linking, if done properly, will ensure that your keywords are at the top of the search engine. If you have a popular keyword, youll need to have more back links. Pick your link partners properly, and ensure that they are linking to your keyword.
For example: if your site is www.joesdinner.com, consider sending out requests to relevant higher ranking pages to start with, followed by lower ranking pages and ask web designers to link back in a manner so that your url is a hyperlink for your keyword, not your site url or site name.
Presuming their keyword is “best dining in new york”, having links pointing to your site with an anchor tag incorporating your keywords will improve your search engine rankings dramatically.
Once you have established a collection of sites pointing to your site using your keywords, you will start receiving reciprocal link exchanges from other sites. This is where you can start to be particular.
If you want to maintain an effective PR and attract better sites for linking, follow these tips:
a) Is it indexed?
While their site may be indexed, the page where they are placing your link, is it at least indexed by google? If you type in allinurl:www.sitename.com/links/right_here.html and there are no results, consider declining their offer. If the page your link appears on has not been indexed, there is no benefit whatsoever to you. If your pages have PR, they may consider placing your link on another page. If the page your link appears on is indexed, but does not have PR, consider accepting their offer. While the page today may not have PR, it will in time.
b) How many neighbours?
The value of the page rank is shared with each of the links on that page. If you are splitting that PR with several other sites, your share of PR will be small, which doesnt help you. Reconsider accepting any link exchanges if your site is 1 of more than 30 - 40 sites that will appear on that page, unless its a very high PR. Further, if there are too many links on that page, Google may consider the page to be part of a link farm, which may end up penalizing your site.
c) Is it relevant?
Google is big on relavancy. Ensure your links pages are relevant. If you operate a site about golf, having links from cooking sites will not help you establish your page rank. It may cost you more than you get in return.
How to Find Good PR sites:
a) Do a search for them by typing in your keyword and start asking for reciprocal link exchanges. Take a look at their PR and go from there. Remember, its the number of sites that backlink to you that matters, not strictly the PR of the page. I would rather have 50 pages that have a PR1 pointing to my site, than to have 5 sites that have a PR5. Of course, if you can get 50 pages that have a PR5 pointing to your site, you are laughing!
b) Take a look at your existing link partners and check out their links pages. Its clear the people appearing on those links pages are interested in reciprocating.
c) Purchase software that will help find quality link partners.
It is important to attract higher PR sites when you are on a reciprocal link campaign. However, its not the most important thing when it comes to search engine rankings. Its the backlinks that point back at you that are key. The more of those, the better off you will be for your keyword.
Remember: every page starts off as a PR0. Just because its new doesnt mean it wont get a higher PR once google gets around to assessing a score. If the page your site appears on is indexed, and its a relevant site of quality, consider exchanging links. You’ll grow a large list of link partners in a short period of time, and increase your search engine rankings in the process.
About the author:
Christopher Smith has been helping people make money through Google Adsense by providing them with the Top Paying Adsense Keywords for his visitors to Adsense Heaven. http://www.adsenseheaven.com
Choosing A Web Designer
A Plan To Guide You Through The Minefield
by: Robin Porter
Choosing a web designer can seem like a daunting task. They come in all shapes and sizes – from freelancers working at home to glossy new media agencies, and there is as much variation in prices and service as there is in size.
So how do you choose the right one for your business?
Select Your Marketplace
Firstly, decide what market your would like to select from: local , national or overseas.
If you would feel more comfortable meeting your designer, and running through your project face to face (maybe it’s the kind of project that needs to “evolve”) ,and your ethos is “quality of service” rather than “Pile ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap” then a local web designer is for you. They can usually provide better back up, and be able to meet face to face to discuss your project and iron out any problems should they occur.
If you are a bit more budget conscious, then it makes sense to select from a “wider pool”. Getting quotes from designers across your country will usually obtain a more competitive quote. What you lose in face-to-face service is made up for in cost savings, and all but the largest web projects can usually be sorted out via telephone and email these days.
For the extremely cost conscious and value for money orientated (some would even say “brave”!) there is the overseas market. If you know exactly what you are looking for and can explain your project thoroughly and clearly in writing, then there are huge savings to be made. But what you save in price is invariably countered by having to do a little more work on your side – particularly when it comes to communication!
Finding Web Designers
To find a list of local web designers consult your Yellow Pages (or equivalent) or do a web search for “web designer “ “your area”.
Draw up a shortlist
Draw up a shortlist of 3 or 4 designers to speak to. You can do this by visiting their websites, getting a feel for the type and size of business they are and looking at their online portfolio. Then call them – ask them questions about the type of clients they work for, timeframes and any other technical questions you have. Get a feel for how they communicate – whether they are on the same wavelength as you.
If you opted to go overseas, the websites already mentioned have ratings systems which can help you decide, and you can also send and receive private messages to ask questions.
Get Quotes
Once you have your shortlist, you can get quotes. For a straightforward website this can be a simple fixed price – for a more complicated project that is likely to evolve, you may just want to get a budget price at this stage, and then pin down details and a fixed price with your preferred bidder later. Always specify your expected timeframe for completion when obtaining quotes as this can affect prices.
Get References
Once you have your preferred bidder, get references. Any established web designer will be able to provide details of satisfied clients. Email them and ask if they were happy with the service received, if the job was completed on time, how unforeseen problems were dealt with etc.
Remember to trust your instincts: If you are not entirely happy with the references you obtain, walk away and select another designer.
Appoint your web designer
You now have a fixed price, references, and confirmed timescale for your project. Now appoint your designer!
Most have standard agreements –read them carefully, and if in doubt get your legal adviser to look them over. Make sure timescales and project milestones are specified, as well as payment terms. Find out how alterations to your project are dealt with – in terms of cost and delays – and how disputes if they arise would be settled.
Finally, when you are completely happy, sign on the dotted line and look forward to a productive working relationship with your web designer!
© 2005 Robin Porter.
About the author:
Robin Porter has been CEO of of London based web designer Arpey Internet (http://www.arpey.co.uk) for over six years.
How To Create Photorealistic Post-It Pop-Up
by: Iszuddin Ismail
Have you seen one of those post-it pop-up?
The one that looks so realistic, with awesome shadow effect. If you don’t know what I am talking about, try opening the following website:
http://myhobbybooks.com/wowpop
They look awesome don’t they?
And something like this is always good for your web marketing campaign. One reason, it never gets blocked by pop-up blockers. And another, it really grabs the attention of your web visitors.
This is good when you want to increase subscription rate to your ezine, or promote an affiliate program, or even increase sales.
But you wonder, how do they do it? You thought that you can achieve similar result, and you try, and try, and try… you tried GIF image, JPG image, none of those can get the job done.
But there’s one thing that you just don’t know. Many pro web programmers know this, but not the normal web designers … maybe even most web designers don’t know how to do this.
The secret is in PNG image format.
PNG image format is the little-known image format that you can use on the web. PNG image format is unique because you can do the Alpha effect with it. The Alpha effect is where you set transparency factor on certain areas on the PNG image. That is what makes the shadow looks so real.
With the Alpha effect, you can set transparency factor from 0% to 100%. So it can be 30% transparent, 50% or even 79%. Have a look at the pop-up again, and take a close look at the shadow - Now you know how it’s done.
But there is just one problem - Internet Explorer don’t really support PNG image format. While you can still call PNG image format using the IMG tag, Internet Explorer ignores Alpha factor. In Internet Explorer, PNG image just don’t appear properly.
So how do we solve this …
Luckily you can still call PNG image in Internet Explorer and have the Alpha reflected using a special CSS command. It’s the AlphaImageLoader().
But this will lead to another problem. Before you can call the PNG image, you first need to identify the browser your web visitor is using. If the visitor is using Firefox, Opera, Netscape or any others, you can call the PNG using the IMG tag. But if it’s Internet Explorer, you need to use the AlphaImageLoader().
And of course, this can always be solved with a bit of Javascripting. And with a little more Javascript and CSS, you can have the PNG image floating over your web content. You can even make the pop-up disappear using the OnClick event trigger.
If you’d like a complete code and PNG image to your own photorealistic post-it pop-up, try visiting WOW Pop-Up. Below is the URL address for WOW Pop-Up where you can get a free set of the code and the PNG graphic.
About the author: Iszuddin Ismail published the WOW Pop-Up and is giving away free code and PNG graphics to your own photorealistic post-it pop-up. Get a set of four PNG pop-up graphics for free. http://WOWPopUp.com
