Or should I say… “Are we talking about Page Rank…
Again?”.

Well, as a matter of fact yes, we are. Since we are apparently in the middle of the first Page Rank update of 2008, let’s bring the subject up.

I’m sure many of you have heard about Google Page Rank, which is supposedly one of the algorithms of the almighty search engine. It is the little green bar that shows a number on a scale from 1 to 10. One of the urban myths says that the higher your PR is, the better placements you will have in Google.

Well, that might have been true at some point, but apparently it’s not anymore. However, I would like to point out the few little things that make PR as alive as it ever was – because yes, there are many people who said it was dead. I beg to differ.

First of all, Google Page Rank is a very cleverly plotted Marketing scheme. You can go on any forum or blog, you will see people going berserk on this subject. Anyway, there is a thing that it’s hard to stop and a prejudice that has already been sown in the minds of the great majority of the webmasters: the higher the PR of a website is, the higher its value. There is no point in telling them PR is not important. For them, it is. Many of the webmasters take PR as the most important factor when it comes to establishing the value of a link on a given page.

Then, you will not see an Internet Marketing or SEO forum where there aren’t endless discussions about the importance of PR. The posts seem carbon copied. There are people who ask about it, people who say it’s important and people who say that it’s completely dead. However, how can it be dead when it continues to be one of the most important and debated issues on those forums? All this stir caused the Google brand to get stronger and stronger and the public’s awareness towards it to grow exponentially. A massive success, I’d say. So, think again, is Page Rank dead?

In the Search Engine context of 2008, all the hype is about getting loads and loads of backlinks. You can go on any forum, read any book or blog, and you will see that 99% of people will tell you that in order to get good Search Engine placements you need to get as many relevant backlinks as possible.

And not that it isn’t true… for Google. But people forget there are also other search engines that can bring them traffic – considerable amounts of it too – just by doing proper onpage optimization. And one such search engine is the lovable Live.com.

You see, when it comes to ranking in top 10 for even very competitive keywords on Live.com, all you need to do is take into consideration basic ranking algorithms, like:

1. Title tag;

2. Meta tags – although not that important;

3. H1-H6 headings;

4. Bolded keywords in the body of the page.

If you do all that properly, you will have some really pleasant surprises. The problem is that many people overlook this, since they all focus on getting the backlinks. I say, do the proper onpage optimization (it takes about 10 minutes / page) and then start backlink building. Start monitoring your traffic using a service like Statcounter and you will immediately see some pleasant surprises coming from Live.com.

One of the most crucial aspects of any online business is traffic.

You can have the best looking website and the best products. As long as you don’t have traffic, it’s like owning a super cheap and high quality shop in the middle of Sahara.

Before I actually go and present some of the most powerful techniques that are going to bring you traffic, I must tell you this: traffic building is also a question of imagination. It is not an exact science. The beauty of it lies in the fact that you can come up yourself with different methods that are going to bring you the desired results. So, let’s start.

1. Write articles and submit them to the article directories

Oh, this one is a classic. It is probably one of the most cited methods in any traffic building manual. The truth is, it works. It will not bring you a flood of traffic, but it will get you visitors. Especially if you submit to the top article directories like ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com, articlesbase.com, etc. Of course, the number of the visitors you get grows exponentially with the number of articles you manage to write and submit. It also depends on other factors like the quality of your article and the way you write your bio box. But this is the subject of a whole new article that is going to be posted soon here on Reviewpot.com;

2. Submit your site to the most important article directories

Now, whether you should mass submit your site to ALL the link directories available out there is a debated issue. The truth is that the link directory business has dramatically grown due to the link buying rush that still goes on through the World Wide Web. But the majority of the link directories are not worth the trouble, since they are not going to bring you traffic. However, you should submit your site to the most influential web directories, which are dmoz.org, Yahoo’s Directory, and business.com. Although the last two are paid, they are well worth the price if you are serious about your business;

3. Leverage the immense potential of social networks

Ah, this is one of my favorites. The social network industry has grown to a staggering level lately and this is simply because they are very popular. They mimic a real life society much better than anything else. This is also why, if used correctly, they can bring you constant boosts of traffic, whenever you feel like using them. The key here is to get involved and make friends. These friends are then going to “vote” your stories. It doesn’t matter if you do this on digg.com, propeller.com, stumbleupon.com, del.icio.us, or any other social network site. The principle is the same: get involved, vote other people’s stories, and they will vote for you in return. And this is exactly what is going to make your story popular and your website visited;

4. Forum and Blog Marketing

There are high traffic forums and blogs available in almost any niche nowadays. If you take the time to get involved in forum and blog discussions, the rewards could be indeed great. If you establish yourself as an authority, people will listen to you and your pieces of advice. Forums which allow signatures will bring you traffic. The same applies to blogs, whenever you give useful advice, make sure you include a link to your website.

5. Leverage the potential of high traffic websites

And I’m talking here about sites like Yahoo, Amazon, Live, etc. I will not make a huge list that reads “201 ways to get traffic to your website”. Not for now anyway, but this will come in the near future. If you want to get a simple understanding of what I’m talking about here, think about Yahoo Answers, Live QnA, Amazon product reviews, etc. This is the subject of a whole new post.

6. Build a targeted list

Now if there is one thing that is 100% accurate in the Internet world, the profitability of a list is. Ask any successful Internet Marketer and they will tell you the same thing over and over again: you need to build a targeted and responsive list of prospects that you will call back to your site over and over again. The list is the most important asset of any Internet Marketer, whatever the niche may be.