I run a website for my club, but I’ve noticed that if someone searches for it in Google, even using the name of the club, we’re just not listed in the search results. I used to think that Google knew everything, how can I tell it about my site?

There’s a chance that Google may not even know about your website. This can happen if it’s particularly new and no other website links back to yours. In order to tell Google about your site, you can go to a special page that lets you Add Your Site to Google: Add URL. This tells Google you exist, but it may still be several weeks before it comes and indexes your content. Regardless of whether it’s a hobby site, one about Mesothelioma or one dedicated to your grandma; if Google doesn’t know it exists, you’re not going to get any organic traffic!

I’m trying to think of keywords I can use to promote my website, but I’m stumped. Can you suggest where I can find some?

Keywords can be a tricky thing. Some days, your mind is fresh and you can come up with loads of related keywords. Some days your brain just can’t process and for some reason, nothing useful pops in. When those days come upon you, it’s always good to have some tools to help you process

And that’s why I like HowRank Webmaster & SEO Tools. It’s a website with a rich collection of SEO tools and it’s one of the sites I visit when I have a problem with keywords. Here are where it can help:

• Keyword Rocket Tool: This tool lets you specify a word and suggests a number of related keywords you could use. The tool actually takes the whole process one step further. It checks how many people are competiting for those keywords so that you know how hard it is to get a ranking for it.
• Keyword Synonyms: This tool generates a comprehensive list of related keywords.
• Keyword Typos: This tool generates a number of common typing errors for a specified keyword.

That’s quite an interesting collection of tools, don’t you think? So if you’re stuck for a keyword, check it out.

A question I’ve been asked by a number of people concerns Google’s PageRank index: what it is, how is useful and how can it be improved. Because of this, I thought I’d just group them all up and make one post with them.

So, let’s start at the top. What is PageRank? This is an algorithm used by Google to help measure the relative importance of pages on the Internet. It was developed by the two founders of Google: Sergey Brin and Larry Page. In face the “Page” in PageRank allegedly was coined by Larry Page. The best description I’ve come across about how PageRank works is a description by Google:

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important”.

How important is PageRank to you? Well, if you don’t own or run a website then the answer is “Not Very”. Google uses it to find the things you’re looking for on the Web, but you don’t need to worry about how it works. If you do run a website however, it’s good to know what your PageRank is and how you can improve it. There are a number of ways of finding out what your page rank is, ranging from running the Google Toolbar to websites that can tell you what it is.

And now for the $6 million question, how can PageRank be improved? Well, if you look at the description above you can gather that it depends on the number and quality of pages that link to your website. If you don’t have any pages linking to your website then your PR is going to be low. If you have thousands of high-quality pages linking to your website, this will push your PR up. There’s lots of debate around this topic on various webmaster and SEO forums. It’s also worth nothing that PR is something that is updated every few weeks by Google, so if your incoming links improve all of a sudden, it will take some time for this to be reflected in your PR.

My advice about the whole PR issue? Well Page Rank is simply one measure of the effectiveness of your website and focusing too much on this can be detrimental to your sanity. I would recommend that instead you focus on providing unique and valuable content on your website. If there is any real value there, people will have no problem linking to it and talking about it, and this will in turn elevante your PageRank. So stop worrying about the numbers and enjoy what you do!

I’ve come across a website that lets me list my blog on 3000 websites for free! Other websites charge for this. Is this for real?

The type of website you’re referring to are called Free-For-All websites. They consist of a series of links to other websites and allow webmasters to add their own websites to the list. Most of them are free, though some will charge you for the privilege.

This may seem like a good idea at first, until you look a bit deeper. First of all, all these websites will ask you for your email address and within minutes of adding your name to the list you will start receiving automated spam. I had made the mistake of adding myself to one of these websites many years ago, and I’m sure some of the spam I receive today is still coming from that list. These are sites are usually set up with the aim of farming email addresses just to add them on to spam lists.

So, you may think, I’ll just supply a phoney email address. Surely, having my site listed will help my Search Engine rankings and someone may just come across it. The problem here is the amount of entries these sites get. As they only list the last few websites that joined the list, your site will fall off the list rather quickly which means there’s a very slim chance that someone will click on your link or that a spider will come across it.

The bottom line is that there’s very little benefit for signing up with a FFA link page. Personally I avoid them like a plague!