When it comes to Google’s Page Rank, a typical blogger goes through the following progression of thought.
What’s Page Rank?
How do I improve my Page Rank?
Page Rank is irrelevant.
I think step three is too clever by half. Sure, from a purely Googlerific point of view, the Live Page Rank indicator available for Firefox or included in the Google Toolbar isn’t a lead pipe lock when it comes to where you will rank for a particular search term. On top of that, blogging primarily for SEO isn’t the most effective endeavor either. But Page Rank still matters, and as more and more potential readers become quasi-page rank literate, it matters more than most SEO experts ever bothered to consider.
Fair or not, blogs are often judged by their Page Rank. You can either try to convince your readers why it doesn’t, or leverage it to your advantage.
Forget about blogs for a minute. I cut my teeth in this industry by earning and asking for referrals. As a loan officer, my referral base was real estate agents. An agent’s referral base largely comes from their sphere of influence. All referrals work basically the same. The best way to grow your sphere of influence is to help your sphere members grow their own sphere.
So, if a real estate agent can help their dry cleaner by promoting their business on a hyper-local real estate blog, the dry cleaner will be more likely to recommend you to their own client base. This is why Page Rank matters more than ever. Sure, directly marketing to consumers is the primary reason to blog, but I’m not too Web2.0-proud to accept a good ole’ fashioned word of mouth referral.
Your blog is a very powerful viral marketing tool. There will be times when some link love will be the most effective way to win the hearts of your potential referral base. Many of them have yet to come to the stage three assumption that Page Rank doesn’t matter. Goggle made you beautiful, there’s no sense in being modest here.