Blog Linky & Comments for Page Rank Juice |Frugal Front Porch

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I bought my domain for Frugal Front Porch a couple months ago. It was a great moment until I noticed I lost my page rank! I was a 3. Now I’m a 0. ME.SO.SAD. I’m hoping the Google fairies will sprinkle me with some page rank dust soon. In the meantime, I’ve been researching ways to naturally increase my page rank.

A higher page rank, means my site is more valued by Google, which usually translates into higher search results, stats and visitors. This also increases the revenue potential for my site by opening more doors for paid writing opps.

One method for naturally increasing your page rank is by getting links from other blogs. Preferably blogs with a higher page rank who cover topics similar to your own blog. I’ve read a lot of bad information this. LOTS of bad information! Mainly cautioning bloggers it is bad to link to others especially if you have a higher PR and you are linking to a lower PR site. It’s not. Linking is a good thing. The important think is HOW your are linking to others and how they are linking to you.

Google wants you to spread the link love to sites relevant to yours. (Relevant is the keyword here!) It establishes your site as a curator of content but it also gives you an excellent opportunity to get some great links back from the site you linked. Here’s how:

You link to another site in a well written post (no matter their PR)
They put up a post or send out a tweet saying something like “Look, I was featured at (insert your blog title and link) about so and so topic!).
Their blog peeps pop over to see your post and with any luck, visit a few other pages.
You might even end up with a new subscriber or two.

This will only happen If the blogger your linking to knows about your post. This is why you should pop over to the post your linking to and leave a quick comment telling them you like their post and linked to it (inserting the link to the post you wrote).

Lots of people believe that simply linking up to a blog hop or linky like Mr Linky, Inlinkz, or Simply Linked gives you that coveted page rank juice from Google. WRONG! It does NOT!

Blog linky and memes use widgets and java script to place the form in your blog post. The links visitors add to the meme are actually hosted on the widget hoster (like Mr. Linky). Those links are set to NoFollow so their site doesn’t end up with INCREDIBLY high page rank value giving a false page rank.

FYI: NoFollow means the link doesn’t allow Google or search engines to follow it back to your site; basically ignoring the link. DoFollow links are the links that give you page rank love. They are seen by Google and other search engines. DoFollow are the good links!

You can still get page rank love from a weekly meme with one simple extra step: leave a comment on their post with your name, email, and site URL. However, not all commenting systems are alike.

Most commenting systems offer a login option to make commenting easier. Some even require a login of some sort to combat spam. Think before you login. Logging in with your Facebook, Twitter, or even Open ID is easy but defeats the purpose of commenting for link love. Logging in with those accounts only link back to those profiles NOT. YOUR. BLOG.

Blogger’s commenting system isn’t particularly effective for page rank juice. This is why I say comment with your name and url, NOT your Google profile. My commenting system, Intense Debate, offers account profiles BUT since Comment Luv is enabled, it is a DoFollow link (which means you get page rank juice). Commenting on my blog, is a good thing.

Linking up to weekly blog memes and blog hops is a good marketing tool for your blog. It puts your blog in front of a new audience, but unless someone clicks your link, it won’t do much in the terms of improving your page rank. This is why leaving a comment on the post with your name and url is a great way to squeeze some link juice from Google.

I am learning about SEO, link love, keywords, meta tags, monetization and all that jazz to help improve my blog. As I learn new tricks, I’ll share them with you. If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I’ll do my best to get an accurate answer.

BTW-The weekly Strut Your Stuff meme is live but don’t forget to leave a comment when you link up! ;D