In last few weeks I have been researching page rank related issue, so much talked about in the world of web masters. After looking and comparing different sites and their rankings, their link popularity and indicators of visitors traffic, one conclusion is certain. Page rank does not always means great traffic to your site and vice versa.Every web-master’s ego is satisfied somewhat when their site has increased in ranking. But if your page brings in 1000 visitors per day your ego is satisfied on a different level altogether, especially if web site development is what brings food on your table.
Stepping in the shoes of an average Internet user may prove to you how page rank is not important when you think about a visitor coming to your site. How often do you personally use Google, Yahoo, MSN or other search engines a week? Now how many times you say to yourself “wait a minute, before I go and research something at Yahoo!, let me see first what is their ranking for today?” I can bet that you never do that.I can bet that if your website does not provide relevant information, no matter how high you have ranked in search engines, the first time visitors may never come back to your website again. It is return visitor that will stay longer at your site, will recommend your site to his friends and eventually will trust you enough to enter in a business transaction with you.
So how can you direct visitors to your website? One of the fastest way to brig visitors to your website is to your pay per click advertising. Just keep in mind that majority of your visitors will be first time visitors to your site. Keep working on contents of your site so that first time visitors will become returning visitors.
It is not to say that optimizing your website is not worth anything. I long term it will provide you a flow of free visitors. Unfortunately not all search engines use the same algorithm to determine page rank, besides their algorithms change from time to time. But one element that search engines pay attention to is how popular your website is, or how many other websites link to your website. This can be accomplished by many methods, some free for some you will have to pay. Providing good and relevant content will probably prompt other people to link to your website; in my opinion these are the best back-links you can ever get. You can also consider purchasing links from other sites. I found that the best sites to purchase links from are blogs. Most bloggers keep great archives on their sites, and your link may be reflected in search engines for some time even after your stop advertising on a particular site.