SEO: How to Increase Your PageRank by Creating More Web Pages

You probably already know that creating more web pages is one way to increase your search engine positioning. But before you start trying to cash in on this knowledge by cranking out hundreds of web pages, there are a few things you should consider. Some web pages will help your PageRank more than others, and some methods of generating lots of webpages can actually hurt your PageRank. This article will cover the dos and don'ts of creating additional web pages to boost your PageRank.

Do write prolifically

If you make a new web page, you'll obviously need something to put on it. Methods exist for building pages using content from other sources (if you go that route, you'll need to take care that you don't violate anyone's copyrights), but this article will focus on content that you generate yourself.

When you generate your own content, you increase the probability of people linking to your pages, rather than the pages from which you obtained the content. And original content which hilights your expertise establishes you as an authority in your market.

If you haven't set up a blog yet, you're missing out on a great opportunity. One of the major benefits I've discovered from blogging is that blogging tools lower both technical and psychological barriers to content creation, making it extremely easy to post little bits of information that I wouldn't bother to build webpages for otherwise. Rather than creating a page, uploading it, and adding links to it from other pages, all you have to do is type whatever you want to post into a form and submit it.

Also, blog posts are often very brief, and are expected to be, so it doesn't feel like overkill to create a new page with just a little bit of content on it.

Be sure to configure your blogging software to create individual pages for each post. At Blogger.com, for example, click the "Settings" tab, click "Archiving" on the submenu, and choose "Yes" from "Enable Post Pages?" If you don't do this, you won't get as many pages for your trouble, and thus you'll have less PageRank generating power. You'll also make it less likely that others will link to your pages because of the difficulty of linking to a blog post appearing in the middle of a page versus the ease of linking to a post on its own page.

Be sure that your blog is publishing an RSS and/or Atom newsfeed, and that you get it listed in RSS and Atom directories. As more and more people start using feed readers, this becomes ever more critical, because once you've gotten someone to your webpage once, the best way to get them to come back is to enable them to automatically receive updates by subscribing to your feed. In fact, it may be the only way to get them back.

There are a lot of other webpages out there competing with your for their attention, after all. If you post something to your blog that's particularly interesting to them, they be write about it in their blog, and link to you, giving you a little more PageRank.

Don't fill your site with meaningless drivel

Each page that you create gives you a little more PageRank by itself, but if that's all you get out of it, you may well wonder whether it's worth the effort. The real power comes from creating quality content that other websites will link to. Here are a few facts from my experience:

• On many days, I get more incoming traffic from a single link on Apple's iMovie website to my iMovie plugins page than from any other single source.
• On other days, I get more incoming traffic from various links to the article I wrote on using RSS for search engine optimization than from any other source.
• Many of these links are from websites that enjoy high visibility and strong reputations in the markets I am trying to reach.
• They also have strong PageRank, which means they boost my PageRank more than numerous links from lesser sites.

I didn't get these valuable inbound links by creating a bunch of garbage pages.

You may think it's fine to create a lot of low-value pages as long as you also create some high-quality pages to bring in external links. But consider a few questions: would you be more likely to link to a website that was mostly full of junk, but had a few high quality pages here and there, or one that was full of consistently high-quality information? Would you be more likely to return to a site mostly full of junk or one full of high-quality information? Which would you be more likely to buy from? To tell others about?

Do link from your new pages to the pages who's PageRank you most want to boost

This is pretty obvious, but I'll mention it in the interest of completeness. If you're building more pages but not linking them to the pages you really want people to go to, how is the extra PageRank going to get to those pages? And how are people who find the new page going to get to the page that you want them to see?

Do create create multiple pages rather than long pages...but not always

Each additional web page on your site give you a little more PageRank power. If you cram all your content onto one extremely long page, you'll have less PageRank to work with than if you split things up between multiple pages.

Also, if your pages get too large, people who don't have broadband internet connections will have to wait a long time for them to download. Studies have shown that pages that take too long to download lose readers. However, recent research has indicated the web surfers prefer to scroll pages than to click from page to page, so it's important not to break up your content too much. A few rules of thumb:

• Limit each page to a single topic. In addition to helping with raw pageRank, this will help you optimize each page for its relevant keywords, increasing your pages' relevance.
• If you have a lot of images in your content, split them between pages. This will help with download speed for people who don't have broadband connections.
• If you know which page some content is on, but you're having a hard time finding it, the page is probably too long.

Don't try to trick search engines into ranking your webpage higher

While there are many legitimate search engine optimization professionals, many people who attempt to pass themselves off as such are little more than Google hackers. Using deceptive techniques to fool search engines into ranking your website higher can hurt you in a number of ways. Since there are plenty of legitimate methods of working with search engines to help their users find valuable and interesting information (which I assume your content is!) why take the risk? A few ways you can be hurt by attempting to trick search engines:

• Search engines will penalize you if they catch you, and they're constantly working on new ways to catch people using deceptive techniques.
• If your site's visitors perceive your site as one that uses cheap tricks to pull in traffic, you may reduce your credibility with them. What's the point of having high PageRank and getting lots of visitors if they don't trust and respect you enough to do business with you?
• You'll have a harder time getting other sites to link to yours, especially the high-quality sites that can help you the most.

One specific trick to avoid: don't use "cloaking", a technique which uses dynamic page generation to attempt to fool search engines into thinking you have huge numbers of pages linking to your main page, but usually shows different content to regular visitors to your site. Search engines know about cloaking, and they have, and will probably continue to develop ways of seeing through it, and will penalize you for using it.

Ultimately, the best way to increase your search engine positioning is to generate lots of high quality content.

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