How I got a Pagerank of 5

I am often asked how I managed to get a Google pagerank of 5 for my main blog and would like to share some of my techniques with you.

Firstly I must point out that, although I have a few affiliate banner ads there, it is primarily a help site and I was not aiming to make money from it. This helps as it does not have links to sites or keywords that Google may not like.

Backlinks via the comments do not come from sites that search engines may frown upon and many are from other well performing sites. I would rather have no comments at all than approve those which may be considered even slightly spammy.


Social networking was the key to getting comments that were useful for SEO and most of this network was based on me commenting on other sites. I say "based on" because, once you get communication going on a person's blog, this will extend to mutual following on other social networking sites such as Facebook.

Commenting on other blogs gave me valuable backlinks to my own site. Although I commented on many blogs regularly, my activity was at first mainly centred around a handful of blogs where I got to know the authors and subsequently those who also commented regularly on the blog. From this circle of bloggers I found other circles and my network grew. 

I joined and participated in a wide range of social networking sites where I would always know at least a few people who I already knew from my blogging activities. I was then able to create new circles.

Although one of my intentions was to raise the profile of my own blog, my network was based on mutual interest areas. It is easy to lose motivation if you are communicating with people who do not share your interests.

When I talk of social networking I am not only referring to facebook and twitter type sites but also blog networks, blog forums, social bookmarking and professional networking sites.

Your social networking activities have to be mutually beneficial for yourself and your contacts. It is a two way street. This is made easy now where there are share buttons on sites where you can like, tweet, +1 and submit to many places. For those that do not have share buttons to the sites I use, I keep a toolbar folder containing submit bookmarklets to speed up the process. I use the Stumbleupon toolbar.

I do not have purely selfish motives for my social networking activities. I have a genuine desire to see others succeed, whether it is in blogging for its own sake or in their marketing efforts. I hope this comes through in my writing and my online behavior.

I researched Search Engine Optimization techniques and made use of keywords, effective titles and SEO blog plugins.

From the start I was keen to get my name known in the blogging world and decided to go by a distinct nickname, Sueblimely. This has paid dividends as a search for my name only brings up links to myself and other sites where I have activity.

My main blog is about blogging and social networking and I wrote a lot of tutorials and reviews. I did not worry about having too many links in a post, despite general consensus that this is not good for SEO. If links were necessary because of the topic I used them, as long as they were not to sites that search engines would not approve of.

Because I was aiming at bloggers who had little knowledge of site building or SEO and did  not have time or inclination to research, I kept my articles as simple as possible making extensive use of bullet points and images.

After a while I began to see trends in what people were the most interested in finding out about. I made sure that I catered to this need.

My main blog is still there and despite being neglected for a couple of years has maintained a pagerank of 4. I am still getting 5000 plus visitors a day . Some of my posts still rate very highly and I keep up with my social networking. The blog helped me build up my reputation as a web developer and I have gained more clients for this side of my business.

I took advantage of the blog url's high standing and created a subdomain for my newer Internet Marketing blog. Posts on the subdomain were rated highly right from the start.

I am being very cautious with the marketing blog so that Google does not penalize both. For any of the more blatant advertising of sites that may not be approved of I will create a blog on blogspot or take advantage of other platforms such as IBS Social and Apsense, of course.

As you have probably learned from the above, earning a good pagerank takes time and effort. It involves not only putting techniques into practice but continuing research, learning and social networking on popular and upcoming social networking sites.

The blogs in question are Blogging Sueblimely and my newer Making Money Methods Online