And why is PageRank so Important?
Simply put, PageRank™ is Google's way of assigning an importance level to each web page on the Internet. The calculation used by Google is based on a patent filed by Stanford University and Larry Page, the co-founder of Google. It is important to note that even though PageRank™ is measured on a scale of 0 to 10, there is an infinite number of decimals involved. If your PageRank™ is 3, and your competitor's is also 3, it does not mean the two are equal. The one may be 3.00001 and the other 3.9
Bear in mind that the core of the Internet is hyper-linking. This is commonly visible as a few underlined words which link to a related page on either your own web site - or a web site anywhere else in the world.
PageRank™ Example
As an example, if you are an orthodontist and you would like to educate your patients, you may have a link in your content to www.braces.org similar to this: How to take care of your braces.
Now - when the Googlebot visits your page, it will follow the link and records that your web page has cast a vote of confidence, confirming that www.braces.org is indeed a web site about braces. Because your link text to them contains the word braces, and your web site is about orthodontics, Google will regard this as an on-topic vote and credit their PageRank. The higher your PageRank™, the more their PageRank™ will benefit. This example will explain why they have a PageRank™ of 6 and most Dental Web Sites have a PageRank™ of only 2 or 3!
Don't Give PageRank Away!
Don't link out from your site unless you have a compelling reason to do so! If it is beneficail for your visitors to follow a link (and leave your site,) considder using a "nofollow tag" which will still allow users to follow the link, but you will not be giving PageRank away. Many websites have a "Designed by" or "Hosted by" link at the bottom of the page. This is a bad practice! Preserve your PageRank for your own internal pages - this way they will rank better and you will end up with more visitors on your site.
How To Increase Your PageRank
There is only one way - you need on-topic links to your web site - and this is where we can help you!