When assessing the performance of your company’s homepage, one important metric to keep an eye on is your PageRank score. PageRank is a metric designed by Google co-founder Larry Page during his time at Stanford to help analyze the quality and importance of a web page. A site’s PageRank is scaled on a score of 0 (low) to 10 (high) and is primarily calculated by applying an algorithm that assesses factors such as the amount and quality of links back to that particular page, content and credibility. The premise is that the more relevant and helpful a site’s content, the more people will link back to that site. PageRank also takes into account the quality of the backlinking site. A site with a high score will have a greater effect on raising your site’s PageRank score because important sites are generally more likely to link to other sites with relevant content.

Why should you care? PageRank is a key component for determining where a site appears in Google’s organic search results. Sites with higher scores will appear further up on the results page than lower ranked competitors. This is essentially free advertising for your business – only better, as organic search results are more trusted than paid advertisements.  By monitoring the PageRank scores for your homepage and your competitors’ sites, you can help to ensure that your business is the first one people see when searching for relevant content.

So, what’s your PageRank? Visit a free PageRank checker to find out: http://www.prchecker.info/ or download the Google toolbar here.

Photo Credit: Aray Chen