It’s a fact that Google gives more emphasis on Page Rank of a website or blog when ranking content in SERPs.

A site with higher Google Page Rank is considered authoritative and trustworthy in its niche.
Pages of websites with high PR always tend to rank higher in search results, even though some of their content is less informative than their counterparts.

Google Page Rank: Google says – The heart of their search engine algorithm, which ranks content in SERPs is Page Rank. This system of content ranking, as well as the term Page Rank was developed by Larry Page, the co-founder and CEO of Google.

Links are like confidence votes between websites and pass link-juice to one another. Links (or backlinks) are devised by Google to help ranking content and better functioning of World Wide Web System.

Definition: Page Rank is the “Quantity (total number) of inbound links or back-links to a particular website or page, along with the quality of the linking pages (Page Ranks of sites providing the links).”

It’s a whole number between 0 and 10. Where, 0 represents the least important site or page, and 10 the most important and authoritative. Without much ado let’s dive in to the strategies to improve Page Rank of a site -

1. Blog Commenting

Let’s start with low hanging fruits – which is blog commenting. It has a surprising effects on Page Rank.

By adopting this technique along with others, webmasters have achieved Page Rank 5, 6 and even 7. But the backlinks should be of good quality, I mean, you have to choose high Page Rank, and leading blogs in your niche to leave comments. Comments on blogs outside your niche may affect your Page Rank adversely.

You should also choose some DoFollow blogs in your niche for blog commenting. Because these blogs pass link-juice and help to improve Page Rank fast. Also remember, try to leave quality comments which add value and take the discussion to the higher level. In this way you are helping other commenters as well as blog readers.

Here, you are hitting 2 birds with one stone – getting backlinks to increase Page Rank + targeted traffic to your blog. But use this strategy in moderation. Leaving 500 comments overnight is a spammy activity and may harm your Page Rank. Using blog commenting software and packages are strictly No No.

2. Forum Commenting

Again, a great way to acquire backlinks. A good profile with judicious use of your niche keywords, and a backlink to your blog is helpful.
Find forums strictly related to your niche and leave quality comments. When improving Page Rank, quantity as well as quality of the backlinks matter. So the forums should be top-notch in your subject matter.

3. Directory Listing

Well established and authoritative article directories like Squidoo, HubPages, RedGage are great places to build quality links.
These sites provide you complete control over your outgoing link destination. They are also flooded with content seeking and really engaged visitors. So, along with quality links, you will also receive targeted visitors.

4. Social Media Profile

Use social media networks not only to boost your Search Engine Optimization efforts, but also the Page Rank.
All you need is a keyword rich profile along with your blog URL. Join the leading social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, StumbleUpon etc., even though you are using few.
For your information, the links you are sharing on different social media sites while twitting or posting messages on Facebook don’t help to boost your Page Rank. Here, social profile (presence) and popularity matters the most.

5. Guest Blogging

Links from guest blogging are usually DoFollow and pass link-juice. Bloggers usually allow 2 backlinks inside the author bio box, which are generally DoFollow.
Of course the value of a link from author bio box is less than a link from the article body, but still these are quality backlinks.
Guest blogging is a time consuming and tiring process, but with a rich rewards. Now you are hitting 3 birds with one stone – Backlinks, Targeted Traffic and Authority (or Publicity). Go for it, when you get extra time.

6. Use of NoFollow tag

By using NoFollow tag on both internal and outbound links, you can preserve as well as improve Page Rank.
To preserve the Page Rank of Home page you can NoFollow all the internal and outbound links (leaving from Home page). If you want to promote a special post or pages, you can DoFollow them from Home page by giving some link-juice.
Also, linking (and DoFollowing) your high Page Rank posts to your Home page helps to increase the Page Rank of the entire site (Home page). This way you are making your domain authoritative in Google’s eye.

7. Internal linking structure

Internal linking of blog posts doesn’t directly help to increase your Page Rank. But helps you to preserve the Page Rank or link-juice of important blog posts and pages.
You can interlink important posts of your blog by using desired anchor text to uniformly distribute the link-juice. Internal linking not only increases user experience, but also sends a signal to search engines about the subject matter of linked posts. By using this trick you can increase the Page Rank of your most desired posts and pages to promote higher in search engines.
Finally, use internal linking for preservation and distribution of link juice, and of course better user experience by providing references of old articles. Let’s your old articles get some love from your readers!

8. Spammy Neighborhood

Linking to spammy sites means – wasting link-juice and coming under Google’s suspicion radar.
Frequently giving outbound links to websites involved in spammy activities may results in complete ban and de-indexing by Google. Check for authenticity of the site before linking to it. But, anyhow,  if you have to link a suspicious site on your blog post, then always use NoFollow attribute.
If your site is not hosted on a dedicated IP address, check for the other sharing sites and blogs (for intentions and activities). Sometimes spammy activity by a single website makes the whole pond dirty.

9. Acquiring Special Backlinks

Links from .gov and .edu are difficult to get, but help to increase page rank significantly. I will tell you the easiest method to get some great links from these sites.
Find some .gov and .edu blogs in your niche, which are open for registration and commenting. Leave some constructive comments, otherwise your comments will be rejected or marked as spam, as these sites are very strict in their comment policy.
Use Google Search for finding quality .edu and .gov blogs. Try the below search -

• site:.edu “add comment” OR “post comment” “ADD YOUR KEYWORD”
• site:.gov “add comment” OR “post comment” “ADD YOUR KEYWORD”

Hire a student who has access to .edu blogs. Most students in the US have access to student blogs, forums and pages. Tell him to give you a backlink for 4$ beer money, and he will be happy to do that. You can also request him to write something about your site and place a link to it. You can easily get students like these by searching sites like Reddit or Craigslist.

And don’t forget to get a link from Wikipedia (at least try your luck).

10. Say No to Spammy Activities

Say no to link buying, selling, reciprocal linking and participating in contest meant for link schemes.
Newbie bloggers always become a victim of link schemes by cunning websites. They organize blogging contests and ask bloggers to link certain number of blogs or blog posts or bloggers. Then the blogs you linked will nominate (link) other blogs, and the scheme goes like this…never ending. Stay away from this.

Sometimes, in the name of blogging contest, sites distribute widgets and badges to the winners. And they usually choose 100, and even more than that as winners (1st, 2nd…99th, 100th). These widgets have hidden links of their websites or domains. Their main aim is to get links,not to distribute prizes for free. But there are some exceptions.

99th Point: Register your domain for more than 1 yr. Domains which are registered for more than 2 yrs, 5 yrs and even more trustworthy and non-spammy in Google’s eye.

Make you blog W3C compatible, I mean, your blog  or site should be clean coded. Check your site for any coding error here.

To brush-up your knowledge – Google gives individual Page Ranks to Home Page and Sub-pages of a site. So, all the blog posts and pages have different Google Page Ranks.

To increase your website Page Rank – Your efforts should be to get more number of links (both quantity and quality) and be popular in your niche or subject matter. Every few months (sometimes more than 6 months) Google updates Page Ranks. Let’s check your Page Rank here.