Memes?

[Dorothy Thompson]

I have made a startling discovery and I just found this out yesterday. My reviewing blog, As the Pages Turn, received a 5 PR ranking. This is a blog I only started a month ago and I only have maybe ten posts up. This goes against all the SEO I've ever learned. When I look for a blog to host my authors, I insist that the blog is updated, has a good set of archives and is geared toward my authors' books. I've now made a new rule where the blogs have to have a good PR ranking - at least a 4. It takes a while for a new blog to get even a 4, but with constant updating, it can get there in a month (give or take a few days). Mine is a 5 which I discovered yesterday. It goes against everything I thought SEO to be and after doing some analyzing, I thought could it be the memes?

I have found 4 memes which I use - The Sunday Salon, Booking Through Thursday, Teaser Tuesdays and What's on Your Nightstand?. I love them and am having a blast using them when I can find the time, but does anyone know of anymore out there geared toward books? I need a Monday, Wednesday and a Friday, or anything else you can think of.

If memes are the ticket to high PR ranking, then I am so there so if anyone has any suggestions, can you please let me know?

Thank you!

[Callista]

Children's Classics Carnival which has you post about children's classics every second tuesday of the month.

Mailbox Monday - share the books that showed up in your mail every week.

Musing Mondays - Muse about books on your blog every monday

Poetry Friday - post poetry or links to poetry every friday

Sunday Salon - sort of a mini readathon. Make time to read on Sunday, then post about it and visit others

Thursdays Thoughts - she posts a topic with a couple of questions and you answer her on your blog for a chance to win prizes

Tuesday Thingers is for Library Thing users (although I don't see why non users couldn't answer the questions)

Where Are You? - Once a week post where you are according to the book you are reading (the books setting)

Write on Wednesday - for those looking to hone their writing skills

Does that help???

[Dorothy Thompson]

Oh, Callista, it sure does! Thank you!

[April]

Wow! What great info, Callista! I am going to have to check out these links! I have heard of a few of them, but not all. Very cool! Thanks for posting this!

[Nicole D. Porter]

For those interested, I just ran into a site the other day http://thedailymeme.com. It lists more than 100 memes of all sorts. I just started a just for fun meme only blog (on a day, when I have the time). It's seperate from my book blog. http://imemeit.blogspot.com, if anyone's interested.

[Dorothy Thompson]

Wow, Nicole, thank you! I'm in meme heaven!

[Bobbie Crawford-McCoy]

Hey Everybody :)

My blog can't be ranked and I don't know why. My blog is pretty new as I've moved it from blogspot to wordpress not long ago, but I hope this isn't a problem for anyone trying to find my blog!!!

I have 7 daily Topics - I've added 3 of them so far. The rest go up as each weekday arrives until they are all posted. Then I just 'stick' them to the top, front page of my blog on the correct weekday :-)
I also add new posts each day and update the specific daily topic, on the right day.
It’s neato!

I'm a book reviewer and enjoying all of this ever so much!!

Cheers,
Bobbie Crawford-McCoy

♦Book Reviews By Bobbie♦
http://bookreviewsbybobbie.wordpress.com/

[Wayne Hurlbert]

I do SEO professionally, and can give you some basics on PageRank and Google. First of all, PageRank as shown on the Google Toolbar is not accurate for the page. Note that PageRank is for that page alone, and not the entire site. Every page has its own PageRank, kept internally by Google. What you see on the Google Toolbar is at best out of date, and at worst wildly inaccurate. I consider the green line for entertainment purposes only. What PageRank can tell you, however, is that your blog has a large number of links, important links, or both arriving at that page.

As for blogs ranking well in Google, that is one of the powers of the blog. Search engines love regular updated theme relevant content with theme relevant links both in and out. A book review blog that has posts about books is very theme relevant, as you might imagine, and Google rewards that sticking to your theme. As a result, a theme relevant blog post will rank well for a search for a book you have reviewed. My business book review blog posts regularly rank ahead of the author's own site, the publisher's page for the book, and also Amazon's page for that book.

Another blog power is the free and generous link policy of all bloggers. Bloggers love to link to posts of interest to them and their readership. Remember, the more inbound links. the better your post will rank in the searches, and will have higher PageRank. It also pays to link out as it appears Google gives credit for outbound theme relevant links as well.

Blogger blogs, Wordpress blogs, and Typepad blogs all rank well in Google.

Memes benefit your blog if they attract theme relevant inbound links, although any links from other unrelated topic bloggers still have value. A link is a vote of confidence in your blog and its content.

I wouldn't limit a blog book tour based on the inaccurate PageRank shown on the toolbar, but instead, there is another way to look at the situation. A new blog can grow in popularity and attract many new links over time. Give the new bloggers, and the less well known blogs a chance to join the book tour, and they can grow right along with you. I believe you never know who you can meet, or become friends with as the result of a blog connection; in this case a book tour. Everyone benefits with links and new traffic, and more readers and book sales for authors and publishers.

If you have any SEO related questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

[Dorothy Thompson]

Thanks, Wayne! Stick around because I have a million more questions. I've got my own theories on SEO, but I'm still learning. Do me a favor if you read this. Go to www.asthepagesturn.wordpress.com and try to figure out why it would get a 5 when some of my other blogs which I update more frequently (and always on the same theme) and have more incoming links than this one. I'm going to figure it out if it's the last thing I do. Yes, it's theme oriented but with maybe only about 10 posts since it's new. My blog is geared toward book reviews yet I daresay that since it's new and since I haven't been pinging or digging or whatever'ing it, it comes up very high in google for my key search words. If I had been, then I guess I would be saying it might have helped, but I haven't so I'm back at square one. Help?

[Anysia]

I'd like to hear Wayne's thoughts on whether this has to do with the blog being on Wordpress.com which is probably already highly rated to begin with (and automatically generates the related posts links). I know I've mentioned that theory before but, like Dorothy, I'm curious as to what is raising the PageRank for her blog and so far that uninformed guess is the only one I have.

[Wayne Hurlbert]

Being on Wordpress is great for SEO. The system and its templates are all very well coded for SEO. The related posts feature is a powerful SEO tool as well because it provides internal links within your blog archives, and that boosts post theme relevance.

As I said earlier, don't worry about PageRank. Provide great content on your blog, and that will attract natural links to your posts. Also, link out to great relevant content and other good blogs on your blogroll. That helps your search rankings for your most important keyword phrases as well.

[Dorothy Thompson]

Hey Wayne, what's your opinion on this. This blog I was talking about with the 5 that is new and I have no idea why it's a 5, well I have an older blog that has a full set of archives and I just now revamped it. But it's coming in at 0 page ranking. I just took off a whole lot of dead links in the sidebar. Does that bring your ranking down when you have dead links?

[Wayne Hurlbert]

Memes for books work because they create theme relevant fresh content, and they often link to and receive inbound links from other theme related blogs. Those incoming links and theme relevant content are powerful rankings builders.

I wouldn't worry too much about PageRank. It was important around 2002-2003 but its importance has declined since then due to dishonest linking schemes, purchased links, and other black hat SEO. I don't use any black hat SEO, only ethical SEO that follow Google's terms of service and webmaster guidelines.