As I’m sure allot of you well know, I was one of the first, if not the first, to blog on the fact that Snoop Dogg was live over at Ustream.

In fact, the only reason I didn’t get the article up that same day was because I was messing around with that stupid video I made. Took for ever to record, to export it as a flash video file and upload.

Anyway, I should of thought to check this the other morning to see if I had a better spot. Now, as I write this, I am in the 6th position on the first page of Google, even beating out Digg for the keywords “snoop dogg ustream” That’s saying something for sure!

I am in the 15th spot on the second page of Goggle for the keywords “snoop dogg live” and I think that’s not too shabby either. Most of the front page was videos of Snoop live as would be expected.

To bad though, I don’t think I can compete for much longer. We’ll just have to wait and see. I don’t think I will be pulling in to much traffic from this either though, it is very interesting to see how Google works in regards to trending topics.

I guess you could say the moral of this story is the early bird gets the worm, when it comes to stuff like this. The only question is; will you as the early bird actually be rewarded, in some form or another?

You can check out the screen shots, careful though, they’re large files and almost 1600×1200 pixels:

Snoop Dogg Live

Snoop Dogg Ustream

If you don’t know what Google PageRank (PR) is and you want to know all the technical mumbo jumbo then please read up on it over at Wikipedia.

Okay, now that you have been educated and possibly scared by the word algorithm at the same time, then you should now understand that a PR 4 is pretty good. Right?

Well, if you don’t understand what it is, then that’s okay too. Basically it’s a way for Google to rank your site based on a bunch of different variables, like your content, how often you add new content, how many links from other sites link back to you, what rank those site have (passing you some PR love) and stuff like that. It’s a base of importance and helps Google determine which sites should be at the top of their searches. This is how I visualize it anyway.

By the way you can install the Google Toolbar if you want to see your site’s PR. Just a heads up, you might have to turn it on in the toolbar options.

A 4 is pretty good considering I have almost no posts on Natetronn.com and the site itself is not really even finished (tisk tisk, major no no, shame on me.) In fact I don’t really know why I have a PR of 4. I guess I should rename the title to “Why did the Google God decide to shine some light on me?”

I don’t have many back-links coming in, you can see for your self by typing in, with out quotes, “link:natetronn.com” over at Google Search. I leave some comments here and there around on other blogs I read that might send me a tiny bit of traffic but, for the most part I have done nothing to actively increase my PR (???)

There’s globs of information on the net talking about how to increase your PR and there’s allot of books on the subject too. I am reading a book right now that focuses on the actual content of your site itself versus all the other tricks you might stumble upon out there. You can check out “Content Rich: Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web” over at Amazon if you’d like.

Anyway, I wanted to give you a quick bullet point of some sites out there so you can get a visual of what a PR 4 means (as of April 5, 2009):

• No-PR – Sites that are brand new and only have been up for a very short period of time. Google has not indexed the site yet so no PR can be awarded.
• PR0 – The Right Clik – A site owned by a friend of mine. Come on Gav, pick it up a bit!
• PR1 – 45 Graphics – 45 graphics is a site run by another friend of mine. He should be doing a lot better then a 1. Anyway, check out his 3D logos while your there.
• PR2  -  Okay, I am struggling to think of a site that has a PR2. First person who has one before I do gets this spot, just let me know in a comment and it’s yours.
• PR3 -  Adii – Adii is a Rockstar and I know he gets some good conversations going over at his blog because I have been involved in some good ones there lately.
• PR3 – John Chow – John Chow has been around for quite awhile and only has a PR3. According to his advertise page “John Chow dot Com is generating over 300,000 page views per month from over 200,000 unique visitors (not including RSS readers)”
• PR3 – CSSiris – Another site of mine that has a no traffic and not much content though, once and if I ever really get around to starting, it should go up quite a bit.
• PR4 – Natetronn – The site you are on right now. Yeah!
• PR5 – Best Web Gallery – BWG is a nice gallery of websites. You can go and get inspiration and keep up with allot of great designers. Nick La keeps it updated all the time with new sites, including some really cool flash sites that are actually done right.
• PR6 – Bwana – This is a site by video blogger Bwana. I think he is one of Chris Pirillo’s cronies (just playing.)
• PR7 – Chris Pirillo -  Chris has been around for ever and has big time sponsors on his site and I’m sure he gets traffic like crazy. You can ask him live if you want.
• PR8 – Myspace – As of now Myspace has an 8, I thought they would of been up at 9, guess not.
  
• PR9 – Adobe, MSN, Twitter, Facebook and Yahoo! – Enough said.
• PR10 – Google – Well of course they have a ten.

Okay, I know what your thinking. Compared to Adii and John Chow there is no way I should have a PR4 but, I do, which is why I said the Google God must be looking down on me and sharing some PR love. But, what does all that PR really mean. Not much! I don’t actually get any traffic to the site at this moment. I definitely don’t make any money from the site. So really I am just enjoying the number and nothing more at this point.  I hope I can change that all soon though. I would like the PR to actually coincide with traffic, user experience and lastly revenue (got to eat right.)

I am not going to say that Google’s PageRank is somehow a crock because I like my number 4 and I want to keep it but, I must say it really makes you wonder a bit. I mean I am beating out John Chow! You know, the guy that supposedly makes a crap load of money from his sites and blogging. So ya, it makes me wonder whats going on I guess.

So, if you found this post and have read this to the end hoping to some how learn how I achieved Google PageRank 4 then I must apologize. I don’t really know. Though, once I figure it out you will all be first to know.

If you think you know how I did it then please by all means chime in with a comment, come on, don’t be shy.

Okay I’m back with part 2 of “This is not going to be a bashing session!”

Well before I actually realized I wasn’t going to ever talk to them again I started doing research. So now I have all this information stuffed in my head with no where to go. So I thinks to myself, how can I get rid of it and still feel like I have been of help to someone. That’s when I get the idea to write this post and unleash all that I had learned.

So here it is, the stuff that I learned:

I learned in the meeting that one of the clients top 4 competitors in our area is San Diego Magazine. Oh ya, I am not going to be the judge on this one as far as if the said client is actually really that much competition for San Diego Mag or not though, I will say, web site wise, SD Magazine is light years ahead.

I knew they were light years ahead and the client considered them competition so, I thought I would pull out my trusty firebug add-on for FireFox and go to work on San Diego Magazine’s website to see how much sleuthing I could get done before I talked with the client the following day (again, never happened.) I didn’t even have to open up firebug (darn!) to see right away that SD Magazine was using a online publishing system called Revista.

Revista is a product from a company that goes by the name of Godengo, Inc. Their system looks very robust and is specifically designed for clients who own magazines and want to take their magazines online. They have clients from all across the U.S. including Chicago Magazine, Palm Springs Life and, as I mentioned, San Diego Magazine.

So with this knowledge I decided to contact Godengo, Inc. to see if I could find anymore information out in regards to their product and whether or not it would be a good option for my client. Keep in mind I was going to recommend to the client to completely redo their website all together with a whole new CMS. That alone would have got them going in the right direction and would be the first step before any “SEO Experts” should be called in. In fact I think that in itself would have been a huge step in the right direction. You know, build your base first.

So like I said I contacted Godengo and spoke with Peter Stilsen who is the CEO of the company. Peter was very helpful and setup a nice demonstration via Adobe Connect so I could see how the admin side of things in Revista were handled. I thought the system looked very well built and would be a perfect option for the client.

Now I will say you could achieve something very similar using WordPress and a few other CMS out there today though, it would take quite sometime to accomplish and allot of times I find corporate companies want to have a good support system in place should they ever need it even if they have to pay extra for it. Now I am not going to go into all the details about Revista and what makes it a good system but I will say this; it’s not exactly cheap, though Peter was nice enough and offered to knock off a cool 2 grand from the total if I provided a project manager, which of course in this case would have been me. So I thought that was very nice of Peter to do especially with everyone talking about the economy being in the state that it’s in and what not.

Now that I knew all about Revista and was prepared to bring what I had learned to the client I decided to go on the hunt once more to see if I could find something similar to what Peter was offering, you know,  just as a backup in case it came down to price with the client and Revista. In which case I would offer the client a second (or even third) option for a fraction of the price. I guess I was just trying to cover as many bases as I could.

I also have to admit I was a bit worried the client was going to not want to hear the fact that I thought he should totally “can” the site he had and start over fresh and build it from the ground up the “correct way.” Though, that’s what I felt was the honest answer, plus deep down was what the client needed and was actually asking for. Whether the client knew it or even wanted to hear that, well we never got to that point so I can’t say.

Okay so far you’ve read my lead in and now option 1 which was Revista from Godengo, Inc. In the next post, part 3, I am going to give you my option 2 which is by no means a lesser option then 1, just different.

I want to tell you about a client who ended up not being a client after all. This is not going to be a bashing session so, for those drama lovers out there you can stop reading now. I do however want to talk about some of the things I learned while researching possible resources to help the client take their website up a notch and I will talk about the client’s competition too but, first a bit of a lead in so you know how the whole thing came about.

Okay maybe it seems like a bit of a bash, talking about their competition and even linking to that said competition’s website, but honestly I’m calling it part of the story, you will see why later.

Any-who, the lead in:

I was introduced to the client through a friend of mine and sold to the client as the “SEO Expert.” I know, I know, I almost laughed when I heard my friend say that but, it happened to be right in front of the client so I refrained and just smiled instead.

The client has a magazine which has been somewhat successful. They wanted their online version to also be a success, plus benefit their advertisers and be useful to their readers too.

The meeting went well and I gave them a few suggestions just to show I kind of knew what I was talking about. They had plans to redo their sites homepage and I suggested a few ways to help them do just that. Then after a few weeks of emails and voice mails not returned, come to find out they took a bit of my advice and redid there homepage with some of the suggestions I had made.

Now, I forgot to mention that I was told they were going hook me up with access to there Google Analytics account so I could better gauge where they actually stood at that point, although right off the bat I knew there wasn’t going to much info in their account that I needed to know about. Also, the client said they would wait for my proposal on how to bring them more traffic, you know all that “SEO Expert” stuff and that they would be in contact again right away.

So to make this part of the story not quite so long; they never sent me access to Google Analytics, they never returned my emails and or phone calls. I did however reach the owner once on a Friday and he acted busy and told me to call back on Monday to set up a time we could meet, which I did and well you know, voice mail again.

Okay, that’s all for the lead in part of this story. Part 2 will contain some good information for you in regards to what I actually learned while doing research for this client, plus some links that could possibly help you out in the future. So come on back for the second part!