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Boosting PageRank with Squarespace

 

Over the summer, I worked at a company called Campus Promotions, part of Student Agencies Inc, that does marketing and consulting for local companies. One of our big projects is the Ithaca Gorge Dining Guide which is a guide to local restaurants. This was the first year ever we came out with both a print and digital publication. After extensive market research about competing websites, I worked along with our Tech Analyst and used Squarespace.com, a developer platform created by Google, to build our new website – gorgedining.com. The website is intended to be a student-view into dining in Ithaca. Since we sell space in the print booklet and the website, we want our new website to get as many views as possible, and therefore a high ROI for our customers.

Having little marketing or web design experience, I was struggling to figure out how to drive more traffic through the website, when we came to Chapter 14. Chapter 14 discusses how websites are linked to one another and introduces the ide of PageRank. PageRank is like a fluid that settles into a network, passing from one node to another based off of links as edges. A website passes its share of PageRank onto any nodes that it connects to. So, the more nodes a page is connected to, the more PageRank it receives. This seems to explain the intuitive – the more websites that direct people to your page, the more views you get, and the higher your PageRank climbs.

This all, in theory, makes sense: if you link to more pages, you will get more views. But later in the chapter, they introduce the concept of SEO – Search Engine Optimization. Search Engine Optimization uses strategic tactics to improve the search engine performance of a website. The large search engines are constantly maneuvering and changing their PageRank and scoring systems to prevent Web designers from taking advantage of the system.

With these two factors in mind, I looked into what I could do with GorgeDining.com. First, I linked it to a few relevant external pages; the Student Agencies Website, and Facebook. Then, on November 2nd, I posted a blog entry and linked it in the Cornell 2017 class group on Facebook). This was strategic because that was Freshman Parent’s weekend – a prime opportunity for restaurants.

I saw an immediate spike in views, and was able to use Squarespace’s analytics to discern where the references were coming from.

Blog 2 graphics – Click to see the page view and source data

Then I looked into SEO with Squarespace. Squarespace is a Google product, so I figured they’d have some insight into SEO’s best practices. I was not surprised to find out that all Squarespace websites are built with cutting edge SEO adaptations. One I found particularly interesting was their rel=canonical meta tag. What this means is that if there are multiple variations on a link or internal pages (for example when you click on one of the restaurant internal pages on Gorgedining.com), Squarespace will automatically index the URL’s that should be used when there are variations. So, instead of each of the pages within my website being ranked separately, they can all come up under the search for any variation of the gorgedining.com URL. That way, they can all share page rank and search hits, instead of standing alone.

When I have a bit more free time, I think the next move will be to post links on popular review sites like UrbanSpoon and Yelp! and also to reach out to the restaurants we work with and ask them to post links to GorgeDining,com on their own websites. We are also looking for a food blogger to generate fresh content. If you have any suggestions as to how we can drive more traffic through the site, or want in on the project, shoot me an email– laf99@cornell.edu!

 

Sources Cited :

 

Gorgedining.com

 

http://www.bigpictureweb.com/blog/serious-leaps-in-seo-with-squarespace-6

 

studentagencies.com

Comments

One Response to “ Boosting PageRank with Squarespace ”

  • Reginald

    Hey there!

    Came across this by accident when I was searching for squarespace. I read and hear about it alot recently and really wonder what it is.

    I think this is something worth reading further and thank you for sharing your experience! Avid SEO-reader here.

    Have a great weekend and take care!
    ~Reginald

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