by: Ryan Lawrence

Last week, I found myself involved in a very familiar conversation. The owner of an online music download company wanted to know more about "those weblog things" and if he should try to incorporate one into his web site. Like many in his position, when he first heard the term blog, he chalked it up to a passing fad or something his thirteen-year-old daughter might be interested in. But, soon even he could not ignore the buzz and his curiosity peaked.

"I sort of know what a blog is," said the site owner; "But, I don't see what an online journal can do for my music download web site."

This site owner is not alone in his confusion over weblogs. Most business people are still just learning the power of weblogs and how vital they are becoming to online business. There are many benefits to having and maintaining a weblog, and if you want to know them all, you should have little trouble finding resources to educate you.

Today, however, I would like to focus on a single often overlooked beneficial aspect of having a weblog. It is what I like to call the "back door effect," and it relates to the boost a weblog can have on your site with pagerank and general overall rankings in search engines.

The back door effect works like this: let's say your main web site, the site where you want visitors to go, is mainsite.com. Your ranking for your particular keyword or words in search engines will depend on a great many variables. But, two of the most important variables can be boosted by having a weblog that links back to your main page. These two variables are pagerank and quality related inbound links. If you're still in the dark about pagerank, check out this article by Ian Rogers, http://www.iprcom.com/papers/pagerank/.

The best way to use a weblog to boost your search engine rankings is to nurture that weblog by updating it regularly with information worthy of syndication (RSS Feeds) and by getting your weblog listed in directories that rank high in pagerank, like this one, http://www.highclassblogs.com. It, like many of the blog directories, contains several different categories, so finding one that fits your particular site should not be difficult.

Study up on how pagerank works and why quality related inbound links are important to your search engine rankings. Once you understand how important these facets are, you'll see how a well-nurtured weblog can transfer ranking power to your main site through the back door.