Did I happen to mention I’ve got the best wife ever? Monday was my birthday, and in celebration, Mrs MMD surprised me last weekend with a surprise trip to a bed and breakfast along the Michigan coast. What a great gift! It was a beautiful little place with a fireplace, hot-tub, champagne, and – of course – oven cooked French toast in the morning! Needless to say, I had a great birthday weekend and really enjoyed this getaway.
Here are a few pictures if anyone would like to check it out:
Blog News – FINALLY an Increase in My Google PageRank!!!
A got another big surprise for my birthday – After tons and tons and tons of effort, My Money Design finally got a fist-bump from Google and increased from a PR2 to a PR3! At last!!!
If you’ve been stuck at your current PR, then here’s a list of some of the things I tried to get that PR raised. Hopefully this helps you:
• Carefully crafted long, original posts around specific keywords (although I got a little carried away on the keyword density usage)
• Linked more often to my fellow bloggers
• Linked more often to authority sites
• Linked more often internally to my main domain and other pages
• Submitted more often to Carnivals. I also started dabbling in other back-linking strategies like submitting to press releases, etc.
• Made sure to guest post at least once a month
• Used a broken link checker to identify (and then fix) any broken links.
• Logged in more often to Google Webmaster Tools and fixed every Crawl Error. This involved using a 301 Redirect plugin.
• Submitted a sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools. Not sure if this one actually helps, but for the two clicks it took I figured why not.
• Ran my site through the W3C Validator and fixed all the coding errors it reported. After I did this, I noticed the number of pages that Google indexed went WAY up. Thanks again to Jeremy from Modest Money for that tip!
• Followed good SEO practices for all my posts such as filling in the meta description, using alt tags for images, etc.
Vote for MMD on FMF!
Free Money Finance is holding his annual March Money Madness, and My Money Design has entered a post! My first competition will be in Round 12. Follow the link to check this out, and remember to vote for me! I’ll be sure to post to Twitter and Facebook when it’s my turn!
Other Bloggers Who’ve Figured Out the PR Game:
In case you missed them, here are a few great stories you should check out this weekend:
- Modest Money – One Year Blogging Anniversary
- Budgeting in the Fun Stuff – Sites for Sale – Cleaning Up My Blogging Plate
- Money Life and More – Should I Buy a Beach Front Condo Follow Up
- Get Financially Integrated - Should you use debt to buy stocks?
- My Own Advisor – Goodbye Canadian penny, goodbye great penny idioms
- Brick by Brick Investing – Giveaway: The Perfect Gift At The Right Price
- Money Master Mom – Getting over the Fear of Asking
Carnivals & Mentions:
My Money Design was featured on the following sites this week:
- Eyes on the Dollar – Eyes on the Dollar 20/20 Roundup #24-Oh No, You Didn’t
- Venessa’s Money – Carnival of Financial Planning
- Street Smart Finance – 10 Super Tips to Save Money Now
- Free at 33 – Lifestyle Carnival
- Freedom Thirty Five Blog – Weekend Business and Blog Roundup – Feb 8th
- Refinance America - Carnival of Financial Planning
Thanks to everyone for linking to my site and enjoying my posts. I really appreciate your support and hope you continue to visit!
Posts This Week:
1) Believing In Yourself After Finding Out That You Suck
2) How to Stop Spending Money – 5 “Psych Outs” that Trick You to Spend
3) How Much Could You Save Paying 0% Interest Using Balance Transfer Credit Cards?
4) Tips for Good Health and How It Can Reduce Your Life Insurance Premiums
5) When You’re Moving Internationally and Need to Sell Your Home Quickly
Images courtesy of Mr and Mrs MMD
Mike@WeOnlyDoThis... (11)
John S @ Frugal R... (8)
Kim@Eyesonthedollar (8)
Martin (7)
Todd @ Fearless Men (7)
Integrator (6)
Justin (6)
KC @ genxfinance (6)
Canadian Budget B... (5)
Chris @ Stumble F... (5)
Congratulations on the PR upgrade! That’s awesome. I didn’t even realize the update happened, so I checked my sites. Unbelievably, my old money blog that I haven’t really touched since last April just got bumped up to a PR3! My credit card site that I just started in October is now a PR2. And my main blog, Dumb Passive Income, is still stuck at PR1. Odd.
I’m guessing Huron House is over on Michigan’s east coast? Must be weird to have to get up in the morning to watch the sun rise over the lake. I’ve watched many a sunset over Lake Michigan on our west coast. Either way, they’re both beautiful! Nice pictures from your stay. I’m a little jealous.
Matthew Allen recently posted..Passive Income Report – January 2013
Thanks Matt! The B&B was in Oscoda to be specific (above Tawas City).
I noticed the same exact thing about PR. A few times now I’ve clicked on old sites I used to visit and noticed their PR increased even though they haven’t done anything in months. I think age might have a lot more to do with it then we think.
Congrats on the PR increase! Thanks also for the link. Not sure if I have figured out the PR game yet. Still much to learn here !
Integrator recently posted..Are we in a new bubble ?
Having a PR3 after only 3 months, I’d say you’re doing something right!
Happy birthday, my friend!! I am sure that you’ve got the best wife, but don’t underestimate your role as equally wonderful husband and a father. Congrats on your Google Page rank progress as well.
Shilpan recently posted..Happiness is not an Entitlement
Thank you Shilpan! I really appreciate the kind words!
Glad you had an awesome birthday and a PR increase to boot! Thanks for the mention
Lance at Money Life and More recently posted..Personal Finance Round Up #42
Congrats on the PR jump! Looks like a nice relaxing getaway too!
Budget and the Beach recently posted..Link Love/Week in Review 2/8/13
Sounds like a great birthday. Congrats on being a 3!
Michelle recently posted..Can it just be Saturday forever?
Nice job on the PR and nice pics! I launched my site in October of 2011 and also got a nice bump to a PR2…it’s nice to see some love from the big G.
Liran @ ChooseTerm recently posted..Best Term Life Insurance Companies Video
Thanks Liran and welcome to the site. It does validate all that effort (and feel good) when you log in and finally see that Google thinks enough of your site to give it some ranking.
Happy Birthday and congrats on the Google Ranking! Sorry I missed the Tournament…next year!
Tony@WeOnlyDoThisOnce recently posted..Embrace Repetition
Don’t forget to vote for my post Tony! Looking at the competition line-up, something tells me I’m going to need all the help I can get!
Congrats on the page rank and the birthday! Getting away together is really important, I’m glad you had a great time
Mandy @ MoneyMasterMom recently posted..Monthly Expenses for a Family of 5 – January 2013
Thanks Mandy! We were long over-due for a little no kids time, so we really enjoyed every minute we could.
Looks like a delightful getaway, congrats on the PR update and happy belated birthday!
Pauline recently posted..Your Debt Expert’s Tips For Saving
Thanks Pauline!
Beautiful pics
Woot woot! Congrats on the PR. I somehow managed to get to 4 without ever really trying but I imagine getting to 5 will be darn near impossible and will take some work (gets harder with every step increase).
eemusings recently posted..Link love (Powered by hard talk and apple pie)
Thanks for the compliment!
That’s the beauty of the PR. The people who don’t even try get 3′s, 4′s, and 5′s. The people that try to game the system (like me) get stuck at a 2 forever. You’d think I’d just learn my lesson and go with the flow. I’d probably be at a 6 by now if I did
( .. not really …)
Happy Belated Birthday mate. Well that was lovely of her looks like a lovely place. Congrats on the page rank and thanks for sharing your tips.
Canadianbudgetbinder recently posted..The Saturday Weekend Review February #6~Well Behaved Kids Score Their Family A Dining Discount!
Thanks for the link back. Looks like you had an awesome birthday haha. Congrats on the PR increase, and thanks for sharing some tips with the rest of us bloggers. Enjoy the rest of your weekend
Thanks! I hope they get put to use and work for someone else!
Happy Birthday! I’ll have to check out that crawler thing. I seem to have some errors there, but it’s all like trying to read Chinese to me.
Kim@Eyesonthedollar recently posted..7 Steps to Take Before You Put Your Home on the Market
Thanks Kim! Definitely check out the link checker and site crawler. To some degree its still Chinese to me too. But I just keep telling myself that people figure this stuff out all the time, so I can too!
its great feeling for blogger when blog got increase in google page rank i also got such good feeling when my blog get from 0 to 1 page rank but this time i am not too happy because my blog move from 1 pagerank to 0 pagrerank anyway i will try my level best for next time congrats for pagerank 3 for your blog
These days as long as I don’t go down I’m considering it a victory.
[...] My Awesome Birthday Weekend and Finally a Google PageRank Increase! on My Money Design [...]
Sounds like very romantic get away and the pictures look good too.
Congratulations with the rank increase, but more importantly with the best wife ever : -)
Financial Independence recently posted..Diversification
Thanks! She deserves that title after finding such a great place to get away to.
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