After reading about PagRank it seems like basically it shows Google likes my site and thinks it is important. That only seems like a feather in my cap but does not build traffic or make money so I have questions. What good does it do my website if my PageRank is high? Does it mean I get more traffic and is so how?
A good pagerank will give you : - linkpartners --> more visitors - possibility to sell linkspots --> more $$ So if I could choose to have a PR7 site and a PR0 site I will choose the PR7 site
No your PR has nothing to do with your rankings or traffic, mostly people want to get a high PR just to sell ads on their sites. So dont bother about PR just build lots of quality and related links and your PR and rankings both will increase themselves.
Good point made by Blade there, but the fact is people these days make sites for PR rather than for traffic. A site with high PR need not neccesarily have as much corresponding traffic. And if link exchanges are done with similar high PR, low traffic sites, you eventually only get rewards in the form of backlinks. But in the long run, if you do have a high PR, the chances that you rank higher in the SE's is greater and therefore your traffic will definitely increase in the long run.Your traffic eventually contributes to your link partner's traffic as well.
I think age of site + high PR definitely help in getting high traffic. I have 2 sites ( on same subject) one more than a year old with PR5 and another PR4 which is 6 month old. My PR5 site gets 10 times more traffic from google than the PR4 site. Just my 2 cents.
Ya I also think so now I think that the age is also one of the factors which are affecting your ranks in major search engines.
PageRank directly affects rankings in Google, or atleast it is ONE of THE factors affecting SERPs. So a high PR can creep you up the SERPs and help yo uget more traffic, more visitors, returning visitors, which will result in increased sales, increased earnings etc.
PR doesn't necessary would give you traffic. it just basically means that more sites are link to you but nothing to guarantee that people will visit your site. However, if people do not know that your site exists, people would not visit you so getting listed in relevant sites helps. There are some sites which rely on viral traffic can have a lot more traffic as a PR0 than a PR7 site.
You need links in order to have pagerank so it does give you a rouph estimate of a sites value, however imprecise that rouph estimate may be, since linking is how the web works.