How to Improve Your Alexa Ranking

If you run a blog or website you already know driving traffic can be somewhat of a challenge.

Alexa Rank – a subsidiary of Amazon, is a free analytical web metric system that tracks traffic to your site. The lower the rank the better, meaning they’re are more visitors coming to your site. Users can download the free tool bar and use it to optimize site visibility and attract more visitors. Basically, it’s another SEO trick. Although the average Joe or Jane may use Alexa to increase traffic, it’s mostly popular amongst tech oriented websites, bloggers or advertisers looking for placement on highly visible sites.

Before we divulge the essential details, lets clarify one major point; a good Alexa rank isn’t indicative of a good web site loaded with great content, it is simply a metric used to optimize you sites visibility through keyword, category or country-wide searches. Some folks don’t’ care too much for it, but others have easily reaped the benefits by downloading the toolbar and playing the game. If you have a website and employ decent SEO practices, the following rules apply with or without Alexa. The ultimate goal is to lower your Alexa rank (lower is better) to 100, 000 or less. Be patient however, as this will take some time, but rest assured your brand identity and online presence will be rewarded.

6 Steps To A lower Alexa Rank

Step 1: Download & Install Alexa Toolbar

– Step one is to actually download and install the free Alexa toolbar into your web browser. A lot of web-masters lower their Alexa Ranking very quickly by including it in their signature link when commenting in forums (see commenting step). Encourage your friends to install the Alexa toolbar on their browsers as well. Whenever you visit each others site, your ranking will improve just from having the toolbar installed.

Step 2: Content

– This goes without saying, every reputable blogger (with decent SEO practices) knows that content is king. Make sure your are actively, if not daily, writing and publishing informative content on your site. When Alexa crawls your site they will see you’re content is up-to-date and reward your accordingly.

Step 3: Guest Blogging

– Writing unique content for submission on other sites is great for Alexa rankings. Guest blogging is also a great way to build back-links -directing traffic back to your site. If you are looking for guest blogs for your website let us write one for you.

Step 4: Commenting

– Make sure you are actively commenting on other people sites. Visit other blogs that you like and write a positive comment. Reminder: only post positive comments as posting negative comments will hurt your ranking. Also, make sure you post an informative comment that actually adds something to the conversation. After you’ve done so, kindly drop a link that supports your argument or directs traffic back to you. See examples below:

Step 5: Writing Reviews

– You can also achieve a better ranking by writing reviews on blogs you like. Tell your friends to do the same and you will all benefit Tip: only write positive reviews as leaving negative reviews will affect you adversely. Tip: you can search how to Exchange Alexa Reviews on Google.

Step 6: Engage

– Make sure to engage with people who care about the Alexa Ranking. Go to tech/webmaster forums and talk to people that have the little widget in their signature. Chances are, they care about Alexa and thus will help in the long run. Don’t forget to talk about Alexa whenever possible – after all, people like hearing about themselves.

Of course the Alexa ranking system is flawed and is not always indicative of sites with quality content, nor bad content for that matter. Here are a few myths about the ranking system.

Alexa Myths

Installing Alexa Widgets – Alexa has stated that installing their Widgets on your site do not help your ranking. Not only that, but the widget is pretty awful looking (another reason not to install).

Using 3rd Party Software – There are a lot of folks worried about their poor Alexa ranks so they inevitably seek out 3rd party software that promises to improve their rankings. We say don’t waste your money. Unless you are willing to invest in some legitimate SEO services don’t expect magical results from money hungry app developers.

Alexa Rank Indicates Quality – What many forget is that Alexa is not an authoritative system that reliably ranks a web site. Third party applications that grade a site (based on rank), miss the quality sites that fail to rank because they don’t have the toolbar. You can’ t always trust a websites’ quality unless you visit the site yourself.

Closing Remarks

Many site owners worry about Alexa rankings because they look good to advertisers, prove that a lot of people are visiting their site and that their site is highly visible within SERPS (search engine result pages). The Alexa ranking system is not everything however. It is important to remember the myths and not blindly trust the Alexa rankings.

They’re are holes in the system and some users manipulate it to achieve a better rank. Though there are some advantages (as discussed above) to playing the game. If you are just starting out as a blogger and are trying to drive traffic and increase visibility, install the Alexa toolbar and give it a go. If anything, your participation within your online niche will naturally be encouraged. We say install it, comment and ask us to comment back, that way we can actually prove that the system works.

For more information contact James Mulvey