With the increase in focus on social bookmarking, just how important is having a decent Alexa ranking these days?
Alexa traffic rankings used to be considered the benchmark for webmasters but now there are so many different ways of gauging website popularity that Alexa seems to be lagging behind in the wake of the Web 2.0 juggernaut.
However, if you’re looking to make some money online then you ignore Alexa at your peril.
Aaron Brazell recently wrote about Alexa’s Irrelevance and how it alienates 50% of the online community by only being officially supported for Internet Explorer. As he correctly says, the quality of the data is clearly skewed by the fact that you need to have the Alexa toolbar installed on your browser for your data to be captured. Whilst it’s fair to say that Alexa data isn’t particularly accurate or that it is not the powerhouse that it was once, it still has a place in todays market.
Services like Text Link Ads, for example, price your ads based on your Alexa rank. The higher you rank in Alexa, the more money you make from the ads. Text Link Ads aren’t alone in using the Alexa data as their benchmark. Many other ad networks still use it too.
The fact is that without a realistic competitor in the market place, Alexa will continue to be used for these purposes so if you’re looking to make money with your website or blog, you should consider looking at maximising your Alexa rank.
One of the easiest ways of doing this is installing the Alexa toolbar on your own web browser. This means that every time you check your own site out, you register as a hit. If you’re an Internet Explorer user then I pity you you can download it here. Alternatively if you’re a Firefox user then install the SearchStatus Extension.
Everton has got some great tips over at his site including using Alexa redirects. Read his article Increasing Alexa Rank for some more ideas. He’s increased his Alexa Rank from 26,024 to 20,983 in just 5 weeks which is pretty good going. DoshDosh also has a great series of tips entitled 20 Quick Ways to Increase Your Alexa Rank.
One of the things I’ve picked up on, though, is that the majority of sites which do well within Alexa are those aimed at the webmaster community or those who focus on technology subjects. This is because these people are more likely to install the Alexa toolbar than the average web user. This presents a problem for those people looking to monetize their non-technology website.
Let me give you an example. As I said the other day, one of my sites recently went up to a Google PageRank 6 so I’m looking at putting some text links on it. According to TLA, each ad should get around $50 based on my PageRank. However my Alexa rank is a shocking 5,542,913! Traffic wise it actually does quite well but the problem is that it’s a non-technology subject so the majority of users won’t have the toolbar installed. As a result I doubt I’ll see anywhere close to $50 for each ad.
How can you increase your Alexa rank for a non-technology website? Well I’m going to try some of the tips from DoshDosh and report back to you. In the meanwhile, what steps have you taken to increase your Alexa rank? What worked for you and what didn’t?
Tech Tags: Alexa, PageRank, Making Money Online, Advertising
Alexa traffic rankings used to be considered the benchmark for webmasters but now there are so many different ways of gauging website popularity that Alexa seems to be lagging behind in the wake of the Web 2.0 juggernaut.
However, if you’re looking to make some money online then you ignore Alexa at your peril.
Aaron Brazell recently wrote about Alexa’s Irrelevance and how it alienates 50% of the online community by only being officially supported for Internet Explorer. As he correctly says, the quality of the data is clearly skewed by the fact that you need to have the Alexa toolbar installed on your browser for your data to be captured. Whilst it’s fair to say that Alexa data isn’t particularly accurate or that it is not the powerhouse that it was once, it still has a place in todays market.
Services like Text Link Ads, for example, price your ads based on your Alexa rank. The higher you rank in Alexa, the more money you make from the ads. Text Link Ads aren’t alone in using the Alexa data as their benchmark. Many other ad networks still use it too.
The fact is that without a realistic competitor in the market place, Alexa will continue to be used for these purposes so if you’re looking to make money with your website or blog, you should consider looking at maximising your Alexa rank.
One of the easiest ways of doing this is installing the Alexa toolbar on your own web browser. This means that every time you check your own site out, you register as a hit. If you’re an Internet Explorer user then I pity you you can download it here. Alternatively if you’re a Firefox user then install the SearchStatus Extension.
Everton has got some great tips over at his site including using Alexa redirects. Read his article Increasing Alexa Rank for some more ideas. He’s increased his Alexa Rank from 26,024 to 20,983 in just 5 weeks which is pretty good going. DoshDosh also has a great series of tips entitled 20 Quick Ways to Increase Your Alexa Rank.
One of the things I’ve picked up on, though, is that the majority of sites which do well within Alexa are those aimed at the webmaster community or those who focus on technology subjects. This is because these people are more likely to install the Alexa toolbar than the average web user. This presents a problem for those people looking to monetize their non-technology website.
Let me give you an example. As I said the other day, one of my sites recently went up to a Google PageRank 6 so I’m looking at putting some text links on it. According to TLA, each ad should get around $50 based on my PageRank. However my Alexa rank is a shocking 5,542,913! Traffic wise it actually does quite well but the problem is that it’s a non-technology subject so the majority of users won’t have the toolbar installed. As a result I doubt I’ll see anywhere close to $50 for each ad.
How can you increase your Alexa rank for a non-technology website? Well I’m going to try some of the tips from DoshDosh and report back to you. In the meanwhile, what steps have you taken to increase your Alexa rank? What worked for you and what didn’t?
Tech Tags: Alexa, PageRank, Making Money Online, Advertising
