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No one creates a blog just for the sake of posting articles for people to read; every blogger strives to get traffic, monetize the site, get a high CTR with ads without increasing bounce rate, get a high Google Pagerank, a respectable Alexa traffic rank and list goes on and on. It’s a fact that a high Alexa traffic rank gives your site some sort of reputation but then, you should realize that this statistics is far from accurate. Alexa traffic rank is not a direct measure of your traffic and whether you have a high or low ranking, it shouldn’t be the sole yardstick you should use to measure your success.
Don’t get it twisted, I’m not implying that a high Alexa traffic rank is basically useless, you only need to understand how it works before you kill yourself over poor ranking. As a matter of fact, it’s used by advertisers to determine your blog’s market value and if you really intend to monetize your site, you definitely need a very high score. I’m sure by the time you understand how it works, you will know how to get a high ranking or at least, stop worrying over it.
How does Alexa traffic ranking work?
Like I mentioned earlier, Alexa ranking is not a direct measure of your traffic, it uses its own algorithm and simply put, it only measures your site’s popularity on a global level. The bitter truth is that some of those sites with higher Alexa traffic rank may have much less visits and page views than your blog. You think I’m kidding? Seriously, I’m not. I have my reasons and they are based on facts and personal experience.
Alexa gets its data from its toolbar users install on their browsers. When those with Alexa toolbars visit your blog, Alexa notes it and this is what the ranking system is based on. It does not take your real daily visits and page views into consideration and that is why the statistics shown is very different from what you have on Google Analytics.
Basically, the more people with Alexa toolbars visit your site from different IP addresses and geo-locations, the more likely you’ll be ranked high in the system.
3 factors I believe may affect your Alexa ranking
Now, let me share my little experience here and we’re using two of the sites I own as case studies. Doncaprio.com is a blog with an Alexa rank that’s okay, well… just okay to say the least. It’s presently listed in the top 50 thousand websites in the world. I also have a web forum, 9jaclub.com with a poor Alexa traffic rank. I checked today and it’s like 370,000 or something.
Checking Google Analytics, 9jaclub.com has more visits and much more page views than doncaprio.com but why does doncaprio.com rank much higher in Alexa? This is why:
1. Mobile visitors with no Alexa toolbar
Alexa doesn’t have a toolbar for mobile browsers and when a greater percentage of your visitors are on their mobile phones, you’ll definitely have a poor traffic rank based on Alexa algorithm. The forum users I was talking about are majorly on mobile and this is a big contributing factor.
2 Visitors geolocation
When all your visitors are from just a particular country, don’t expect to get a high alexa ranking.
3. Localized content
This is quite similar to the point above. Your site/blog content really matters when it comes to attracting visitors from around the globe. If your content is all about local stuffs happening around you, don’t expect your rank to sky-rocket. A pretty good, SEO optimized content that targets a global audience plays a major part in this thing.
How to get a high Alexa traffic rank
Since you have a clue on why you have a low ranking, you definitely know what to do but I’m going to highlight just a few points below:
– Target a wider audience
– Write SEO optimized articles
– Help yourself and install Alexa toolbar
– Keep your site frequently updated
– Use social networks
– Consider installing their widget on your blog. I think it helps.
Conclusion
I believe a high Alexa traffic rank comes naturally if you first work on your Google page rank and get a decent traffic. Alexa traffic rank is inaccurate to say the least and you shouldn’t kill yourself over it. Opitimize your site, let Google fall in love with your content, drive massive traffic to your blog and every other thing follows including the money.