Understanding Why Alexa Rankings Are Important

Web publishers face a host of challenges when it comes to keeping up with all the information they need to pay attention to. Getting a handle on the numbers that are important for tracking success and those that aren't can be tricky. While Google ranking counts, the truth is this ranking isn't the only one that matters. Alexa ranking can also be a vital number that impacts potential advertising revenue.

Alexa.com itself is an Amazon.com creation that offers a readout of traffic for some websites. The trick, however, is that it measures based on the amount of users who've paid sites a visit with an Alexa toolbar installed in their own browsers. Alexa ranking is important, but it does have a few flaws. Despite this, a high Alexa ranking can really pay off with advertiser interest.

As stated, the Alexa rank comes from the number of visits a site has had from those with the toolbar installed. The rank itself is based on historical data collected over several months. The number is a measurement of both page views and visits combined. The site does take daily computations of reach and page views. The actual rank results from these two numbers averaged out over time.

Alexa ranking can be directly connected to how well a site does in regard to advertisers. This rank is used to determine pricing and/or the value of a site. Sales programs like Text Link Ads, Sponsored Reviews and ReviewMe all use the Alexa rank to determine the advertising pull a particular site might have.

Getting started with Alexa is fairly simple. To help others along, yourself included, just download the Alexa Toolbar. Firefox users can download the SearchStatus extension. This displays Google PageRank and Alexa Rank both.

Although Alexa ranking can be important, the system does have some big flaws. The biggest is the fact that ranking tends to go in favor of sites that happen to have a technical audience. This is because sites with a technical audience tend to have viewers who use the Alexa toolbar. This makes the overall ranking Alexa offers a bit unfair in the minds of many. Despite this, Alexa is still widely used by advertisers. This makes paying attention to this ranking important for those who want to increase revenue. There are ways to boost ranking.

Breaking into the top layer of Alexa's ranking system is very difficult. Gaining an impressive ranking, however, isn't necessarily very tough. Methods for increasing rank vary in difficulty, but they all can pay off. One of the most simplistic and effective ways to increase ranking is to simply build up relevant content on one's site. Another fairly good way to increase rank is to work to obtain incoming links to one's site. These two methods combined can increase traffic, Google rankings and Alexa rankings all at once.

Some other pretty easy rank-boosting methods exist. These include adding Alexa widgets to one's own site, encouraging visitors to download the ranking toolbar, installing the toolbar on your own computers and getting others to rank your site's Alexa profile. Promoting your URL in webmaster forums, writing articles targeted to the webmaster or tech crowd and even using Alexa redirects can help a lot, too.

Other more time-intensive methods for boosting rankings are out there. They include setting up a webmaster tool section on your own site, having your site's articles Dugg or Stumbled on, buying ads and so on. Some webmasters create their own "Alexa" sections, too.

A few other ideas for boosting Alexa ranking exist, but they aren't considered to be the best or even the most legitimate. They include buying the "homepage" settings at Cybercafes, using Alexa redirects on MySpace pages and even using Alexa auto-surf programs.

Alexa is not necessarily the most accurate ranking system going, but it's an important one. Maximizing ranking can improve ad rate potential and increase overall traffic to your site, however. It's not a bad idea to include this ranking number as a consideration in an overall marketing strategy.

Article Source: http://www.christiannotepad.com

About the author: Jeff Alderson develops webmaster SEO tools. He is an expert on maximizing traffic and sales. Jeff suggests using Ad Word Analyzer to uncover popular keywords for your website.
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