Better Alexa Rank In 5 Days
In the Race to Rank series I reported last week that my Alexa rank was at 168,322.
My goal is to reach 100,000 by April 2008. At the rate I have watched my Alexa rank decrease (remember, lower is better), I figured that this type of goal was not only obtainable but I could easily do better.
Using the Sparky add-on for Firefox, when I visit my sites on a daily basis I watch to see how rank is improving or declining. This is vital information for me to know on all of my sites. Losing traffic and rank for me means I’m losing business. This isn’t good so I heavily monitor what’s happening with rank on all my sites.
Today, as I logged into my dashboard to see the comments left over night I noticed that my rank with Alexa has changed. More specifically today’s Alexa rank is 155,708.
Quick math tells you that in just 5 days, my Alexa rank has dropped by 12,614.
Logic says, what happened? We’ve got to repeat what happened on my blog in the last 5 days to reach the 100,000 goal by April. And continuing the same steps, how can I drop to 90,000 or maybe even lower?
The best way for me to sum up what has happened in the last 5 days is to give you just one word:
Stumble
Yes, that’s right. StumbleUpon brought so many visitors in the last 5 days with two different blog posts. This is the only thing out of the “ordinary” for I’m Blogging That.
To get specific, the post Race for Rank was stumbled several times which brought 617 visitors to my site directly from StumbleUpon.
My Entrecard contest post brought in 351 visitors from StumbleUpon.
If you’re keeping track, this means that in two days I’m Blogging That had 968 visitors from StumbleUpon and that’s not counting residual traffic for either post on the same or different days.
The lesson learned is to write posts which will help you bring in traffic. You knew this, didn’t you? I mean, how many times exactly have we, as bloggers, heard “Content is King.” Aren’t you sick of it at this point?
However, the truth remains that while the saying sucks, it’s absolutely true. If your posts are on topics that people actually care about and you do the networking required to promote such posts, you’ll have traffic. Traffic is links, better Alexa rank, and in the long run, a better blog community.
When it comes to the topics on I’m Blogging That, what do people care about? Rank, apparently. The last time I had a huge StumbleUpon traffic (excluding the last 5 days) is when I announced that Google performed a PageRank update. A simple, simple post that explained I knew there was an update because I had pages on my blog, previously not ranked, showing PageRank.
This very simple post brought in 886 visitors from StumbleUpon.
Here’s the lesson of this post:
Pay attention to your ranks, know what they are if you want to make them better. Knowing where you’re at, what your ranking average is, and where you want to be will give you an idea of how to properly promote and network your blogs.
Next, make sure you have something that’s going to report real time statistics for your site. For example, I use and monitor daily my stats with the WordPress.com stats plugin. This has been vital to me. It’s a great plugin that techie turned me on to at PostieCon.
I find it important to monitor my stats like this in real time because it lets me know where to spend time networking that day. It means if I’m getting heavy traffic from StumbleUpon, I need to head over to the site and spend time networking. It brings in more visitors. And the truth is, if you’re just getting a few visits from StumbleUpon, you can head over there and network to bring in more.
It doesn’t matter where your numbers are at, but on a day when you’re receiving a great deal of hits from one source, spend your time networking that day at that source.
In the end, I have proof now that having posts stumbled will indeed help me to lower my Alexa ranking.
Technorati Tags: Alexa Rank, Lower Alexa Rank, Race for Rank, PageRank, StumbleUpon, Stumble Traffic, Statistics, Traffic Reporting, WordPress, Plugins
Lori Says:
A-HA! We all love proof:) I am definitely in agreement that surges of traffic really do decrease the Alexa rating. I noticed that during the bloggy giveaway. I had visitors in the thousands and my Alexa went down by over 50,000. WOOHOO!
Great post!
Posted on February 4th, 2008
Katy Says:
Posted on February 4th, 2008
Jaypee Says:
My blog’s Alexa rank was affected when I removed the Alexa Sparky extension for Firefox. I did it because I installed another extension that included a PR checker. I didn’t know that it would make my rankings suffer. I’ve reinstalled the Alexa Sparky plugin and I hope that my Alexa ranking would go “down” again.
Btw, nice blog. Enjoyed reading your posts. I’m adding you to my blogroll if you don’t mind. :)
Posted on February 4th, 2008
Katy Says:
Thanks for the compliment on the blog. I just dropped my Entrecard on you and picked up your feed. Looks like we’ll be exchanging acquaintances often. :o)
Posted on February 4th, 2008
Sarah Says:
Isn’t Alexa the one that’s based on having the Alexa toolbar installed and using it to search? Or am I just totally confused?
Posted on February 4th, 2008
jeni Says:
Aside from traffic from Google, I find that StumbleUpon is my biggest source of traffic too. However, I don’t actively work on trying to get stumbles, so I need to figure out how to do that! For the life of me, I can’t break the 200k mark on Alexa, but I’ve been lazy the last two months and haven’t been working much on building traffic to my site. I use the Alexa toolbar for IE.
By the way, in IE, your site is showing Xs in several places, instead of where pictures would be. I can send you a screenshot if you want.
Posted on February 4th, 2008
Katy Says:
Jeni » I with you, Google and StumbleUpon are my biggest resources as well. And don’t be afraid to ask your friends to read a post and if they love it, stumble it. Most are willing, if you just ask. I really don’t people to stumble me for the sake just doing it. When I’ve asked it’s because I actually want them to read it and I find that most do.
Thanks for the heads up on IE. I know I’ve got a problem in IE with the social networking icons I’m going to attempt to fix today. What version of IE are you using?
Posted on February 5th, 2008
Jaypee Says:
You’re welcome! Don’t make the same mistake I did of uninstalling Sparky. I hope someone told me this. Anyways, I also subscribed to your feeds. Have a nice day! :)
Posted on February 5th, 2008
Sarah Says:
Thanks, Katy. That’s what I thought. *wipes forehead*
For once I understood something, :P
Posted on February 5th, 2008
jeni Says:
I’m on IE 6 cause I don’t like the newest version of IE. I guess I should consider switching to Firefox because a lot of blogs I visit don’t show up correct in IE, and it makes them hard to read (not yours). The images that are missing on yours are the background image of the top header of the blog, and the images behind “navigation,” “entrecard,” “recent visitors,” etc.
Posted on February 5th, 2008
Li Zhang Says:
Thanks. I will be using your ideas very soon.
Posted on February 5th, 2008
Katy Says:
Sarah » You’re welcome.
Jeni » I struggle to code for IE 6. Mindy, my business partner, goes insane when I’m designing trying to make all of my “great ideas” pan out for a browser that is not compliant. Ultimately though, your comment inspired me to take a step I have never done… be IE 6 compliment, validate my own blog (I only validate themes that I sell), and use something with significantly less Java script. Because of this, I took my new design and placed it in this template.
Now, having said that, I think you’d love Firefox once you got used to the change. There are so many wonderful aspects about it (besides being code compliant) that most people find they love more than IE.
Li Zhang » You’re welcome. Please be sure to come back and let us know how they work for you.
Posted on February 5th, 2008
jeni Says:
Yay all the Xs are gone now! Sorry I made you go to all that trouble! I honestly haven’t checked my site in that many browsers/versions, so I am only hoping it works okay for everyone.
When I used to design websites several years ago, Firefox had just come out and nothing worked right in Firefox. It was horrible. I never used the browser, because every other site I went to was messed up, so it was useless back then. It’s only been in the past few months that I’ve noticed IE is totally sucking, and I’m sure Firefox is great now!
Posted on February 5th, 2008
Katy Says:
If you want to check out your site in different browsers, I strongly suggest using Browser Shots. It’s a very handy tool to have.
You’re correct about Firefox, it hasn’t always been so great. But there have been some real improvements and now it’s the only browser that I’ll use.
Posted on February 6th, 2008
Jennifer Says:
I haven’t paid much attention to my Alexa ranking in awhile… but I did notice than when I was focused on it, it improved. It seems, like a lot of things, Alexa doesn’t like to be neglected. Unless you are a tremendously popular blog with tons of visitors every day. Then your Alexa takes care of itself.
Posted on February 6th, 2008
Jennifer Says:
Oh, and I wanted to ask… after reading the comments here and some things I’ve seen elsewhere. What’s the point/benefit of validating?
Posted on February 6th, 2008
Katy Says:
With the evolution of this blog and my skills as a blogger, I now feel like it’s important for me to work on. In the long run, most webmasters complain about the Alexa system. Basically because that data is a 3-month average and because not everyone uses the Alexa toolbar or Sparky.
In reality, I’m not sure what paying attention to your Alexa rank will get you other than a great Alexa rank. While it’s still a measurement for payments on a lot of sites, it still doesn’t mean it’s worth its weight in gold.
Validation… somehow it became a status thing. That if your site was validated you’re good at what you’re doing. That’s not the reason to validate your site.
By having a site that is validated you’re providing accessibility. Imagine for a minute that you’re blind, if a site is not valid how is your screen reader going to understand what to read? By having a site that is valid you’re giving greater accessibility of your site to everyone that uses the web.
Posted on February 6th, 2008
Jeff Millman Says:
Thanks so much for the great information about Alexa and improving rank. I will check your site often for great information. I like your writing style and your information. Keep up the great work.
Posted on February 7th, 2008
Katy Says:
Posted on February 7th, 2008
NeoBluePanther Says:
I am trying to work on my alexa rank for the past month or so.
In the beginning I saw a huge drop, but then everything seems to have come to a standstill.
Posted on February 8th, 2008
Adam Says:
That’s great. I totally agree with you. The hard part is holding on to the rank you have. Neglect your blog for a while and you will see the Alexa ranking rising faster then it got down.
Posted on February 8th, 2008
Katy Says:
Good luck!
Adam » Good point about blog neglect. Although, I think reality may be that most people who care about their rank status across the board wouldn’t be apt to stop blogging at a moments notice.
Posted on February 8th, 2008
Brad Says:
I have been getting traffic from stumble upon as well… the question I have is this. Do you submit your own “first” stumble for a page or are you letting that build organically? I’m sure people use both and I am new to stumble upon…
Posted on February 11th, 2008
Katy Says:
There are quite a few “stumble” groups out there where people ask for stumbles on a post. However, it’s kind of understood though that those groups are “if you like it, stumble it” because it is against the terms to request or pay for stumbles.
Posted on February 11th, 2008
Brad Says:
very interesting. i’m adding in RSS Reader
Posted on February 12th, 2008
Katy Says:
Posted on February 12th, 2008
Jaypee Says:
Just to let you know, a few days after I reinstalled Sparky, my Alexa rank already improved. How I wish I never uninstalled it.
Posted on February 12th, 2008
Katy Says:
Posted on February 13th, 2008
Deb on the Rocks Says:
Sometimes (make that often) I know how much of a noob I am. I can’t figure out how the add-on could affect ranking???
Anyway, Stumble is powerful. This reminds me to get more involved with Stumbling. I need to get strategic and make some choices, because I can’t spend the time all of the networking options require. But Stumble might be up there with the best.
Posted on February 16th, 2008
Katy Says:
With Stumble, I agree about getting a strategy together for it. There are great ways to go about it but one thing that I really enjoy is reading a post with feed, clicking through to the site and Stumbling when I like the post. It’s also nice when I don’t have a comment to leave, I still feel like I’m giving some love to the blogger.
Posted on February 16th, 2008
Graham Smith Says:
Allo
Just caught your last comment to Deb, which sort of sums it up for me. ;When you don’t have anything of value to add to a post you can still Stumble them, so OK, you need to be slightly enthused to have to write a small description, but that’s about it.
Alexa to me is like Technorati was. I did check it a few days ago and was surprised at how my commenting had raised my profile. Ofcourse I knew it helped, but it’s not my main motivation as I just don’t have sort of daily commitment to my site as say someone who runs it as a business.
But Alexa is being mentioned left right and all over the place, so will need to get up to speed with this.
Also took note of your suggested stat plug-ins which sound cool.
I do feel that the compulsion to allow blogging to really take over my day is simmering over the surface, as it once did for grahamsblog. So I am resisting that urge right now. To me it’s a front for me and for my developing freelance side, but not essential to generating business right now, just not ready for it, so am sowing the seeds you could say right now. So slow and steady and don’t panick is the where Im at.
But I do totally realise the importance of Alexa, so not burying my head in the sand, just a matter of priority and learning once thing at a time. Baby steps I guess. :)
Any suggestions on decent ‘learning or familiarisation tools for Alexa’, as it really is a uknown entity to me right now.
So reading all your posts really helps me get it into my head the sorts of things I need to be aware of, even if Im not acting on them immediately.
Great.
Graham Smith
ImJustCreative.com
Blog & Web Ramblings from ‘my’ Gutter.
Posted on February 20th, 2008
Katy Says:
For me, blogging does take nearly all my day and I really enjoy it. The only time I’m not thinking about blogging is when I’m working with my business partner on our business stuff.
As far as Alexa, I have even more to say about it since writing this post. But I have to go back to the original point of this post… Stumble. It’s done huge things for me.
Posted on February 21st, 2008
techie Says:
Thanks for the link. I love how you said it “techie turned me on” Don’t tell my wife I did that at PostieCon. HAHAHA!!
Posted on February 27th, 2008
Katy Says:
Posted on February 28th, 2008
Alexa Says:
Yes, it is always good to have a relatively high Alexa ranking. Even though it can be easily “gamed” to some extent, as with other traffic metrics it’s often the perception that counts more than the reality when it comes to attracting advertisers.
As for actually increasing the ranking, I have found that having the Firefox search status extension installed and simply surfing around my own site while writing and editing posts is usually enough to get the ranking into six figures (above 1 million).
Active participation with Entrecard is a big help also. After Entrecard, I have managed to get my Alexa rank up from 330k to 130k on the 3-month stats, with my daily rank already above the 100k mark.
Posted on March 30th, 2008
Katy Says:
The Search Status add-on for Firefox has hasn’t many reports of dropping rank like Sparky has. And while I actually use both, I recommend Sparky but have had the warning that uninstalling Sparky can have a negative impact on the Alexa rank.
Posted on March 31st, 2008
Gazebo Entertainment Says:
Is there any other way for improving the Alexa Ranking?
Posted on April 1st, 2008
Katy Says:
The theory is that a widget on your site will count all your visitors with or without having the toolbar installed thus helping to lower your rank. Again though, I haven’t tried it and there’s no confirmation from Alexa that this is true but many people swear by it.
Posted on April 1st, 2008
Karlana Says:
Thanks for the tips! I am on my way to use some of them. A couple I already had in use.
Posted on April 5th, 2008
Katy Says:
Posted on April 7th, 2008
Blog Me The Money Says:
Nice post and stats. Good job.
I always like reading about “success stories” others have. Good motivation for something to “aim” for.
I just recently switched my url over and wish alexa would crawl my site already. :)
Been about a week so far. :( So any rank right now Id be happy with lol
Posted on April 21st, 2008
Katy Says:
Posted on April 22nd, 2008
Tingting Rimart Says:
This is a great post for a newbie in paid blogging like me. Thanks for the tips.
At least now I know, Alexa is not a name of a girl. ;-)
Posted on June 9th, 2008
chris Says:
Hi
Pretty nice tips and suggestions. I have used only few of the mentioned tips. However I think alexa ranking doesn’t show up the correct data of traffic.
But it sure shows some inspirations and want to do more with it.
Thanks
Chris
Posted on June 18th, 2008
Katy Says:
Posted on June 18th, 2008