I am pretty happy today as this is the first time my blog has cracked the 50,000 mark for an Alexa ranking. It took me a little over 7 months to reach this milestone. I beat my goal by 5 months and that makes me happy 
I know there is a lot of debate over the value of Alexa ranking. I believe that it is very important if you are looking to monetize your blog. It is not the only thing that advertisers look for but it is one of the biggest factors in determining the value for an ad or link on your blog.
The Alexa formula is based on the number of vistors that visit your site and the number of page views. Of course, only those with the Alexa toolbar count as votes. It is kind of like the Nielsen ratings are for television. Sounds pretty simple right, increase the number of visits and the number of pages they view and your Alexa ranking will increase, right? Yes, this is true but there are some other things you can do to boost your Alexa ranking. Here are some ideas.
- Install the Alexa toolbar. If you have not yet installed the toolbar, do it now, it only takes a minute and every time you visit your site you will be helping your Alexa rank.
- Encourage your blog readers to download the Alexa toolbar. Just like I did just now! The more regular readers that you have that have the toolbar installed the better your ratings.
- Attract other webmasters to your blog. You should try to write blog posts about blogging and other topics that would be interesting to webmasters as these are the people that will be most likely to have the toolbar installed. Even if you have a mommy blog or personal blog, you can sprinkle in some blogging posts to get the tech savvy visitors to stop by.
- Become active in webmaster forums. I am sure you notice a theme now, the more webmasters you get to your blog the better your Alexa ranking. Join forums like Digital Point and Bloggeries and be sure to include your blog link in your signature. These sites also allow you to add an rss feed to your profile that will display your latest feed.
- Entrecard and Adgitize- These are two great ways to get get visits from people with the Alexa toolbar. I recommend that you advertise on Adgitize, it is only $14 a month and you can make that money back and then some. For more info on Adgitize, you can click this link —>
What do you do to improve your Alexa ranking?
The Alexa ranking is only about traffic not how much money each visitor spends on a site/is worth in advertising. Therefore you can’t really say that a site with a low number in Alexa is worth more then a site with a higher number (unless it’s a million or more in between).
.-= Andreas Bylund´s last blog ..Did you think you had a secure password? =-.
I think the figure quoted by alexa has to be taken with a large pinch of salt. They pro-rata the data up from a small number of users, so its very inaccurate. Much like TV viewing figures.
.-= Dave@Lake District Mountain Bike Routes´s last blog ..Ctrl Z @ Triple J Radio (Set Download) =-.
Yes! I can for Alexa rank and everything else interest advertisers!
My blog is Ranked 29K right now, I have just broke the 30K last week, it’s increasing almost everyday!
I am not sure of the real factors yet!
.-= Hesham @ FamousBloggers´s last blog ..What’s the Relationship between Money, Blog Comments and True Love? =-.
Hey Dan. Great post. I had no idea that downloading the toolbar could help one’s site so much! I aim to be in your spot ranking wise as soon as possible!
I buzzed your post on seeded buzz.
Thank you for the great information. I look forward to reading more.
- Aaron Wong
.-= Aaron Wong´s last blog ..How to Tell if a Guy Likes You: 9 Signs He is Interested =-.
Alexa rankings when they break 100K seem to stir up more interest and you get more visitors. With some of my web directories, if the Alexa rank drops under 125K, I get an increase of web site submissions. It’s the same old directories, but Alexa rank seem to be a factor when making their decision to submit their websites.
.-= Spunky Jones´s last blog ..Selecting Your Web Hosting Provider =-.
Alexa is a great tool to have installed. I am not convinced about adgitize and entrecard.
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thanks for the tip. Just recently I found out about Alexa ranking and I've been looking out for ways to improve my rather pathetic rank. Will try it out
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I never gave a preference to alexa rank but after this I felt I should do some attention on my alexa rank.
Thanks for sharing us
Thanks for some new insights to ways of ranking higher on Alexa. I have been going up for a while, but seems to be stuck around 400.000, so I am grateful for the advice
Thanks for the help on the alexa rating.How long does it take for someone who backlinked you to show up on alexa.com when you check your ranking. Do you lower your alexa rating if someone with ahigh google page rank backlinks you? Thanks Bill
alexa ranking has been a important metric for me and while it is not as accurate as many say, it appears that after the 100K mark, it is closer to being a reality. Alexa says that themselves. Aside from your tips, I found that requesting for people to review your blog on Alexa and getting traffic fro diverse countries also improves your Alexa rankings. Just my two cents. And BTW, congrats for breaking the 50K barrier, it is a fantastic milestone to achieve. I also recently joined your ranks last week and I a very happy about it, and apparently also the advertisers
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