Sunday, October 11, 2009

Ways to Improve Alexa Rank

By Nigel Evans

Anyone who is involved in the world of online marketing must be aware of the existence of Alexa, the company, owned by giant Amazon.com, known for providing a range of statistics about website traffic. Some experts advocate the importance of this company, while others have a question, yet most seem to want to improve Alexa ranking where at all possible, even though it is accepted that Google Page rank is of more importance to a site owner.

To enable you to improve Alexa rank, you must know what it is all about. The company has a system of gathering information relating to the number of people who actually visit a website, thus potentially giving everyone an idea of that site's popularity and importance. However, to enable the gathering of information, the visitor must have an Alexa toolbar installed on his or her computer. Even though there are many millions of these in existence, this is not an entirely representative element of the Internet world in general and the doubts of credibility are raised.

If you are included within the top 100,000 websites, as dictated by Alexa, a lot of information will be provided about your site including visitor levels, graphs, etc. There is a certain element of prestige associated with being within this group of websites, prompting webmasters to want to improve Alexa ranking as much as they can.

If you are a webmaster, you must focus your attention on ways to increase traffic naturally to your site and not worry too much about Alexa. There are ways to improve Alexa ranking, but the acid test will be your traffic. Those who are critical of this system say that it is skewed towards the world of search engine optimization, as a large number of people who possess the relevant tool bar are aware of its existence through their SEO activities.

One of the first things you should do to improve Alexa ranking is to download their toolbar or browser extension. These are available within Internet Explorer or Firefox, the preferred way. Once you have downloaded and installed the add-on, you should set your target site as your home page. Get one of the Alexa rank widgets and insert it on your website. Plug-ins are available to help you do this on your WordPress or other blog as well.

By interacting with people who are in the same line of business as you, especially if this is Internet marketing or search engine optimization, then you will automatically start to build your site's position and improve Alexa rank. You should try and get everyone who visits your website to download the toolbar or extension and make sure that you sign up and display your URL as often as possible on web master or Internet marketing forums.

One of the main ways to improve Alexa rank is to provide laser targeted and educational information on your site. We are all aware that this is the number one rule for optimization, but if you're in Internet marketing arenas you will naturally get an increase in traffic this way.

You have probably heard of a number of questionable techniques, sometimes known as "black hat," which can be addressed as you try to improve Alexa positions. These include but are not limited to auto surfs and redirects and are sometimes used by those who are more unscrupulous to increase their position of credibility in the eyes of certain advertising networks. Always look carefully at any ways of improving your website's performance and position and do not be afraid to consult with experts who can give you the lowdown based on years of experience. Internet marketing membership sites and forums are a great source to find these people.

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