Google PR is DEAD but Alexa and MOZ Ranking is alive

So, what is Alexa rank and what does it mean?

Basically, alexa rank is an algorithm that grades or ranks websites based on the amount of traffic the website gets. In Alexa’s own words, here’s the definition:
Think you’re cool with Alexa ranking if you get decent website traffic? Think again.
Take a good look at the definition above and not all of your website traffic is counted in calculating Alexa rank, but only that portion of the traffic that uses the Alexa toolbar.
So basically, the Alexa traffic rank takes into account the number of people visiting your website that has the Alexa toolbar installed on their browsers.

That’s inaccurate, right? Yes it is. But still, just like Google Pagerank, the Alexa traffic rank number is not just seen as a mere number – even if its inaccurate.
Many advertising agencies, SEO companies, guest bloggers and bloggers who are on a hunt for building links look up the Alexa rank as one of the metrics that represent the standards of a website.
So unfortunately even though you know that Alexa rank is somewhat inaccurate, you have to go for it I’m not saying that you should be obsessed by this number. But doing stuff to make sure that your blog has a decent (sexy) Alexa rank will surely help.

Publish high quality content, consistently

Now don’t give me that look I know – you turn to any blog seeking advice to improve website traffic, or increase page rank, or to become an authority – everybody says the same thing: Publish quality content!
Is that annoying? If you hear everybody saying that, there are two things:
And I put it first – even before you think of any “tactic” or a magical shortcut to decrease that Alexa rank number publishing high quality content is a robust strategy (not just a tactic).
Publishing high quality content in a consistent manner helps improve your Alexa rank with no extra effort.

Blog commenting improves Alexa rank

Yes it does and that’s sweet news because we bloggers do comment on related blogs as part of our blogging routine. We do blog commenting in order to network with other bloggers and their readers and also to build backlinks.
While doing so, we are also improving our Alexa rank! And that’s good news right?
Consistent blog commenting can improve your Alexa rank in a quite consistent manner. I’ve experimented this on my blogs at various times.
Don’t take my word. Just go experiment yourself. Track the improvement of your Alexa rank as you indulge in a substantial amount of blog commenting say, for a week and watch the magic

Alexa toolbar

Remember I told you in the beginning that Alexa uses its own toolbar to track the amount of traffic to any site? So why not use your own visits to your site to improve the rank?
I know this may sound as if you are manipulating the Alexa toolbar rank – but I won’t say you are. Unless you install the toolbar and go refresh the page 100 times. Even so, you cannot manipulate the result this way because, see below in Alexa’s own words:

Multiple page views of the same page made by the same user on the same day are counted only once. The page views per user numbers are the average numbers of unique pages viewed per user per day by the visitors to the site.

Yes, you can still manipulate your Alexa rank by changing your ip for different visits and do all sorts of nasty stuff – but you’d better focus on creating killer content, promoting it, networking with other bloggers and indulge yourself in activities that will actually benefit your blog Alexa toolbar is available for Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer. 

By installing the Alexa toolbar you can make your own visits count, and you can also “watch” the improvement of your Alexa rank.

Note that improving your Alexa rank by installing the Alexa toolbar is just a tactic – you are just counting your own traffic as traffic – which is right in a sense. But at the same time you cannot actually judge the genuine rank of your site. Then again, since Alexa is not counting everyone and only counts those that have the Alexa toolbar, I guess this makes sense.
Just keep in mind that this technique simply helps in improving Alexa rank; that is the scope of this post anyway.

Other little things to improve Alexa rank (these might not be your cup of tea)

Get reviewed to improve Alexa rank

Even though getting reviewed does not directly help in improving Alexa rank, it will help in some manner. Get some buddies to review your website or blog at Alexa and reciprocate by reviewing their sites.
If you have a handful of decent reviews, that is a good item on your site’s CV.

Asian socials

Alexa has lots of fans in Asia (I don’t know why) and a lot of them use the Alexa toolbar.
If you manage to drive those people to get to your website from their browser (with toolbar installed) then it will give a boost to your Alexa ranking.

Make Alexa a category

Blog or write about Alexa. If you have good in depth articles related to Alexa, then use them on your blog. Most importantly, making Alexa as a category will help a lot.

Drive webmasters to your site

If you can blog about stuff useful for webmasters, great! If not, try to buy advertising in webmaster sites or forums so that you target the webmaster population and drive them to your site. Alexa loves this and your ranking will improve decently.

Watch your site’s speed

Just like any other metric, your Alexa rank can also be affected if your site loads slow. Just imagine if people have to wait for minutes before your site gets loaded. They simply won’t come back again.
Since Alexa rank is traffic based rank, here you have to please people. So all your backlinks won’t help if people stop visiting your site because of poor loading speed.
You can use a content delivery network (CDN) like Cloudflare.

Alexa website ranking: Takeaway

I’d like to insist on one thing here – do not get obsessed by the Alexa traffic rank number. Your Alexa rank is not equal to the amount of traffic you get on your blog.
But working to improve your Alexa website rank has the following benefits:
Please open up in the comments and let me know if you have any questions about Alexa rank and if you have any other working tip(s) to help improve alexa ranking!