How to Improve Alexa Rankings

I mentioned recently that the Alexa rankings were hurting my feelings.

Alexa is a ranking that indicates how popular a site, any site, on the world wide web is. To put it in perspective, Google is typically number one. So, if you start looking into your Alexa ranking, just remember, you are now competing with Google. Don’t be too scared.

As someone who frequently gets their feelings hurt, I need to find a way to overcome the thing that hurt me. Which ultimately means: I need to conquer Alexa rankings.

Which is a problem since the articles out there on what causes a page to move up or down in its Alexa ranking have varying opinions on why that happens. There does not seem to be one detailed, clear explanation of how to improve your Alexa ranking.

There’s also some debate as to whether or not Alexa rankings matter. In the end, I think they do matter – but they are only one piece of the puzzle. In order to truly understand how your site is doing, you need to look at a number of indicators of which Alexa is only one.

So for you, my dear friends, I’ve put together a synopsis of what I’ve learned. This may not be everything that impacts your Alexa ranking but hopefully it gets us all moving in the right direction.

Install Alexa Toolbar
The first step to take in order to improve your Alexa ranking is to install the Alexa toolbar. Without this, no matter how many sites you visit, your visits will not impact Alexa rankings. Alexa rankings work much like TV’s Nielsen ratings in that if you do not have their tracking installed, your activity will not be taken into account. So, start off by installing the toolbar. This has the added benefit of letting you see any site’s Alexa ranking in real time (Caution: this may lead to an increase in hurt feelings when first installed.)

Install Alexa Widget
A second step is to install an Alexa widget on your page. Anyone clicking on this widget appears to positively impact your Alexa rank. That’s because it indicates that people are interested in getting more information about your site. You can create an Alexa widget easily with Alexa’s siteowners tools.

Have Your Page Reviewed
The more information Alexa has on your site, specifically from your visitors, the better. As such, the more reviews your site has the better its ranking will be. Another widget is provided on Alexa’s siteowners tools page that will help you create a widget encouraging people to review your site. You can see an example of that widget at the end of this post.

Post Frequently
The more frequently that you post, the higher your Alexa ranking will be. I haven’t found concrete data as to whether this is because Alexa actually scans post frequency or because more frequent content updates generally lead to more visits.

I will caution though – updating content just to increase traffic is not always a benefit; many users view this as a type of spam. If you are running a blog or other personal site, best practices typically indicate you should refrain from posting more than once daily.

Increase Traffic
In direct correlation to the topic above, your Alexa ranking will get a bump from more traffic. However, since traffic is likely one of your site’s main goals anyway, this item is tricky. Presumably, you already are doing everything you can to drive traffic. A tip I saw on several Alexa tips pages was to drive additional traffic by writing a post about Alexa rankings (um, like this one).

You can also Claim Your Site on the Alexa website. I have no proof that this does anything to increase your ranking as none of the tutorials I read mentioned it. Still, my paranoid self shivers at the thought of someone else claiming my site. So please claim your site as your own and provide as much information about the site as you’re comfortable with.

If you’re looking for additional resources on improving your Alexa ranking, Tech Perks has an extensive list of tips although not all of them are helpful to the average user. Alternately, Extreme John gets right down to the nuts and bolts of improving your Alexa ranking and Tycoon Bloggers tips are very easy to follow.

If you have any questions about this or have any great tips I should add, please let me know. I’m happy to share credit where credit is due in order to create a useful resource.