6 Ways to Increase Your Alexa Rank

Alexa.com is a website which provides traffic statistics for millions of websites. Your Alexa rank or Alexa traffic rank is measured according to the number of visitors who have visited your website with the Alexa toolbar installed. Unfortunately, most visitors to your website will not have the Alexa toolbar installed. As a result, Alexa rank is not a true indicator of the popularity of your website, as it only measures a subset of your visitors.

Alexa addresses some of these concerns on their website. They give a general disclaimer which states:

Generally, traffic rankings of 100,000 and above should be regarded as not reliable. Conversely, the closer a site gets to #1, the more reliable its traffic ranking becomes.

And although the Alexa ranking is not regarded as the most accurate ranking system, Alexa rank is important if you plan on monetizing your site. Often advertisers and ad networks use the Alexa rank to determine the value of a link or ad spot on a particular website. So it may be to your advantage to increase your rank.

Below, we give 6 ways to improve your Alexa rank:

1. Add An Alexa Rank Widget To Your Website. Installing a widget on your website will give you an almost immediate increase in rank. As stated earlier, only visitors with the toolbar installed are reflected in your traffic rank. But by having an Alexa rank widget on your website, your traffic statistics will include all visitors. To get a widget from Alexa, click here. We’ve shown an example of a typical widget at left, but there are multiple options for size and features.
2. Install The Alexa Toolbar In Your Browser. This is another great way to boost your website’s traffic rank because all of your visits to your website will be reflected in your rank. For added effect, be sure to set your website as your homepage.
3. Encourage Your Visitors and Friends to Install the Alexa Toolbar. The more visitors to your site that have the toolbar installed, the better your Alexa rank will be.
4. Use Alexa Auto-Surfing Websites. This will probably only be helpful if your Alexa rank is extremely poor, but these websites will send visitors to your website that have the toolbar installed.
5. Stalk Webmasters. Web developers and other technical savvy people are most likely to have installed the Alexa toolbar in their browsers. As a result, if you go to places on the internet — such as discussion forums, tech blogs, etc… — you can get them to visit your website. One easy way to encourage them to visit your site is to ask for feedback on your website.
6. Write An Article About Alexa Rank. By writing an article on the topic, you are likely to generate quite a bit of traffic. And most visitors will be people who are interested in increasing their Alexa rank. As a result, they are likely to have the toolbar installed. And this will boost your Alexa traffic rank.

Clearly, Alexa traffic rank is not a true indicator of your website’s performance, and it should only be used in conjunction with other performance metrics. However, if you use the tips above, you can improve your rank, and thus the value of your website in the eyes of a potential advertisers.