24
Jan
2008
Posted by Bill as Lessons on Blogging, Traffic Building

Time for another traffic update….why you might ask? Traffic is the absolute king when it comes to selling advertsing slots on your blog. My intended monetization is going to be affiliate marketing and private ad sales. The affiliate marketing side is going ok but advertisers won’t start seeking you out until you have earned your stripes.
They can advertise on a billion different blogs, what will make yours stick out from the pack are your “stats.” Hits, Alexa, Technorati and Pagerank are the standards used to measure most blogs. It might not be fair, it might not be accurate…but the facts are the facts. I say all this simply to enforce the message that traffic means dollars. If you’re an income blog then you can choose to make income via pay per post or related methods or you can build your stats, build your brand and then monetize it.
Pay Per Post is easy…..brand building is tough. I chose the latter…..I simply don’t care for pay per post all that much, not on your flagship blog. Opinions vary…but this is mine.
I have written a couple of “Alexa Update” posts as of late and I don’t mean to come across as boastful, I simply want to share my traffic stats with anyone who is looking to do it themselves. I am working on the article series that will cover what I am doing to bring traffic to my site but, having been on the road all week it will be a few days before it is ready. For now…take a look at my latest Alexa update.

If you recall Alexa is measured on a 3 month average, so I interpret that fact as my Alexa should improve DRAMATICALLY as my blog ages. I would expect that it will settle in somewhere around my 1 week average in the upper 5 figures for now. The challenge will then become how to march from sub 100k to sub 10k, which is where the big boys and girls roam.
Not bad for a 2 month old blog. I couldn’t be happer with the results so far, well ok, I guess I could be but I am satisfied at this point.
So as of this posting, here are my most up to the date “stats”
PageRank 2
Alexa 273k but moving down rapidly.
Technorati Authority 44 Rank 179,530 - Need some work here.
Traffic Trending to be approximately 20k hits this month.
So, Is My Alexa Whipping Your Alexas Butt?
13 Responses
Erica DeWolf
January 24th, 2008 at 1:03 am
1Very impressive stats. Keep up the good work. The content you discuss is extremely relevant and newsworthy to me, and I very much enjoy reading your posts. Thanks again!
Erica DeWolf’s last blog post..Publish a Baby Website in 20 minutes
Bill
January 24th, 2008 at 8:20 am
2Thanks Erica….I learned one thing this morning as I went and reread my post….is don’t post when you are tired and nearly falling asleep.
I am not the best writer to begin with but when tired it apparently gets worse.
Janez
January 24th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
3Great Alexa ranking
Things You Must Know About Stumble Upon | The Blog Entrepreneur
January 24th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
4[...] Alexa Update - My Alexa is starting to flex a bit. [...]
NoName
January 25th, 2008 at 6:30 am
5Do you have any idea about how the alexa ranking really works ? it looks like, for me at least, that the older it gets the higher ranking for fairly the same traffic
Any experience ?
Bill
January 25th, 2008 at 7:47 am
6NoName - Once you are mature…meaning 3 months or older then your Alexa will likely stabilize somewhat. Alexa uses the previous 3 month average of your traffic to give you a ranking. In my case I am not 3 months old yet so my average will move around dramatically.
It compares your traffic to the rest of the sites on the internet so if your Alexa ranking is going UP then it is because in comparison to the rest of the sites on the web you are getting a lower percentage of visitors.
It’s hard to expalin in a short blurb like this…you can read all you need to know about it here. http://www.alexa.com/site/help/traffic_learn_more
Tim
January 25th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
7I’ve never given Alexa much credit - is the information really valid?
tim
Bill
January 25th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
8Tim - Not sure what you mean by valid? Of course it is valid…I used screen shots to show it but I think you mean more like is Alexa a stat worth tracking?
That’s an entire article in itself. I personally think it is however for everyone who says it is, you will find someone who says it isn’t. They usually make this claim because they have a poor Alexa in my opinion.
It certainly has its flaws as the users need the Alexa tool bar installed to be recorded and some types of sites attract higher percentages of users who have this bar, at least that’s what I have read from the detractors.
My answer to that is this though…as long as I compare my Alexa to someone who is also in the same niche as I am, then it could be a valid comparison because we likely attract the same “types” of visitors. If I were to compare myself to an SEO/Webmaster type site then it would seem that the SEO site would have an advantage over me.
This is based on what I know and have read from the detractors view on the subject. I think it has its place but it certainly isn’t the end all/be all of traffic measurement but then again what is. There are pros and cons to all of them.
Tim
January 25th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
9oh Bill I ment is Alexa worth tracking - is there info valid - sorry,
tim
Jason
January 26th, 2008 at 8:59 am
10It’s not uncommon for new blogs and web sites to have low Alexa rankings. I had a site with 40 visitors a day that went to 200,000 Alexa score. When the traffic went up to 500 a day my Alexa was near 1 million. Alexa has no bearing on traffic at all.
If you have 1 million visitors a day and none of them have an Alexa toolbar on their PC you wo’t get a ranking. If you have 10 visitors a day with an Alexa toolbar you’ll get a ranking.
Bill
January 26th, 2008 at 9:07 am
11Hey Jason…I agree with you somewhat.
I disagree that it is all that common for new sites to have a low Alexa. If you had an anomaly then it was probably an SEO or Webmaster type site.
Alexa doesn’t have a bearing on traffic but it does reflect traffic. Your example of 1 million visitors is valid but it has a giant flaw that you are overlooking. If you compare two blogs in the same niche, then in theory they draw the same types of visitors. If you compare 1 sites Alexa to the other, it is pretty easy to determine who has more traffic.
I’ve never said its the end all and I agree it has flaws….however I think I have covered that both in the posts and in this comment. Use it, don’t use it…your call.
How I am Improving My Alexa | The Blog Entrepreneur
February 3rd, 2008 at 10:19 pm
12[...] my blog with private ad sales so my “stats” are important to me. My last post about my Alexa was slightly more than a week ago, so let’s see how we [...]
Stephan Miller
April 24th, 2008 at 11:57 am
13Alexa isn’t accurate. The numbers are so skewed, even now, that it is amazing advertising prices are based on it. A more accurate indicator of the value of ad space would have to work like Quantcast, where a simplified version of your actual stats are used.
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