Yeah I know….Alexa Shmalexa….I’ve heard all of the naysayers talk how skewed it is and how unfair it is….BUT whether you like it or not, advertisers and review sites use Alexa rankings as a major indicator of a sites popularity, right along with pagerank.  

If you haven’t heard of Alexa, it is a toolbar “add on” that records what sites the user visits.  You can track your Alexa at www.alexa.com if you are interested to see where you compare.  The knock on Alexa is that it supposedly shows a bias towards SEO and Webmaster types as more of these visitors allegedly have the alexa bar installed.

I say so what….you can still use it to compare two sites as long as neither of them are in these two niches and whether you like it or not, many advertisers use Alexa as key indicator of whether they want to advertise on your site or not. 

If you try to compare your traffic to the Webmaster of the Month site then it might not be a fair comparison but if you wan to see how you compare to your friends blog or another blog in your niche then Alexa is a great indicator.    In a nutshell what I am saying is that if you are using the old ”Alexa hates me” stuff to cover up your lack of traffic then quit blubbering and do something about it.

My humble little blog is still just getting off the ground so my Alexa needs a shot of Viagra to get it where I want it to go but so far I am happy with the progress I am making.  If I can get my theme finished then I can sleep at night but that’s another story.

Here’s my Alexa….my 3 month average is AWFUL at 517, 412 BUT:

It was in the million range when I started.

Look at my 1 week average…..under 200k….not hard for a week…trick is to sustain.

Not great but getting better which is ok by me….Under 100k is good….under 10k is GREAT!

Alexa works off a 3 month average for traffic to give the most accurate result.  This means some headwind to newer blogs but don’t wait until your 3 months old or better before you start paying attention to it.  Start building traffic and being aware of this key measuring tool right out of the gate.

It isn’t hard to drive traffic to your site…..you just need some ambition.  Get out there and promote your blog, join blogcatalog, join online forums, get some stumble friends and start building traffic.  If you intend to monetize your blog down the road then you will need Alexa, you will need Technorati, you will need to show that your site produces traffic. 

Advertisers won’t pay without it, if you want to set your site up and check your own Alexa then click here.

So how about you….can your Alexa beat up my Alexa?