Alexa | Website Traffic | Search Engine Optimization

Apr 29, 2012 by Deborah

Alexa. What is Alexa? I hadn’t even heard of it a year ago. I definitely didn’t know about it in 2007 as I created my first website! My intention was simply to put my art up, and at the time – letting a domain name build is what appeared to be the answer with website traffic and ranking well. In art circles, no talk of Alexa was going around…that’s for sure. Never heard anyone speak of it in terms of building websites on the back end either. Blog, newsletter, and constant contact were all being shared – but no Alexa.

Alexa even now, is not a familiar buzz word to most entrepreneurs and small business owners that have websites.

SEO is not either so much: Search Engine Optimization. What I have discovered, however, is that if one wants to be visible on the web, all these pieces have to come together for your brand.

Gary Vaynerchuck put it so well in Crush It when he spoke of the ring circle of blog, twitter, youtube, great content posting, backlinks, commenting, facebook – all these tools to build your brand. It all goes back to your main website, he even talks about SEO and WordPress, why it’s so valuable. Somewhere between reading that book and in the process of building a new website, Alexa came on the scene and changed the game completely.

Within weeks, I could see where the new website left my four year old site in the dust on Alexa Rank, website traffic.

It’s not a total secret, lol. Take a look around in your respective niche and type in a competitor’s domain name, see what comes up. You may find as I did, many understand Alexa and it shows in their website facts. You see target information, demographic information and what keywords for their site are ranking high in website traffic. You can even tell if they’re advertising looking at the bounce rate of a single page. Advertising is HUGE…but that’s another few blog posts away, lol!

Which brings me to a very important key point as we extend this Alexa info: You want to have a site that you own the content for. Blogging is important, facebook is also; but if you’re a small business owner with a product or service – you can’t promote that on the free blogger sites out there or your personal fb page; you will be slapped for it. It’s all good; you want a site up that you own the content to anyhow. Also, if you’ve hired someone to build your site, make sure they know this Alexa rank and website traffic, seo material. There are many designers out there that don’t know and/or would just rather not deal with it – because it is more work….time investment, etc. Ultimately, a site is not worth having if it’s not working the most effectively for you, Alexa being a big part of that puzzle. This is Alexa Part I, I know I have more content on it – more to come, stay tuned & be sure to leave me a comment below!