Alexa: Why You Should be Using the Toolbar

Why on earth would anyone want to install a piece of spyware onto their Web browser? No sensible right minded person would ?unless you are a webmaster and you want to improve your SERPS ranking that is.

The Alexa toolbar is not "technically" spyware as it doesn't retrieve any private or personal information. It does however log all the sites you visit and as webmasters we can use this to our advantage. It uses this information to compile traffic ranking statistics and a relational list. The relational list is very useful as it shows what other sites people who have looked the current website have also visited. Alexa is owned by Amazon and it is possible to make your own Alexa toolbar with your Amazon affiliate code included. You can then place this on your site and get credited when anyone buys through Amazon using the Amazon button on the toolbar you've distributed, it is also possible to include a link to your site in the toolbar.

Alexa ranks sites from 1 to 5,000,000 and sometimes higher. Ranking 1 has the most traffic and so on, anything below 250,000 and you should be getting some decent traffic levels. This information can be used to determine how well your advertising campaigns are going and how traffic levels are growing over a period of time. This information can also be used to determine how you rivals are doing and keep you one step ahead of them. The Alexa information is also picked up by other search engines so you benefit from an increase in you SERPS as your site progresses up the rankings .

One drawback of the Alexa toolbar is that it only works on Internet Explorer and not the tool of choice for most webmasters Firefox. However I personally feel this is a small price to pay for the benefits I get when using the tool bar for research and to check my sites daily. Checking the stats of your own site has a positive impact on your Alexa ranking as the toolbar is not generally used by the general public so every extra hit from a browser with the tool bar installed is valuable. I have 1 site that is almost exclusively used by webmasters , As webmasters are the people who use Alexa more than any other group 500 page views a day are enough to get this site into the top 500,000 Another site that has 3 times the traffic but the visitors are mostly the general public so this site is languishing in the 2,000,000 's.

Why not try an experiment for a month, Download the toolbar and monitor one of your sites, once you see the data you get and the way it can be used you won't know how you survived without it.

Mark Thompson ran an IT consultancy in London for many years . He now live in Spain and runs an number of websites including The Links Factory.

---

How to Get Great Organic Search Engine Listings

All too often I find site owners are confused (or... Read More

Keeping Track of Your Link Exchanges

All of us want to increase traffic to our web... Read More

Finding Quality Link Partners

Every webmaster knows the importance of incoming links to a... Read More

Link Exchange Program: Get Started Building Your Link Popularity!

Every website needs a link exchange program. Every week, set... Read More

Why Traffic Touts and List Pushers Are Bad For Your Business

In this Article we look at the second competitive advantage... Read More

Top Tips for Requesting a Reciprocal Link

While most webmasters agree that reciprocal linking is a very... Read More

Traffic Tips To Get People To Your Website

Let's talk traffic and how to get it. Your website... Read More

What Your Competition Knows About Traffic

Need more traffic? There's a lot you can learn from... Read More

Catapult Your Traffic With These Web Site Add-Ons

Having a website is great but, if the site doesn't... Read More

Alexa: Why You Should be Using the Toolbar

Why on earth would anyone want to install a piece... Read More

8 Ways To Get People To Visit Your Web Site Again and Again

Getting visitors to your web site is not one of... Read More

Build Your Inbound Site Links Without Requesting Reciprocal Links

A funny thing happened to me three months ago. I... Read More

Quality Traffic & Website Promotion Helps Websites Grow

Quality traffic, website promotion and product and service advertisement is... Read More

Importance of Keywords - Wrong Keywords Means No Traffic!

If your new to the internet marketing world, you might... Read More

Finding and Managing Quality Reciprocal Links: A Tutorial for The Newbie

All of us want to increase traffic to our web... Read More

Greetings! From the Island Outlaw:

I just had to get into the fray! I'm new... Read More

Seven Red Hot Tips for Linking

1. Vary the keywords in your link 'anchor' textUnless you... Read More

Triple Your Traffic with Top Keyword Strategies

Although the topic of keyword strategy and selection may appear... Read More

How To Get Repeat Visitors To Your Site

When you have a website online it is important for... Read More

Top 10 Traffic Building Mistakes To Avoid

When people look to submit their sites to the major... Read More

3 Fastest Ways To Get Traffic To Any Website

After all the debate over website design, shopping carts and... Read More

3 Ways To Swarm Your Website With Highly Targeted Traffic For FREE!

Targeted website traffic is the lifeblood of any website looking... Read More

For Both Search Engines And Real Estate, Location Is Everything

It's all about location, location, location!In the past...back in the... Read More

Reciprocal Links: Look Before You Link

A reciprocal link is when a web site links to... Read More

How To Get Links Without Asking

Sending out link requests is a time-consuming business. So wouldn't... Read More

Online Advertising: 14 Easy Ways To Make Your Web Site Visitors Give You Their Email Addresses

You may have heard many times, that getting the e-mail... Read More

3 Ways To Get More Website Traffic That Buys

Who else wants traffic that buys? I for sure do,... Read More

Links to Success

Did you know that web linkage is responsible for a... Read More

7 Things You Must Do If You Want To Increase Your Traffic

Gary Halbert once said that the ONLY advantage he wanted... Read More

Power Packed Linking Strategies - Part One

This is the first in a series of three articles... Read More

Publicity Tips to Get More Traffic to Your Web Site

Web sites are on my mind, since I just updated... Read More

Triple Your Website Traffic Every 90 Days!

Proper Use Of Meta tags For A High Google RankingGoogle... Read More

5 Unique Ways To Get More Free Traffic

Ok so the first way to get traffic is not... Read More