What Does Your Alexa Rank Mean?

Alexa is a funny little ranking engine. Your fluctuations in rank can be pretty dramatic until Alexa gets a handle on your site.

They have changed their algorithm to, supposedly, better reflect and predict all your traffic. This means they no longer depend on simply guestimating your rank based on Alexa toolbar users who visit your site.

After the update I went from 32,000 to 60,000+ and now I believe they rank me well over 100,000. Yet, my traffic continues to grow.

The important thing to remember is that Alexa is one of several indicators of your site’s traffic health. Of course, you know the exact number of uniques you get each day from your own stats. That’s the main indicator, above all else, you should use to gauge how you’re doing.

It is quite possible Alexa doesn’t know enough about the traffic that is hitting your site because it is too low at this point to estimate more accurately in their rankings.

With the traffic level you have now, my focus would be on more marketing, deeply important and interesting posts (linkbait) for your niche, more commenting and networking on other blogs and social sites, and link building.

Regardless of the quirks in Alexa’s particular ranking system, you want to set a benchmark of a solid 100 visitors per day and then shoot for 500, 1000 and beyond.

Eventually Alexa should reflect this progress in their rankings.

There's More to SEO than Rankings

Perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions in SEO is that ranking at Google and Yahoo is all that counts in search engine optimization. Potential clients come to me with a single goal: "Get me a top-ten ranking at Google." Some will also mention MSN, and a few will rhyme off a list of search engines and want to rank well at the top 200 of them.

It is time to separate fact from fiction.

Yes, I can get you a top-ten placement at Google. But...

1. If the placement is for "dirty brown shoes", it probably won't help your shoe store one bit, even if I get you the first place ranking. Few people are actually searching for that term.

2. Being number ten might not help much either, depending on the term. People searching for "Essential Nectar liquid vitamins", will probably click on the first result they see, or at least on one of the "above-the-fold" results that do not require scrolling. On the other hand, someone searching for "liquid vitamins" might check through two pages of results to familiarize herself with the options available.

3. If your title tag reads like a cheap list of search terms, it will not be enticing. For instance, if it reads: "vitamins, liquid vitamins, multivitamins, multi-vitamins", you might skip over it in favor of the next result that reads "Liquid vitamins from the Liquid Vitamin Supplements Store".

4. If your description tag is a mess, people will more likely skip over your listing, even if it does rank number one, in favor of one that sounds like what they are looking for. Google and others use the description tag usually when the term searched for is found in it, so make sure to include your key search terms in a description tag that actually reads well.

Predicting traffic from SEO results

I recently responded to a forum question, which went something like this: My site ranks number one for this term at this engine. The term is searched this many times per day, and the engine has this percentage marketshare. Can I expect this many visitors?

That's not an SEO challenge; that's a math problem: searches x marketshare = visitors

I responded with a few factors that override mathematics in the SEO game, including the site's title tag and description tag, as well as whether the term lends itself to scrolling. I also pointed out that it depends on the title tags and description tags of the competition, too.

Another factor that makes predicting traffic difficult is the abandonment factor - how many people click on none of the results because they get interrupted or confused, or abandon the search for a new one because they find themselves off-topic or searching too broadly.

It also depends on how many sponsored links there are and how they are marked. Often at Yahoo and Lycos, for example, there are so many ads that the average searcher might never scroll a screen or two to see the organic (natural) results.

And, of course, it also depends on the color of the walls in the room the searcher is clicking from, the weather outside and how well they slept last night. But there is little you can do about that.

What you can do is to work with your SEO consultant to choose the most effective search terms for your business and make sure he develops a title tag and description tag that sell to both humans and the search engines. Then make sure he is monitoring not just the rankings for your key search terms, but also the description used by each of the search engines.

A good ranking at Google and Yahoo is just one measure of your SEO consultant's success. A more complete evaluation is that he is your partner in building long-term, targeted traffic

The Fatal Attraction of Online Marketers

Suppose you were offered 263 links coming into your website from 263 other websites all in one fell swoop. Everybody knows that the more inbound links you have, the higher you will rise in the search engine rankings.

Suppose further that these were real links from real websites that actually sold real products and services - no cheap FFAs throwing come-ons on a street corner on the bad side of town.

Suppose further that this offer included the reciprocal linking code for all 263 sites that just had to be cut and pasted into your website. Piece of cake.

Does it get any sexier than this? Are you drooling yet? Does the sweet perfume of "ka-ching!" float around your head? Is this love at first site?

Well, no, it's actually a fatal attraction, one you had best resist. One that could infect your website with deadly communicable diseases.

I resisted this very offer not long ago, and you should resist anything similar. Here's why:

1. The link pages on these sites are essentially link farms. The more links on a page, the less value they have in a search engine's eyes, especially when you start approaching or even passing 100 links. And don't expect any direct traffic from this kind of link, either.

2. There is a technical term for identical pages within a site or on multiple sites. It is called "duplicate content", and it is strictly verboten by the search engines. Here is what Google says about them: "Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content."

3. Do some quick math. You have 289 outgoing links, 263 of them are labeled "bad neighborhood websites" by the search engines ... so bad that they might even have been banned. What do you think will happen to your rankings?

Sadly, many webmasters fall for such tantalizing come-ons without thinking carefully about what the repercussions might be.

There is a lot of truly bad advice floating around the Internet on how to trick the search engines or find a short-cut to high rankings. This is one example of how following poor advice and hopping into bed with the wrong partner could kill your business.

Here is a good rule of thumb. Two's company. Three's a crowd. Four or more will get you arrested. OK, so I just made that up, and it's not very elegant. But it will keep you from falling for that inevitable offer with the come-hither eyes and the deadly communicable disease.

Three things you should NEVER do in SEO

Three things you should NEVER do
(even if some slick-talking "expert"
tells you it will cost you only $499
and will guarantee you gaggles of customers)

A webmistress asked me recently how much I would charge to optimize her site for the search engines. I took a glance at her site, and the first thing I found was a hidden link to an association she was part of.

I asked her why the link was there. She told me it was "for the search engines." It never ceases to amaze me how much really bad - I mean absolutely horrible - advice is floating around the Internet.

She never did hire me, but she did walk away with one free piece of advice that I now share with you: "Remove that link ASAP." Hidden links and hidden text are big trouble and something you should never do.

A hidden link is simply a link the search engine robots would follow, but is not visible to the naked eye. It could be a one pixel by one pixel graphic the same color as the background. Hidden text could be keyword written in the same color as the background.

If a search engine detects text in the same color as the background, it might penalize or even ban your site. In fact, one search engine expert has even suggested that if your background is, say, white, and you have a black table with white text on your page, that search engines would read that as hidden text (white background, white text) even though the text is clearly visible in the black table. Hmm. I will have to revisit my own site's colors.

Why are hidden links and hidden text bad? Because they try to cheat the rules. Cheating is bad, and search engines do not like playing with cheaters.

Duplicate pages are also a no-no. Search engines like original content made for human visitors. Five pages with the same article are seen as spamming, even if you did change "bicycle repair" to "fix your bike" in the second version and to "bike repair" in the third.

I was asked to exchange links with four websites this one person owned. The sites are very wholesome and I believe the webmaster is too. But the link pages on each website are identical: same introductory text and same links in the same order with identical wording each. All it would take is one complain to get all four sites banned, or at very least, severely demoted at Google and other search engines.

Needless to say, I turned down the offer, so that my site would not be associated with a "bad neighborhood".

Why are duplicate pages bad? Because they try to cheat the rules. Cheating is bad, and search engines do not like playing with cheaters.

Doorway pages are also bad. A doorway page is a page carefully designed to do well on search engine results, but is never meant to be used by humans. Often there is then a link to a website or there is some form of redirect.

Why not just optimize your site for the keywords you want, rather than try to trick the search engines? It probably will cost you less to hire a good search engine optimizer, and your website will not get banned.

I was approached by someone offering a combination of doorway pages and link farming (another no-no!). He did not call them by those names, even insisting they were not doorway pages. He wanted a few hundred dollars a month. There's nothing like your friendly neighborhood mortician coming to call when business is slow and bearing his own special brew for you to sample.

Why are doorway pages bad? Because they try to cheat the rules. Cheating is bad, and search engines do not like playing with cheaters.

By the way, "doorway pages" should not be confused with "entry pages". I get lots of my traffic entering through one or another of my articles. But these are real articles with real content, designed for human eyes and optimized for the search engines. This is a good tactic, because it adds content (which is what search engines are looking for).

Hidden links and text, duplicate pages and doorway pages are just a few of the "clever" tactics that can land you in the "Search Engine Slammer". If you spend much time on the Internet, you'll be approached about many others sooner or later.

Here is a simple question to ask yourself: "Would this be helping the search engines deliver the best results, or would it be trying to cheat their rules?" If it feels a little funny, don't try it. Or ask someone who knows.

Search engines are your friends. Be nice to them, and they'll be nice to you. You might just land yourself a berth atop Mount Google.