Alexa Rank

Good afternoon everyone!

While checking how many people had linked back to this blog today I decided it was probably about time I checked my Alexa rating – which is currently sitting at 1,776,509 – now this isn’t great by any means, the goal of anyone who is focused on their Alexa ranking is to get it at least below 300,000 – but it still isn’t too bad for a small blog about how to make money online.

I realized that a lot of people don’t actually know what an Alexa rating is, so I thought I’d offer a brief description here.

Firstly, the lower your ranking the better – Google currently has an Alexa rank of 1, while Yahoo has a rating of 2.

The fact that this blog is rated 1,776,509 means that it is in the top 5.712% of websites currently on the internet in terms of traffic.

Overall however an Alexa rating, like a page rank, is not the be all and end all – but if you want to get a feel for how your website is going traffic wise you should check it out, or visit websitegrader.com – it gives you an SEO report of your website, plus it will tell you your Alexa ranking, both as a number and as a percentage.

This post was really just to help try and clear things up for those of you still in the dark, and I hope I did it.

Until next time, keep making money online!

Money Q & A

Thank you to everybody who decided to submit a question for this week’s Q & A about how to make money online – we had a good selection and those not answered will be addressed next week.

Does my website need a good page rank to make money? It’s 0.

Alex

Actually Alex, no, you don’t need a good PR to have a profitable website at all. In fact, two of my most successful websites had, and to the best of my knowledge still have, a page rank of zero. My main business has a PR of 2, which may not be great, but it is still a highly successful site that makes money. PR is good, but it isn’t the defining factor when it comes to making money.

How can I get traffic to my site? I get only one or two visitors a day.

Anon.

Traffic comes from promotion, one or two hits a day makes me think you haven’t read my article on how to get free traffic; I suggest you take a look at that and use some of the tips, such as making the most of social bookmarking websites and getting some free advertising from AdWords and Facebook.

What do you think the best affiliate program is?

Zei

Without a doubt the best affiliate program in terms of letting you make money online is Clickbank – the payouts are higher then most other affiliate programs. They pay by check for the first three months, but after that you can opt for bank deposit. They are the only affiliate site that I still use today, and I’ve tried them all.

If you have a question to submit, do so in comments, and I will answer it next week – if you don’t want the comment to be published simply say so in your text.

Until next time!

Facebook

If you have just started a website and are trying to make money online without any advertising budget then this could be the perfect opportunity for you!

Right now if you install the Visa Business Network application on Facebook you will get a voucher for $100 free advertising at zero cost to you; just make sure you don’t spend over the $100 you have been credited with.

Usually my posts are more about how to make money online or be successful working from home, but as this offer has once again become available and because free advertising is so hard to find I couldn’t pass up the chance to make a brief post about it for all of you to try out. You have nothing to lose and get to promote your business for free!

Good luck everyone, I hope to see your ads soon ;)

Traffic

Ok, so you’ve read my other posts and decided you want your own site/blog – you’ve got Adsense on it, or it’s affiliatized – but how do you start getting traffic?

I’m going to share some of my methods with you and hope you will apply them to your projects.

1) Yahoo Answers

Yahoo Answers is a great way to advertise; providing you don’t spam. Say for example your topic is modifying a car; do a search there and you’ll find lots of people who are interested in what you want to say. Answer their question properly, don’t just copy and paste and spam – and include a link to your site in the source section only. If you don’t spam your answer will stay on the site for all time, which will provide timeless traffic as Yahoo Answers regularly comes up in the top 5 for any common Google searches.

2) Answerbag

The exact same deal as Yahoo Answers, but the more sites you post on the better.

3) Fun Advice

One more like the above two; these three sites can be your core source of relevant and interested traffic.

4) Helium, Associated Content and eHow

Writing articles will get you a backlink on a good PR (page ranked) website and help people find you when using search engines – if your article is good it can also help establish your credibility as an authority in your chosen field.

5) Giveaways

You don’t have to give away prizes or money to draw people in; consider a free ebook – it lets people know that you appreciate them; and it will keep them coming back. Much like how I’m posting this list for free, sharing my marketing tactics – it may no seem like much but people will like it, and when they use it they will think of this website – your free ebook giveaway can do the exact same thing for you.

6) Forums

Using the car modification example; you can easily find many forums dedicated to your topic(s) – become a member and contribute, while having a link back to your site in your signature.

7) Digg It

Submit your best posts to Digg, and if they’re well written people will Digg them; this can net you a lot of fabulous traffic, so long as you dont try to abuse the system by posting a link to every single one of your blogs.

8) Get a Newsletter

Give people the option of signing up for a weekly, fortnightly or monthly email – just never spam them and always make it easy for them to opt out. This will remind them that your site interested them previously and may well be worth a return visit.

9) Host relevant videos and images

Is your blog or website about travel? Include pictures and videos about the destinations you’re discussing, local landmarks, etc. You will be found frequently in search engines this way.

10) Comment On Blogs

Leave relevant comments on all of your favorite blogs, including a link to your blog if given the option. Don’t spam and always leave appropriate comments. If the blog is “do follow”, (find out more about that in Google,) then you will be building up valuable backlinks for your page.

As this blog was only submitted to Google recently it isn’t yet indexed and has no page rank, however when it does I will accept all comments with link, provided they aren’t spam. :)