How To Boost Your Alexa Ranking In One Easy Step

Make More Money From Text Links

It’s well known that many text link brokers, such as Text-Link-Ads.com (aff), factor in AlexaRank when determining the price to charge advertisers for links on your site or blog. The higher you raise your AlexaRank the more you potentially can earn, and this reason alone is enough to pay attention to methods to increase your AlexaRank.

An AlexaRank Experiment

AlexaRank is calculated using the Alexa Toolbar. Alexa takes the browsing data from the millions of people using the Toolbar and calculates the traffic ranking of each site. As Alexa states, while low traffic sites are harder to gauge accurately, once a site reaches a 100,000 or less ranking the accuracy of the measure increases. Hence if you can top a 10,000 AlexaRank, or even 1000, the credibility of that ranking is increased.
As Blaine Moore pointed out in a comment made to my previous AlexaRank article, it is easy to – as he put it – “game” the AlexaRank if you have a tool that checks AlexaRank installed on your computer, and that doesn’t have to be just the toolbar, it can be for a FireFox extension like SearchStatus, which I recently installed on my browser. These tools send data to Alexa, and when Alexa receives any data about your surfing habits it will raise the traffic rankings for the sites you provide data for – and if you visit your own sites often you can raise your ranking.
I can’t verify that installing any AlexaRank checking tool will help your own site’s AlexaRank and to be honest after I installed SearchStatus I did not notice any significant change in my AlexaRank at my blogs. It wasn’t until I conducted a different experiment that I noticed more verifiable proof of a technique to increase your site’s AlexaRank.

How I Increased My AlexaRank By More Than 25%

Here’s how my logic went – I figured the toolbar and other AlexaRank checking tools tell Alexa my browsing habits, which is fine, but I’m only one person visiting my blogs (albeit I do it many times each day). What I really want is a way to tell Alexa about every person who visits my blogs, not just me. In order to do this, the Alexa reporting tool needs to be on my blog and downloaded by every person who visits my site each time they visit.
The obvious answer was to install an Alexa Site Widget on each of my blogs. The widget looks like this:
If you click it you will be taken to my current Alexa traffic ranking data. You can also find the live widget in the sidebar of all my blogs.
After installing this widget on to my blogs, within the next few days my rankings increased at least 25%. This blog, Entrepreneurs-Journey.com, was sitting around the 19,000 AlexaRank mark and within seven days had dropped to just above 15,000 as I type this. Prior to this gain my AlexaRank increases had been slow and steady, but never as significant as this in a short period of time, unless of course I earned a traffic spike from some other site(s) linking to me.
I noticed similar results at SmallBusinessBranding.com and the BlogTrafficSchool.com Blog too, which makes me almost 100% certain that installing the Alexa site widget will increase your AlexaRank.
This makes complete sense, as my thinking above explains. If every visitor to your blog downloads the Alexa site widget when they visit your site, then Alexa has data on every visitor you have, at least every web reader, I don’t think RSS readers count since they never download the widget unless they go to your site. You might call this “gaming” your AlexaRank, but in this case I don’t think that’s an apt description – installing the site widget in fact helps to give Alexa enough data to provide your true AlexaRank, as opposed to what it thinks it should be based on the data it has from it’s toolbar users.
If you sell advertising from your blog or website then you should care about your AlexaRank. If that is the case then installing the Alexa site widget is a must. It takes only a few seconds and could significantly improve your current AlexaRank.
Click here to get instructions on installing the Alexa site widget.
If any other bloggers or webmasters out there notice an increase in their AlexaRank after following my instructions and installing a site widget I’d love to hear about it. While I’m confident my results at three different blogs is good enough proof, it doesn’t hurt to have more examples to back up the hypothesis. Please leave a comment and tell me how your AlexaRank improves.

Leather Harmonica Cases Make Carrying Harps Safe and Convenient

Although harmonics are traditionally associated with the blues and folk music, harps have long been played in music genres as varied as classical, rock, and even hip hop. The harmonica is the musical instrument for choice for many people both because of its portability and because you don't have to learn to read music in order to learn to play the harp.

For players who like to carry their harmonicas with them, there are a variety of leather harmonica cases that serve to protect harps in style. Here are some of the most popular:

Harmonica Holster with Loop: Perfect for carrying in your pocket or in your luggage, the harmonica holster is backed with a leather loop for sliding onto your belt. These leather harmonica cases come in two sizes, and are made to carry either a 10-hole diatonic harp or a 12-hole chromatic harmonica. You can even attach multiple holsters to your belt if you want to carry more than one harmonica.

Multi-Slot Leather Harmonica Cases: If you want to carry several of your favorite 10-hole diatonic harps, a multi-slot case will fit your needs perfectly. These types of cases come in several different sizes, to hold varying numbers of harmonicas. A four-slot case will hold four harps, a six-slot will hold six harmonicas, and a twelve-slot will hold twelve harps. A unique feature of some multi-slot harmonica cases, like those made by Buckeye Leather or Pullman, is that you can wet the pouches in order to custom fit the case to your favorite 10-hole diatonic harps. They also feature a leather flap so that your harmonicas are completely covered. <

Harmonica Waist Wraps: A harmonica waist wrap has two major advantages: you can slide your own pants belt through the slots at either end, making it a "one size fits all" leather harmonica case, and it's open so you can easily access your harps. A waist wrap typically holds six harmonicas.

Harmonica Belts: If you don't normally wear a belt, but want your harmonicas within easy reach, these leather harmonica belts offer the best of both worlds. Lined with Velcro, the ends are easy to adjust, as well as to put on and take off. Harmonica belts are typically offered in three sizes, and fit waists from 28 inches to 44 inches.

Combination Straps: If you play a stringed instrument as well as the harp, combination straps are perfect. Typically, these are adjustable leather guitar straps, banjo straps, and mandolin straps that have four pockets for harmonicas.

Briefcases: Although harmonica briefcases aren't typically made from leather, they do come in handy for professional harp players who need to transport a dozen or so of their harmonicas to gigs.

The best leather harmonica cases are made from leather tanned in the U.S. and then cut, formed, and buffed by hand. Over time, the leather softens and almost becomes an extension of your harp - or at least a comfortable home for those times when you're not playing it.