EDIT: My Alexa rank just updated again today and I now have a rank of 100,626. Only another drop of 626 to reach my Race for Rank goal!

EDIT 3/17/07: With another update, I’ve reached my Race for Rank goal and now have a rank of 96,034.

In my Race for Rank series, I have been addressing the methods that I’m using to improve my Technorati Authority and Rank, Alexa Rank, and PageRank.

The point of the series is not to add to the hype around rank but to bring tools and ideas to mind that may improve the ranks assigned to your site by these commonly respected ranking systems.

Recently, Alexa again updated their traffic rankings. With this last update I’m Blogging That now sits at an Alexa rank of 104,297. You may recall that when I started my Race for Rank series on January 28th, my Alexa rank was sitting at 168,322.

In just a short 5 weeks, my Alexa rank has dropped by 64,025. To reach my Race for Rank goal with Alexa by the end of April this means my rank needs to drop by another 4,297 to be in the top 100,000.

Can I do it?

Of course I can, but I’m no longer going to actively care about my Alexa rank and I believe that you shouldn’t either!

I would venture to guess that the majority of those using Alexa these days are webmasters. These webmasters may understand, like it or not, that there’s an importance placed on Alexa in direct relation to the amount of money that is paid to webmasters by advertisers.

In my last post about Alexa, Better Alexa Rank in 5 Days, I mentioned how my Alexa rank dropped in just 5 days because of the massive amount of StumbleUpon traffic that I had recently received.

Traffic has gone unchanged since I wrote that post. But I have stopped wondering what other methods I could employ to drop my Alexa rank below my goal.

Realizing that my rank was dropping in direct relation to the amount of StumbleUpon traffic that I was receiving, I took one action that has been beneficial to me in more ways than one.

Networking

I’ve asked friends to give my post a Stumble, I’ve suggest to my readers that if they enjoy the post, they bookmark, and I have actively begun networking in more areas than I would have to naturally encourage social bookmarking by my visitors.

The result of my networking efforts are now displayed in my Alexa rank.

Find Your Networking Niche

Every social networking site seems to cater to one particular niche or another. Register at a variety of sites, check out the posts that are making it to the front pages and the posts that are reaching the first page for the different categories.

If you see that food and health are the biggest categories of a social networking site and your blog isn’t about food and health, maybe it’s not the place for you.

Dig within social networking sites to find the source that could be a good flow of potential traffic and long-term visitors/readers of your blog. Give it some time before you give up on a social networking site and move on.

Pay attention to the newest sites popping up for bookmarking and networking. While traffic from the newest sites will come in small doses, you are given the opportunity to utilize these sites to the fullest while still on the ground floor level. This will lead to you becoming a power user at the site and having more influence of the content that is displayed and pushed to the top.

Don’t spend days upon days doing nothing but networking. It could become a little boring, tedious, and tiring. Instead, set yourself a time limit to network several days per week and commit to actually networking with others and promoting your posts during that time period.

The better you become at networking and bookmarking for the others, the more you will get noticed and traffic will increase. As you see results of your efforts, you’ll also find that networking isn’t so boring and that there’s a lot to learn from it. It’ll keep your interest longer but will also teach you the tricks of the trade to accomplish your goals faster!

What’s your result?

When using different methods and tools to improve the rankings on your site, what do you find works best? Can you pinpoint site accomplishments to a specific action that you have taken?

If you have any additional tips for the Race for Rank series, I’d love to know your thoughts.