Maybe you blog for fun, maybe you blog for money. Either way, how do you measure your success? I suppose if you blog for fun and you actually have fun while blogging, that is one type of measure right there. But wouldn't it be even MORE fun to know how you compare to that OTHER mommy blogger or financial tipster? Wouldn't it be useful AND fun to know that your efforts are making an impact? Regardless of your motive for blogging you want to do a good job, right? Today I will tell you about one of two easy ways to track your success and motivate your continued progress. Come back tomorrow for #2!
ALEXA ranks every site in the world starting at the top with GOOGLE at #1 and YAHOO at #2. The rest of us fall into the very long line based on the amount of traffic we receive.
According to Wiki, there were 70 million blogs in the world in 2005. I don't know how to estimate what that number could have increased to by now, but I hear a good place to be is in the top 1 or 2 million. So to find that my one year old mommy blog is ranked at 410,000 gives me a pat on the back that I broke the 1 million marker and must be doing something right. But then I see where my competitors rank above me and now I know how to set and track some goals. I can also check stats of sites I write for, say... the Buckmaker for instance which has an Alexa ranking of 88,000. WOW! I have friends in high places! Feeling really confident now I might check my personal, very neglected, blog. Ugh. At 5 million. I should have quit while I was ahead. 
5 million out of 70+ isn't the worst scenario, but now I know how much I need to step up my game to be competitive.
The Alexa website alone is a super tool. Not only can you find your ranking (or any others) but there are all kinds of other stats and graphs to play with. But what I recommend you do right now is download the Alexa tool bar for constant monitoring of every website you visit, including your own.
You can download the Alexa toolbar here.
I think we all secretly want to be judged on some level. I know I do. While I don't think I would like to be ranked according to my calf muscles or math skills, I would take guilty pleasure in having my hairstyle ranked on some days. And when I was in customer service I used to fantasize about having high honors bestowed upon me for the superior level of customer service I delivered to each and every customer. Yea, I was that good. Whether looking for an ego boost on a good hair day or tracking your success for an edge on the competition, judgment is a valuable tool. The same applies to your blog. So go find out where your blog traffic rates against all the other blogs in the world. Tomorrow we'll talk about how to rank high with search engines.
