Would you like to find out how many people visit your competitor’s web site?

An online service called ‘Alexa’ will allow you to work out how many more (or hopefully less) people are visiting your competitors web sites than your own. And even better.. it’s free.

The numbers it gives you are not exact, but when expressed as a percentage of the traffic your site gets, it’s both fascinating and useful.

So, let’s get you in the position where you’re able to get the insider info on any site you visit – including mine! (I’ll explain how to use this data to your great advantage in a future post.)

1) First visit www.Alexa.com and download and install their free toolbar software.

Two important comments about this:

Firstly, I can’t be responsible for Alexa not working on (or even messing up) your computer!

It’s always been fine for me but I obviously don’t know what software you have on your computer and how that works in conjunction with Alexa. I’m sure you’ll be fine, but I add this disclaimer just in case! (And remember the golden rule to always have backups.)

The other point is that some people mistakenly think Alexa is ‘spyware’ because after installation your browser sends details of the sites you visit back to Alexa for aggregration. (That’s how they get their data.)

However, Alexa is not spyware, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, Alexa actually tell you what data they’ll be collecting after installation.

Each time you visit a web site the Alexa toolbar will automatically send the following limited amount of data back to Alexa’s database…

* Web address (URL).
* General web browser information.
* General operating system information.
* Alexa cookie number.
* Date & time.
* IP address.

Also, proper spyware tries to weedle it’s way onto your computer without you ever being aware of it. Alexa on the other hand requires your consent and full permission before installation.

So, if the automatic submission of the above basic data to Alexa doesn’t bother you either, then please read on.

2) Next, visit your main competitor’s site – you’ll automatically get lots of stats about their site but the most interesting is their traffic rank.

3) Finally, visit your own site, and calculate the difference of their traffic rank versus yours as a percentage. Interesting stuff!

The result may either compel you to work to do more to increase visitors to your web site. Or compel you to work hard to ensure your site’s ranking stays well above your competitors. No resting on laurels!

-Ed.

PS. The traffic rank for this blog isn’t dreadful, in fact it’s quite respectable. But I’ll be working on improving it indirectly by focusing on getting more readers… the Alexa ranking will improve by default from that activity.