A question which is careening around the blogosphere is whether writers, especially new writers, should blog.
That's not what this post is about. This post is about how to determine how much traffic your blog gets.
Why should you care about how much traffic your blog gets?
You might not. If you write solely for personal edification, or as part of your writing routine, then how much traffic your blog gets is irrelevant.
On the other hand, if you're thinking about using your blog as part of your writing platform then it may help to know.
You might also wonder if having a blog at all is the best use of your time; perhaps you'd be better off devoting your spare time to Facebook or Twitter. By comparing your blog's traffic to the blogs of other writers you can get a feel for what you'd like your goals to be.
Alexa.com
Alexa.com allows you to see how much traffic your site gets relative to other sites.
For instance, the most popular site on the internet is Google, the second is Yahoo. There are over 300 million website in the world so if your world Alexa ranking is 3 million or less you're in the top 1%! congrats!
So, for instance, Copyblogger.com has very high traffic. Don't feel at all intimidated by not having these numbers. If you're only one person blogging and you have a limited budget there's no way you'll ever see anything close to that kind of traffic.
Two of the most popular blogs on writing are Joe Konrath's and Jane Friedman's. Still, though, their numbers are insanely high and they've been blogging for years.
Find your alexa.com traffic rank
In order to find out your Alexa.com traffic rank go to Alexa.com and enter your domain name (for example, mydomain.com). If the blog is indexed you'll get two numbers, your worldwide Alexa traffic rank and your US traffic rank. You'll also be told how many websites link to your own.
If you click the link embedded in your domain name you'll be given a more detailed analysis based on data from the last three months.
Things to remember
- When it comes to your traffic rank, the lower the number the better.
- If your global traffic rank is 3,000,000 or lower, you're in the top 1% of blogs.
- Go here and enter your domain name to find your traffic ranking. After you've done that, press "Get Details" for a more detailed analysis.
What do you think of Alexa.com? Were you surprised by your Alexa traffic rank? Are you glad you know?
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- Short Story Structures: Several Ways Of Structuring Short Fiction
Photo credit: "The Decisive Moment..." by Thomas Leuthard under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.
