Alexa has always been a simple and valid way to measure the popularity of a site. Here are seven ways you can use it for your online business:

1. Comparing Alexa ranking of sites in the same niche.

Alexa’s most useful function is to compare your website with another one in your niche — or to get a fix on where you stand within the market.

Comparing the competition not only gives you ideas on what’s working in your niche but gives you a goal to work towards.

2. Checking to see if a site’s traffic is rising or falling (and how that compares to your site).

When your site is losing traffic, the first reaction is usually panic. After that, you start looking at why. It’s useful to look at the performance of other websites in your market.

If they’re also losing rankings, that’s a clue that something bigger is affecting your niche. It could be a Google algorithm update, a seasonal change in demand, or changing trends.

If you’re losing rank and your competitors are gaining, what are they doing differently?

3. Getting a “quick fix” estimate on any site.

There are all kinds of reasons you might want a quick estimate of how well a website is performing. It could be to assess the traffic potential of a new online business idea or simple curiosity.

4. Evaluating a site’s commercial potential.

Growing your online business means you will start to receive a lot of requests from potential collaborators. For example, blogs asking you to guest-post, sponsorship requests, or joint ventures in promoting a product.

Alexa ranking gives you a “big picture” test of reasonableness for a single site. A marketer with something to sell (e.g., ad space on his site) might claim that he gets 10,000 visitors per day.

When you find a ranking of 5,000,000 at Alexa for that site, you can be 99.9% sure he’s lying. With a single, free check, Alexa has saved you time, money and the usual ugly ending when dealing with a liar!

5. Seeking potential influencers to build relationships.

When you’re looking for other businesses that can help yours, Alexa ranking helps you evaluate which ones have potential.

You’re seeking high-traffic sites, meaning the Alexa ranking is more reliable. As you use Alexa more and more, you’ll develop a strong frame of reference for what’s outstanding traffic in your niche vs. “not worth pursuing.”

6. Finding potential super-affiliates.

If you have an affiliate marketing program, finding those high-volume marketers can give your sales a huge boost. But you have to make sure they can deliver before you offer preferential commissions or other perks.

Use Alexa, SimilarWeb, and SEMrush to maximize reliability and to determine how much traffic is organic search (which is generally higher quality).

Once there’s a deal to be made, you’ll want to take considerably more time to insist on seeing Google Analytics proof. But no doubt about it, Alexa definitely has its place in your toolbox when screening sites for potential opportunities.

7. Verifying claims of success.

No matter what niche you’re in, Alexa is invaluable when you’re trying to figure out who’s delivering the goods.

The definition of success should not be “putting up a stunning website,” with the implication that business success follows automatically. It’s about building income and equity.

Since most individual website owners don’t make their income public, the best evidence of success for the majority of online businesses is traffic.

You can’t earn if you don’t have visitors.

The 6 Ballparks — How Best to Use Alexa.

Use Alexa’s tool many times each day, as a first-pass check to see how popular sites are doing (ballpark!) and whether they’re growing or contracting.

I also use it to check claims, assess potential influencers, or satisfy my curiosity. It provides “good enough” ballpark estimates.

Most of the time, all I want to know is which of 6 ballparks a site’s traffic falls into:

1. Outstanding (100,000 or less)
2. Excellent (100,001 – 1,000,000)
3. Pretty good (1,000,001 to 2,500,000)
4. Medium (2,500,001 to 5,000,000)
5. Poor (5,000,001 to 20,000,000)
6. Invisible (“Not enough traffic data”)

Note 1: Few solopreneurs make it into the top ballpark (1-100,000). Almost all “Outstanding” Alexa rankings come from mid-sized to large businesses. At the other end of the spectrum, almost 100% of the “Invisible” ballpark is solopreneurs.

Note 2: “Not enough traffic data” means that Alexa’s massive panel of toolbars, extensions, pixel installs and third-party sources has 0 data points for a site. Basically, it’s “Invisible.”

Note 3: The ballparks are snapshots, not judgments. Consider these ranges in light of your circumstances and especially in light of your site’s actual traffic. For example:

• If you just finished writing the home page of a brand new site, “Invisible” is normal.
• If your site is young and growing, an Alexa rank of 10,000,000 may be excellent for you.
• If you have a mature site with 30 pages and a rank of 5,000,000, that can be excellent if you have a high-dollar monetization model (e.g., selling Hollywood homes).

When you need granularity (including traffic stated in terms of the number of visitors) or certainty (e.g., when it’s especially important or when the Alexa score seems off), consult SEMrush and SimilarWeb.

Alexa Ranking Is Great for Influencer Marketing.

It’s easy to check engagement numbers to determine the social power of

potential influencers. Even more than social media success, site traffic is an important consideration in assessing both influencers and super-affiliates.

Suppose you have an online business based on mathematics.

And let’s say that you have identified math-only-math.com (an actual SBI! business) as a candidate for a potential joint venture to sell your math courses.