Ever wonder how your blog is ranked by other programs that you work with? We’re betting that the question has crossed your mind at least once. We’ve been there, too, which is why we’ve worked so hard to make our ratings system not only transparent, but fair.

Bloggers – You’re More Than Just Numbers

This may be one of the most important parts of how Promote with Bloggers works. Whether you are a blogger or a company looking for bloggers, you may have experience with other blogger groups. From our own personal experience, it’s not readily available how blogs are ranked and how the program administrators decide which blogs are a better fit than others for campaigns.

Of course, that’s the beauty behind Promote with Bloggers! As bloggers we have ran into these questions when working with blogger programs in the past. When launching Promote with Bloggers we asked ourselves which was the best way we could target the demographic of our clients, as well as how to best serve the bloggers who choose to work with us. We want our ranking system to be as transparent as possible. Promote with Bloggers has ten different things we look for when ranking blogs.

1. Google Page Rank
Page Rank is determined through an algorithm used by Google to rank websites in their search engine results. In other words, Google wants the most visited, most popular sites to show up first when searches are performed. Every website is assigned a Page Rank (commonly referred to as GPR or PR). The higher the PR is, the better your site is ranked with Google. To find out your PR, as well as install the PR button to your site, visit Page Rank Checker.

2. Alexa
Alexa’s toolbar captures browsing behavior and transmits it to the Alexa website, where it is analyzed and web traffic reports are created. The lower your Alexa is, the more popular/visited your site is. You can find out your site’s Alexa rating, as well as download the toolbar, on the Alexa site.

3. Google Analytics
Google analyzes different aspects of your site and provides all their feedback on Google Analytics. You will find information such as Page Views, Bounce Rate, and Uniques. These are the numbers that we are most interested in:

• Page Views: This basically tells you how many pages have been viewed on your site.
• Bounce Rate: How long are people staying on your site?
• Uniques: High page views are great, but how many individual people are visiting your site (i.e. unique visitors)?

To find out this information, you visit Google Analytics. If you have never installed Analytics on your site, we strongly suggest that you do it now and wait at least 30 days before applying to become a part of our blog team so that you have at least a month’s worth of site stats to present when you apply.

4. Domain Authority
Domain Authority represents Moz’s best prediction for how a website will perform in search engine rankings. Many use Domain Authority when comparing one site to another or when tracking the “strength” of a website over time. The higher your domain authority is, the better. To find out your Domain Authority, you can visit Open Site Explorer.

5. Social Media
While we don’t feel that numbers are the most important thing, social media reach is very important. Social media is how the majority of fans keep up with what bloggers are talking about. That’s why we’ll want to know your social media links and fan/follower numbers across all social media networks.

6. Professionalism
We both feel that finding your voice and writing in a manner that is true to yourself is very important. However, there should be a level of professionalism on your site and in your social media posts. How you portray yourself to fans and prospective clients is very important. We want to work closely with those that have found their voice and consistently display professionalism in their content.

7. Site Look and Feel
Is your site appealing? Is it full of neon colors that might be hard to read? Is your font legible? Are there tons of pop-ups on your site? Is your site so full of ads that reading your content is affected? Are your images in line with the parameters of your blog? These are the types of questions we might ask ourselves when we visit your site.

8. Site Navigation
How easy is it to navigate throughout your site? Do you have an easily found search function? Do you have social media buttons? Blog readers tend to gravitate towards sites where they can easily locate what they are looking for. As a general rule of thumb, you want your site to be easily navigated and we will be looking for this when we visit your site.

9. Content
I’ve found that if you ask for suggestions from successful bloggers, most of them will tell you that having relevant, original content on your site is crucial. We want to see original content on your blog, not just affiliate and/or sponsored posts.

10. Reader Interaction
Blog readers sometimes feel neglected by the bloggers they follow because they comment on posts and never get responses. Your readers are the heart of your blog. Without followers you will essentially be talking to yourself. Do you acknowledge your fans questions/comments on social media and on your blog? Do you have a relationship with your fans? Reader interaction is crucial for blogs and we will look to see how your fans and you interact across the board.

As you can see, numbers aren’t the only important aspect of a blog at Promote with Bloggers. We know that blogs are much more than the numbers that are assigned to them by Google, Moz, and every other ranking site. By taking all of these factors into consideration when ranking blogs, we can better serve our bloggers and our clients.