It is funny how recently the show House, M.D. had a character that was a blogger. In fact, this sparked a bit of conversation in the blogging community too. For example, I found How much is too much to share by Lady Grier. In the episode it seemed that she had to blog about everything going on in her life, even when she was facing death’s door. She was even asking her readers on advice on how to proceed with her medical procedures. It was a bit bizarre there.

For one, if you are comfortable giving out personal information – fine, but remember that you should probably retain something that only you know or nothing will seem special or sacred. Plus, even if you think people like to hear about how you went to the bathroom, details on how you have sex with another person (specifically naming that person), what was on your grocery list, or your minute-by-minute updates – you are wrong. There are a lot of people who will not say anything because they are kind and have a lot of reserve. On the other hand, there will be people who are turned off by that behavior.

Please note that there are sites that address intimacy issues and adult topics, so if your site is focused on this, great, but also remember to make sure your partner is okay with you divulging information about them.

Freedom of speech has always been a touchy topic for a lot of people. It is not that you are not allowed to say something – it is that you might want to not say it because it might be too much information. (Also known as the TMI, WTMI or WTMFI.) And no, this is not including profanity into the mix. This is including things that really have no business in public and could actually be hurtful if there is backfire.

Your readers are important, but in the case of putting decisions of your life in their hands, you are not being true to yourself. (This is what happened in the House M.D episode.) This is not the type of person that shows leadership qualities and how they influenced so many people. Doing this will probably turn away readers faster than anything else.

Have you read blogs that had a little too much information? What are your thoughts on this?

Related posts:

1. The Art of Blogging: Part 2 – What is Your Site’s Focus?
2. Guest Blogging: Does It Really Help Your Site?
3. The Art of Blogging: Do Not Be Afraid To Leave Comments

Some would argue that it is not worth it and is only a system to track traffic. In fact a lot of the traffic they track usually depends on whether or not your visitor installed the Alexa tool bar. So how does Alexa put together a number for each site?

According to Alexa’s FAQ How are Alexa’s traffic rankings determined?, traffic rank is determined by the number of uses of their toolbar. The uses are divvied between page views and reach. Even if you visit a site multiple times, your visit is only counted once. Again, this is solely based on Alexa users.

So what could this mean for some people who want to improve it?

This means that you should probably encourage your visitors to download the Alexa toolbar. For those who have websites already, it might be a good thing as there are plugins for Firefox that you can install and monitor your Alexa rank without even directly visiting the site.

Does Alexa Rank Really Matter?

Yes, it does. A lot of ad systems and advertisers look at these ranks to figure out how successful a site is and gauge how many people they could possibly attract through purchasing advertising. Others think of it as a site goal to make a certain number. That is fine too.

People need these type of systems to find some sort of progress. Please do remember that it does take some work to achieve these types of goals. Some webmasters will succeed faster than others due to their website’s topics and their influence within social networks as well as other online communities.

Dan Keller writes in his article How to Improve your Alexa Ranking. You might want to hop on over there and read his post. I do want to note that even though he mentions webmaster, you can pretty much exchange it with your target audience and you will do fine.

Do you know your Alexa rank? Have you already downloaded the Alexa Toolbar? Should website owners pay attention to their rank at Alexa?