To rank text values when there are blank spaces

I have a column of text values. I want to rank them alphabetically such as:

=COUNTIF($A$2:$A$100,"<="&A2)

The problem is if $A$2:$A$100 contains blank spaces, then the formula will not work as blank spaces are also ranked. Is there a way that I can rank text values while blank spaces are excluded

Have you tried something like:
=COUNTIF($A$2:$A$100,"<="&A2)-COUNTIF($A$2:$A$100,"")

Hi Ragulduy, your formula works nicely. I added one extra to allow for duplicates:

=COUNTIF($A$2:$A$100,"<"&A2)+COUNTIF($A$2:A2,A2)-COUNTIF($A$2:$A$100,"")

The above formula can now rank text values while allowing for blank spaces and duplicates.