Written on August 14th, 2007 at 04:08 am by Darren Rowse
How to Draw StumbleUpon Users Into Your Blog
This is a guest post on How to Draw StumbleUpon Users Into Your Blog is by Skellie who writes tips and tutorials on creating better content at her blog, Skelliewag.org.
The potential for StumbleUpon to send traffic is often under-estimated, particularly by new bloggers. Unlike digg and del.icio.us, an item doesn’t need to become popular before you see immediate results. One or two votes can bring a hundred or more readers — more than a new blog might see in a day.
StumbleUpon users are, however, notoriously fickle. The service describes itself as allowing you to ‘channel-surf the internet’ and I think it’s a very appropriate description. Users flick through websites like you might flick through channels, often making a decision on whether to stay or leave your site before it has even had time to finish loading.
In this post, I want to suggest some quick tips you can use to draw StumbleUpon users into your site before they stumble away.
Channel-surfing the internet
We’ve all flicked through TV channels back and forth, waiting for something to hold our attention. The decision to stay on a channel or surf elsewhere is usually made in a second or two, and the principle is the same for StumbleUpon users.
With so many other potentially great sites available to them at the click of a mouse, you need to make it immediately clear why your site is worth their time. Here are some tips to help you do just that.
1. Make your blog’s core mission-statement unmissable
A core mission-statement as I define it is a one or two sentence description encapsulating what your blog has to offer. A good core mission-statement describes the kind of content you provide and broadly what your blog is about. It should communicate a lot of information in only a few words.
If a stumbler can see straight away your blog is about something they’re interested in then they’re likely to stick around.
2. Insert powerful visual cues
When channel-surfing the decision to stick with a channel or move on is often largely determined by visual cues. Even with the sound off you can tell a drama from a news program, a travel show from a cartoon, because visual elements provide clues as to what kind of show you’re watching.
The same principle applies to blogs. If your blog’s header contains an image of a pile of cash, we can reasonably assume the blog is about money (or making it). That’s a lot of information communicated instantly by a single image.
3. Push your content above the fold
StumbleUpon users often judge a site by what is offered in the above the fold area — the area of your site which appears on screen before any scrolling occurs.
I think this blog is an example of how to do that well. Not only do headlines and the first few paragraphs of a post appear above the fold, but other content of interest is showcased in the header area. StumbleUpon users immediately see a site packed with value.
You can use the top part of your blog’s sidebar, its header area and the post area to showcase your content. In doing so, you’ll straight away show StumbleUpon visitors why they should stick around.
4. Be unique, be pretty
While it’s difficult to judge the quality of a blog’s content in just a few seconds, people are much more hasty with aesthetic judgments. A gorgeous or interesting blog design encourages a stumbler to stick around and see whether the content is great too.
Of course, a great design is a lot of work (or quite a bit of money). The next-best thing is a unique logo or header image, an interesting color scheme, and so on. There are a number of small changes you can make to create a blog that looks unique and sets you apart from the crowd.
What we’ve done
The emphasis in all the above tips is on instantly showing visitors who’ve stumbled across your blog what it has to offer. This should help you make the most of StumbleUpon traffic and turn more stumblers into readers.
172 Responses to “How to Draw StumbleUpon Users Into Your Blog”
Jose Negron
August 14th, 2007 4:35 am
Great tips, I agree…SU can be a great source of traffic if you know how to work it.
Joe @ Escape Job Hell
August 14th, 2007 4:49 am
So what’s your mission statement?
Brennan
August 14th, 2007 4:54 am
I agree, with Jose. Great tips. I’ve tried submitting to StumbleUpon before, but it didn’t work well for me. I’ll retry with Skellie’s tips.
Marc Eilbeck
August 14th, 2007 4:56 am
Yeah great tips darren SU has given me alot of traffic in some cases 1000 visitors in 1 day!
Thomas Crown
August 14th, 2007 4:58 am
The problem I think is how to get people SU your posts so you can get that traffic coming. I mean the step before this one.
Brent
August 14th, 2007 5:03 am
I’ve had times where I received thousands of hits per hour (at its peak) from SU that usually lasts a day or two and the only thing I’ve gotten out of the increases in SU traffic is a spike in my stats.
Michael from Pro Blog Design
August 14th, 2007 5:06 am
For what it’s worth, I stumbled this post at least. ;)
Mike Panic
August 14th, 2007 6:29 am
Great advice. I recently got an article pushed to the front page of del.ic.us and has been heavily stumble’d since Friday evening. The stumble crowd seems to come in waves though, which is odd. Using whos.amung.us to track what pages people are on live, there are currently more then 70 people viewing my site, 68 are on the one particular stumble’d article. The peak was 360 at one time, early Saturday morning. In addition to the huge spike in traffic, I’ve got another 100 readers to my RSS feed.
What I really like about the Stumble traffic as opposed to articles I’ve written that have been dugg is that the traffic keeps coming. Most digg traffic comes within a small window of time. Even with the article on the front page of del.ic.us and font page of del.ic.us/popular, that traffic died off within 12-16 hours.
Do stumbleupon users primarly use the toolbar add-on or are the social bookmarking WP add-ons, such as the one used here? Additionally, what plugin (if any) is used in this new WP template?
The Buxr Widget
August 14th, 2007 6:45 am
I wonder if anyone knows the retention rate of stumbled pages? It is probably best to collect an email address for a newsletter or get them to sign up for a feed.
Dean Taplin
August 14th, 2007 6:51 am
I’ve long been a fan of SU. It tends to bring my site steady traffic rather than the surges seen with sites like Digg, although I have seen occasions where it can bring 1000-2000 hits in a day.
I agree with others that the SU traffic seems to come in waves. Articles I’ve written months ago can go quiet and then suddenly gain a lot of referrals from SU.
SU is also a great social site too which shouldn’t be forgotton either.
browie
August 14th, 2007 6:58 am
Stumble is hit and miss for me. I’ve had lots of traffic and none.
dandellion
August 14th, 2007 7:10 am
Getting the attention of Stumbler is terrible job. I am speaking as one of them. I use StumbleUpon when I am bored and want something to catch my attention and to do that very quickly. Problem is, and I believe many of SU users suffer of that same illness, after third site you I am clicking that “next” button faster and faster…. and my attention, and good will, are more and more weak. Very soon, site has to punch me in the nose to stay in the browser.
Steven Aitchison
August 14th, 2007 7:21 am
I am a big fan of SU. I have an article just now which I stumbled yesterday and has so far received 10,000 (yes 10k) hits. I worked to get this as I sat and stumbled sites for about 2 hours before I stumbled my own article.
The adsense clicks usually jump and I have had 100 clicks on google adsense today and 100 yesterday, according to mybloglog, however Google has only counted 20% of them so far which I am baffled about. I
Also I will hopefully go over the 1000 subscriber mark because of SU.
dojo
August 14th, 2007 8:26 am
Stumble Upon was OK only for my women forums. Otherwise I had only minimal results. I am not into huge traffic spurge, so this didn’t make me happy. Having 200 visitors at the same time for some minutes was awesome, but that was all.
I don’t like this kind of promotion, even if I use it from time to time. The results are very low and I am sure my blog won’t benefit too much .. but I did follow your advice here .. I am sure I’ll have some traffic for some minutes and then .. back to normal ..
Let’s hope I don’t over use my bandwidth and be suspended till the end of the month :D
Matthew Sherborne
August 14th, 2007 8:50 am
Great article Darren,
StumbleUpon is great for an instant wave of traffic and becomes even more effective if you do your leg work ahead of time by building up your friends.
In my opinion, stumbles are only as effective as your friend network. The more popular and greater number of friends you have, along with the quality of the stumble, will determine your success.
Brad V.
August 14th, 2007 9:07 am
I’m working on most of your suggestions. Of course, my goal has always been to write quality content. But my site is getting a make-over and I’m working harder than ever to draw in new readers.
Thanks for the great tips!
Skelliewag.org
August 14th, 2007 9:13 am
Hi everyone. I’m glad people have found this article useful :)
@ Joe Escape Job Hell - My mission statement is in the top right-hand corner of my header. It is ‘On creating content 2.0 to match the new web’.
@ Michael from Pro Blog Design - Thanks!
@ Steven Aitchinson - Are the effects of stumbling cumulative in one sitting? That’s a pretty good tip…
Alex
August 14th, 2007 10:08 am
One of my websites has recently been receiving hundreds of hits a day from StumbleUpon. It hasn’t translated into too many more sales yet. I’d say maybe .5% of the StumbleUpon visits purchased a tee.
I think I’ll work on pushing my content above the fold and using better visual cues.
Thanks for the great post!
Debo Hobo
August 14th, 2007 10:19 am
Great info, this article motivated me to apply a more appropriate description to my blog. Now I need to make it pretty.
Nabloid on Investing
August 14th, 2007 10:29 am
I’ve never used Stumble Upon before but that sounds like a good way to get some traffic without requiring 100 votes/diggs!
Cat Laine
August 14th, 2007 11:12 am
Yeah, like a lot of the folks here, I’ve gotten lots of spikes but no sustained change in traffic. I’ll give the suggestions a try though.
Jason Heath
August 14th, 2007 11:31 am
Darren,
I am really liking this new template/look. You’re right–having the main content significantly above the fold makes a big difference. I do miss you picture and ‘best of’ post listings, however.
Z. Glass
August 14th, 2007 12:09 pm
Wow! This is all so overwhelming right now. I am new to all of this. Don’t quite know WHERE to begin. I own a staffing firm in Illinois and recently wrote a few books. Two of them are pretty controversial career books, “25 Reasons Why I Won’t Hire You” and “25 Reasons Why THEY Won’t Hire You! They just came from the printer only a month ago. Already, newspaper reporters and radio producers have contacted/interviewed me. A TV show just scheduled me for next month to discuss my controversial (but much needed) job interviewing tips…
Anyway… this has all taken me by surprise, and now I am trying to figure out how to discuss some of these controversial topics on job interviewing (obesity, age, ethnic names, etc..) online via blogging. I am doing my best to get the word out to help people understand the REAL reasons why they are not getting jobs by disclosing things only told behind closed doors.
Not sure exactly where to begin (or how to begin) with Stumble Upon. Someone help? How do I get started? Is this the best route to start? Are there blogging communities for those searching for jobs? HELP!
Great site by the way!
Z. Glass
Author & Vice President
http://www.25ReasonsWhy.com
http://www.usatechsearch.com
junger
August 14th, 2007 12:13 pm
Your first tip should NOT be a high priority. It’s a massive mistake to assume that a channel surfer cares what your site is about — they don’t.
A channel surfer gets to the site recommended by StumbleUpon because the specific piece of content is good. It’s 10 times more important to provide links to related good content than it is to take up space with an “about” message.
If the user finds that you’re more than a one-hit wonder, then they’ll be interested to find out more about your site. You need to turn them into a regular reader — and you won’t do that be trying to sell them on your message.
Sell them on your content. It works every time.
Linda MacPhee-Cobb
August 14th, 2007 12:26 pm
I love StumbleUpon traffic. It comes in huge waves but I see lots of repeat visitors from Stumble after the initial wave.
Michael Ott
August 14th, 2007 12:50 pm
Good advice. Of course sometimes it is just blind luck.
One particular article we published a couple of weeks ago has had nearly 80,000 referrals from StumbleUpon, and has had a positive on-flow effect to the rest of the site. It got picked up by a StumbleUpon user by sheer chance.
But then articles that I have deliberately targeted at StumbleUpon (using some of the methods noted here) have failed (in comparison). The advice given here is good but I guess I am saying don’t expect it to solve all your problems.
From our perspective so far, it appears we get more response from having a good SEO strategy in place, which is something I did plan from the beginning (SEO is part of my day job).
Kim
August 14th, 2007 12:56 pm
I agree about Stumbleupon. It gave me over 1000 hits before i even knew what it was.
Mark
August 14th, 2007 1:28 pm
One night about a week and a half ago someone stumbled one of my articles. I received 224 unique hits in a 24 hour period. That’s a lot of hits, when you consider that my average is about 20 to 30 per day.
Chris
August 14th, 2007 2:21 pm
Stumbleupon has drown hundreds of thousands of uniques to my sites since the first ’stumble’ back in May ‘07.
I believe that the core attractive value is in the content itself. It has to be of unique and exceptional quality. I repeat, exceptional.
Here are 4 of my finest examples. Note that all took me about 3 days each to complete.
http://odyb.net/food-cooking/62-little-known-uses-of-vinegar/
http://odyb.net/nutrients/what-everybody-ought-to-know-about-medicinal-uses-of-general-spices/
http://rangit.com/software/top-8-linux-games-of-2007/
http://rangit.com/operating-systems/top-40-most-useful-free-mac-os-x-softwares/
Cher
August 14th, 2007 4:04 pm
I think stumbleupon social bookmarking site is under estimated. It may not be as good as that of DIGG, but certainly it is very unique. I do regularly get returning visitors frequently. Got to know the nice tips.
nitinpai
August 14th, 2007 4:05 pm
Hi Darren,
I don’t understand how stumbleupon works because when I submit a link it does not get many hits but when I see my site link being submitted by others it gets traffic to my site. Why this unusual behavior. Do you know about it?
ugyen
August 14th, 2007 5:21 pm
Yea Darren, I agree with you. been stumbling pages a lot.
Gaurav
August 14th, 2007 5:32 pm
Title is the key for Stumble Upon. It should be catchy (and controversial)
Steven Aitchison
August 14th, 2007 5:51 pm
Skellie, before I submit one of my good articles to stumbleupon I usually spend some time stumbling and making new friends and leaving comments. I always seem to get good traffic using this method.
However having said this i have built up my friends list which is not huge at 66 but a fair size, i also try and comment a lot as this seems to have an effect as well.
Ray
August 14th, 2007 7:15 pm
StumbleUpon is very good. It gave me more than 4000 visitors in one day for one of my post. However, I noticed that they tend to stay on the page which was stumbled, only 10% of people will follow another link of your stumbled page.
Tageek
August 14th, 2007 8:26 pm
Iam using stubmle since it was released and before a week i note that i can grab some traffic to website through it, thanks for the great topic.
Max Pool
August 14th, 2007 8:37 pm
Darren, you missed the biggest SU tip! Take out SU ads to jump start the process.
This is how both FreelanceSwitch and Codesqueeze got there initial surges of traffic and readers. $25 got 1000 visitors in less than 4 hours looking at a ‘101 ways…’ post. That traffic digg’d the story which created serious traffic. As a result, a fresh new set of backlinks and steady traffic from SU and digg (about 100 visitors a day).
Don’t wait for SU users to find you, put yourself into the community!
April
August 14th, 2007 8:41 pm
I got over 100 hits from”refer.php”. I don’t understand what exactly this means. I found one article that some one else stumbled but I have to manually go through each article to find out if has been stumbled or not.
PS
My a/c is http://aprilkerr.stumbleupon.com/ if anyone wants to add me as a friend ;)
Darren Rowse
August 14th, 2007 8:50 pm
Max Pool - true true - although keep in mind that this is a guest post and not really about how to get SU visitors but how to draw them deeper into your blog once they’ve arrived.
Actually there will be a post on advertising on SU in the coming week or so.
Darren Coxall
August 14th, 2007 8:56 pm
I recently had a lot of SU visitors. Not a huge amount but enough for me to take pride in my site. I think one important thing to remember is keeping the content clear. If I find a site that I have to hunt for the start of an article I leave.
Stubsy
August 14th, 2007 9:52 pm
I have found the amount of traffic also depends on the time you submit your site. If I submit about 10pm GMT I can get 300 or 400 Visitors if I do it during the day I only get about 50.
Neil Matthews
August 14th, 2007 10:15 pm
Nice post, I have checked out StumbledUpon but dismissed it in favour of Digg, Del.icio.us and Technorati.
I will give it another go
Cn
August 14th, 2007 11:19 pm
Please. Are we aloud to post adsense and cripsads on the same blog? Sorry to impose.
Mike Panic
August 14th, 2007 11:58 pm
I signed up for SU back in Dec 2005 but still barely use it, something about browser add-on’s bother me. I’m starting to look into it more now though, simply because it appears to be a good resource. One of my articles has been getting hit with SU traffic since Friday afternoon and is still going strong now. For the past 4 days nearly 10k unique page views have been sent from SU, my RSS feed went from 118 to 230 and lots of other pages on the site are getting the “out-click” as people browse around the rest of the blog. The article getting nailed is about 1,200 words, so it is fairly long, but the fact that people are going around and checking the other articles is what is really great. Sadly, Adsense clicks are no higher than before the SU onslaught, but hopefully other sources of income from the article will come through and the RSS readers will keep the site for sometime.
Prasanga
August 15th, 2007 2:59 am
Great post, I recently signed up with stumble upon.
Prasanga
August 15th, 2007 3:02 am
thanks for the info I recently signed up with Stumble upon.
Ross
August 15th, 2007 3:18 am
good article. I got tumbled earlier this month and my free stuff blog, which was getting 75-100 visitors a day, got over 1000 stumble visitors for 4 days in a row. And since then i am up to at least 150 visitors a day. it was huge.
jesie
August 15th, 2007 3:33 am
Great post with a lot of useful information. Thank you so much.
Jason Bartholme
August 15th, 2007 3:37 am
I would also include a Stumble Upon button on your content, particularly in your posts so people can stumble/thumbs up your content if they like it. This will increase the number of stumbles to the post which, in my experience, increases the number of referrals from SU.
Ganesh Chandran
August 15th, 2007 4:00 am
Stumble upon sends good traffic steadily while digg is a big burst and boom.The sudden traffic rush is over even sooner.
D
August 15th, 2007 5:40 am
So does this blog covers these points?
Hector Sanchez
August 15th, 2007 6:28 am
Yes I agree with this post, Stumble Upon keeps sending me a steady flow of traffic to my site. I will try to follow these guidelines to try to increase my exposure.
Regards
Hector Sanchez
Bozdemir
August 15th, 2007 9:09 pm
Yes, Stumble may bring hundreds of users a day, one of my sites had 700 visitors from Stumble in a day…
Andy Beard
August 15th, 2007 9:14 pm
The challenge isn’t drawing SU users to your blog, but making it suitable for them to give you a vote.
Whilst there is a growing number of bloggers and various kinds of marketers using SU, it doesn’t take many negative votes to get some content buried.
SU admin provide very poor support in a situation where you feel some content was “victimised” by a top SU user who thought your content was spam and directed SU friends to bury you.
Paul
August 15th, 2007 10:10 pm
Can stumbling content on your site and then having it given the thumbsup down affect your overall weighting with SU or is it simply on a page by page basis?
Any thoughts?
Cheers,
Paul
Turtle King
August 15th, 2007 11:59 pm
Ok. This is going to sound like a dumb question, but I create a stumbleupon account. Do I post a link to my blog or links to articles I’ve written on my blog. My other dumb question is how do I do this? I’ve read the above and see when i search websites all these sites come up with the graphic in front of the site, but how do I get mine on stumbleupon?
Denise Palmer
August 16th, 2007 4:08 am
I hadn’t thought about it too much before reading this article (great suggestions btw), but I know when I use Stumble Upon, it’s the visuals that capture me.
I tend to stay on the sites that are formatted differently, show something outrageous above the fold, and don’t have a ton of “stuff” going on like ads, links, etc.
Totally visual appeal for me in the first few seconds.
ourmonmouth
August 16th, 2007 5:23 am
Great advice.
I followed your lead and voila had my biggest day ever (Aug 14th) on my blog. Over 10x my normal traffic flow and beat my busiest day by 3x.
Wow!
kalpesh
August 16th, 2007 5:43 am
Stumble upon is a good concept if one knows how to market one’s site, this applies to all the social media websites. Its nice that you share your knowledge with fellow people.
Stephan Miller
August 16th, 2007 5:47 am
I found StumbleUpon and didn’t even use it from a marketing aspect at first. Every now and then throwing one of my links in, but mostly I was addicted to finding sites that hadn’t been Stumbled before and being the first to comment. Eventually this built a lot of traffic to the sites I listed as my own on my homepage.
Brian Reindel
August 16th, 2007 7:37 am
Hey Darren,
Good list, but I really thought the first key point should have been HOW to submit your site to StumbleUpon. For those that don’t know, the quickest method is to install the StumbleUpon toolbar, visit the page or post you want to stumble, and then click the “thumbs up” icon. If someone hasn’t stumbled it already, then you will be asked to add it to the SU database of sites. Not all bloggers are tech-savvy :)
Michael
August 16th, 2007 10:34 am
It looks like your put your nofollow back on but back to the point.
I got a few votes from people that did stumble exchanges, but for some reason I still get 0 traffic from stumbleupon. Maybe they banned me or something. 0 traffic from stumbleupon for the past few months.
CallCenterVet
August 16th, 2007 11:00 am
Thanks for the tips dude! Very enlightening. I got tips numbers 2 to 4 sown before I read this post but it sure makes clearer now that you explained it.
I’ve applied these tips on my 2 blogs below:
http://olympicblogger.blogspot.com/
http://callcenterveteran.blogspot.com/
Cheers mate!
Debbie
August 16th, 2007 11:09 am
Thank you for the great tips. Now back to the lab to put them into practice.
DayJobNuker
August 16th, 2007 12:20 pm
I’ve never been stumbled but i’ve done a lot of stumbling. Hope it happens someday
Skip
August 17th, 2007 4:03 am
I stumbled across a blog that’s offering free service to increase blog traffic 1000 in a month or they’ll pay you 1000 bucks. Thought it was kinda cool, just wanted to share.
Skip
August 17th, 2007 4:05 am
Oh a link might help :/ blog.othersonline.com
Robert Mollers
August 17th, 2007 10:26 am
Yes, so true (as always ;) and great info!
I also did the ‘SU move’ on my buildvre.com blog and it gave me 100+ visitors in return (in less then an hour :D)
What’s even better is that this ‘SU move’ is just a piece of the ‘web 2.0 treatment’ you can give your site or blog, which you can all learn about too in the 30daychallenge…step-by-step (also great stuff)
Ok, back to building VRE…
Robert
Spluch
August 17th, 2007 10:45 am
That’s an excellent article! Thanks for sharing! ^_^
Michael
August 17th, 2007 11:51 am
I started my latest blog this week, and based totally on Stumble Upon traffic alone I’m already over 1,700 uniques and 3,000 page views with an average stay of 1:44 - so at least SOME of them are actually reading the content.
I couldn’t recommend Stumble Upon more. I’ve thought about using their advertising services, but so far, it hasn’t been necessary.
Stumble Upon is a great resource. Great post!
Chamatkaribaba
August 18th, 2007 4:07 am
There are so many service providers like that. You never know with how many u can register with and get more traffics. It’s a very very tiring efforts.
Halil
August 18th, 2007 10:13 am
Stumbleupon traffic is great. We don´t get the the traffic constantly but when the Stumbleupon wave comes it is a huge number of visitor. I think it is more effective than other traffic bringing sites.
fathonix
August 19th, 2007 5:48 am
yes of course that is right, i have tried for very-very new my site and it get some hundred visitor just in 1 hour and 1 news only in my new site.
Planet Berry
August 20th, 2007 2:01 am
Thanks for the great information. We are always learning and trying to improve! Leveraging is the key to our success…..at Planet Berry
increase web site traffic
August 20th, 2007 1:40 pm
nice, simple and effective tips for driving traffic.
Gary
August 21st, 2007 3:04 am
I took out a few days worth of ads on SU and immediately had a spike in traffic that has continued. I’m interested to see what happens with the trend when the campaign is done.
Tony
August 21st, 2007 11:25 pm
You Blog about blogging, isn’t there something better you can be doing with your time. I mean come on, seriously, do you think you are being productive?
Your Feet Make You Unique
August 22nd, 2007 1:55 am
Last week I saw an incredible spike in my traffic. On one day in particular, the increase in SU traffic also made me $13.95 via adsense clicks. This may not sound like a lot for some people, but it’s a big deal for me. The most I’ve made with adsense in a given day was $3.00. So you can see my excitement. I wish I could get that same spike in traffic everyday. I will definitely continue to stumble and will possibly look into an ad campaign on Stumbleupon.
Andrea
hayesy
August 22nd, 2007 7:04 pm
Has anyone worked out the best time to stumble?
Enwikopedia
August 23rd, 2007 1:30 pm
StumbleUpon has been my best source of traffic for Hottest Girl
The best thing is that if people who stumble upon it like, some will also press the ‘I like it’ button and it just grows from there.
A million times better than Digg. I don’t even visit Digg no more. It’s so yesterday… haha
mapperz
August 24th, 2007 9:54 pm
StumbleUpon has been a great source for continuous traffic for the Mapperz blog, from the date it was created.
Mapperz
http://mapperz.blogspot.com/
Internet Marketing Strategies - Liz
August 25th, 2007 11:14 am
I also agree that with StumbleUpon, there is a big surge at first but the traffic continues to come in for a long time, whereas with Digg there is a huge surge and then although the traffic still continues for a while, it definitely does not continue to bring as many visitors as SU.
Also, certain topics and niches seem to do better on SU than others.
I’ve also noticed that with other Web 2.0 sites. Some topics do better on one site than on the other.
For example this post:
http://www.nitromarketing.com/blog/13-secrets-to-increasing-your-productivity/ has received more than 3X the votes on Netscape than it did on Digg.
Tommy Chieng
August 26th, 2007 7:13 pm
I certainly agree that StumbleUpon did brings my blog a lot of traffic and continuously does.
Abhishek
August 27th, 2007 12:52 am
Dont use StumbleUpon if your ad provider is Google AdSense. Google is very unfair to SU users.
No ad click throughs will register on Google.
Darren, maybe you can update your blog post on this….
I bet lot of people are taking your advice (like me) and facing this issue. I also read on AdSense forums that in some cases Google bans the account altogether.
Pranjal
August 27th, 2007 5:10 am
I once got a stumble upon traffic surge, not so huge maybe some 1000 visits in 3 hrs, I’m still waiting for another one.
Nakamura
August 27th, 2007 11:31 pm
well, i guess the most valuable thing from SU is the number of RSS readers and ‘bookmarkers’ you get. forget that the spike in traffic will bring you adsense millions, bet keep in mind that SU is a good investment - your link is there to stay, and people will find you time by time. you never know ;)
Danny Tuppeny
August 28th, 2007 12:08 am
Nice post - I’m off to sign up to StumbleUpon to rate my own posts ;-)
Richard
August 30th, 2007 4:05 am
StumbleUpon has been my best source of traffic, I have
tryed everything it is the best.
Have a great day.
sgtwalk
James Mann
August 30th, 2007 4:26 am
I am glad you included this guest writer Darren. It was a very worthwhile read and instantly reminded me that I had forgotten to do something important before the fold.
Thanks, always great posts.
ameyjah
September 1st, 2007 10:17 pm
I darren, I have wriiten exactaly same article, please take a look at the same. And agree your point saying “StumbleUpon users often judge a site by what is offered in the above the fold area — the area of your site which appears on screen before any scrolling occurs.”. . http://www.jahmoney.com/blogging/how-to-get-maximum-stumbles-legal-way-to-do-so/
Mary Dykas
September 4th, 2007 11:08 am
thanks for the tips! As a blogging newbie the advice is greatly appreciated!
Mary
http://www.mvpvisuals.com
Paul
September 4th, 2007 7:45 pm
I have found stumbleupon a very go source of quick free traffic , its not as much as digg or reddit but you don’t need to rely on editors to promote your story, you just submit and if people like it you get heaps, i do it often and get about 500 or so people everytime i do it. Which is cool
Mark Greenway
September 4th, 2007 8:34 pm
I have only recently come across StumbleUpon and was wondering how best to use it to get visitors to my sites.
This post has put quite a few good ideas in my head.
Thanks for that.
Mark.
http://www.fastwealthnetwork.com
Simon
September 4th, 2007 8:35 pm
It’s amazing how many people direct there comments at Darren instead of the author! This is a great article Skellie, cheers!
Simon
September 4th, 2007 8:35 pm
It’s amazing how many people direct their comments at Darren instead of the author! This is a great article Skellie, cheers!
Skellie
September 4th, 2007 11:51 pm
@ Simon: Haha, it doesn’t bother me. I’m a staff writer over at Daily Blog Tips too and most comments run along the lines of ‘Great post Daniel!’ ;) I think it says something about how closely people attach blog content to the blog author.
YC
September 5th, 2007 8:31 pm
These can be applied to any site in any instance if they wish to attract visitors, not just Stumblers. I think the trick is for Stumblers to actually vote for your page… Any tips? :)
Ades
September 7th, 2007 4:00 am
Great tips. Here I have written a similar post about StumbleUpon. Effective advertising strategy using StumbleUpon
Amy
September 7th, 2007 9:59 am
All very obvious.
However, I haven’t seen much results from Stumble.
rara
September 7th, 2007 6:39 pm
This is a very worthwhile read, but what is with none english blogs?
Mobile Phone News and Reviews
September 10th, 2007 2:13 am
tumble traffic is`n good!no benefit
oyunlar
September 17th, 2007 3:11 am
I agree, with Jose. Great tips. I’ve tried submitting to StumbleUpon before, but it didn’t work well for me. I’ll retry with Skellie’s tips.
Paul
September 17th, 2007 7:21 am
Guys i find stumble good because you can get traffic from a entry over a long period of time not all just on one day like the other news blogs. I have been monitoring a stumble we had for a week or so now over 7 days we have received over 10000 visitors from it now!
Paul
September 17th, 2007 7:26 am
guys also i just want to say one more thing if you in video games have a look at n4g i seening good results from them as well
GettyCash
September 22nd, 2007 3:37 pm
Since I become a blogger I’ve learn so many things.
Stumble is one of them…
LeisaWatkins
September 24th, 2007 5:36 am
Thanks for the interesting article. I haven’t used stumble upon myself much, but I will definitely learn more about it now.
BvTaa
October 1st, 2007 5:42 am
Oh, I’ll try that. Thanks :)
Planet Berry
October 3rd, 2007 12:41 am
Sage advice on the focused content delivery of your messaging. We spend a great deal of time staying on focus with our two core themes at Planet Berry. Our clients appreciate the ease of navigation and the depth of our content related to their searches. With our primary focus on health, fitness and wellness we sub divide into Peope and Planet around this core philosophy. Launching in May of this year we have had a slow and steady climb via the right content internally and externally (links) which drive more visibility. Take look when you finish at this fine site: http://www.planetberries.com
Chris M
October 3rd, 2007 3:46 am
Great! This article lies perfectly with the one where Darren talks about doing some small budget advertising with Stumble.
Thank-you
Renato G.
October 7th, 2007 11:10 am
StumbleUpon has became, in my case, one of the main fonts of traffic to my blog, nice article it helped me too much
Alain
October 8th, 2007 5:07 pm
I find that StumbleUpon does not get me nearly as much traffic as http://www.thoof.com does. But since my blog covers the automotive industry and StumbleUpon does not have any “interest” channels devoted to cars, this does not really surprise me. I have found though that for posts I’ve submitted to SU that could fit into a category such as marketing, design, finances, or some other more popular channel, I have a great deal more inbound traffic.
Christopher "G" Garlington
October 11th, 2007 9:17 am
I’ve been trying so hard to build readership and I’m still struggling.
My content delivers exclusively positive comments. I make people laugh. They spit milk through their nose. They laugh till they cry.
I have great headlines.
I created a sidebar of excerpts with links in to the original posts.
I begged–seriously begged–my loyal readers to spread the word.
Finally, I paid Stumble for 1000 hits.
I did get a lot of hits from Stumble, but the bounce rate stayed up above 80%.
I’m at a loss. Somebody give me the magic bullet which. I know, doesn’t exist. But still. Can I get the magic bullet?
Death By Children
http://deathbykids.blogspot.com
max
October 11th, 2007 6:37 pm
I think you missed the point though.
Stumbleupon works by how many stumbles you do.
For example, you want to stumble 3000 pages than you’d get about 300 visitors to your stumbles(or your site).
I think I can do a guest post on this if Darrent let’s me do this…
check out http://zedomax.stumbleupon.com
I have so many stumbles that I can’t even stumble under my account because the database of Stumbleupon slows down when you reach about 100K stumbles…
max
October 11th, 2007 6:38 pm
The simple answer is to stumble “OTHER” people’s pages 24/7. If you only stumble your pages, the chances are that no matter how great your page or website looks, NOONE will visit you.
BUT if you stumble many “OTHER” pages, you will get traffic even if you have mediocre content.
Dana @ Decoration Blog
October 18th, 2007 7:42 am
stumble it’s a very good resource. I received about 12 000 visitor in just one day
cyberst0rm
November 1st, 2007 9:49 pm
SU has been proven to be a major source of traffic.
My tech blog has been no exception. But traffic could always be better!
Steve Warshaw
November 2nd, 2007 8:08 pm
Great tips. I am currently trying to devise the best strategy for combining digg, stumbleupon, technorati, and del.icio.us into one cohesive social networking strategy for promoting your blog. Has anyone else tried to work on a similar project who might bet willing to work together? I’m finding my tracking tools are a bit primitive so I’m wanting an upgrade. Any suggestions?
FYI, I’ve come up with a neat little trick on how to get high rankings on google searches using these services already. I call it F.T.T. for Fast Targeted Traffic. I would love it if any one you would review it..
http://u-m-g.blogspot.com/2007/10/how-do-i-get-more-traffic-to-my-website.html
Thanks
Shannon
November 2nd, 2007 11:32 pm
Great tips. I hve been surfing and reading a lot about Social book marking in the internet and I see stumbleupon is a good social book marking site and tips for driving traffic from them make this blog extra ordinary.
Chat Place
agung
November 5th, 2007 3:19 am
nice tips… thanks. keep up the good work :)
Brusimm
November 5th, 2007 3:21 am
I went over to check out StumbleUpon and just get a bit confused about the site. My first impression is that I can submit items I come across to the site, yet as I log in, I don’t see how I can do that (I think along the lines of Digg’s ease of use) and, no pun intended, I stumble around the profile, some of the links for me to look at other stubling users, etc.
Is this site based on my own profile and how I populate it or is it a suggestive site like Digg?
Well, after reading all the contribution comments to this post, it seems a bit more clear to me.
The marketing aspect of the world of blogging is mind boggling, but may be worth it in the long run!
Thanks everyone - Bruce Simmons
bhaswara
November 7th, 2007 7:17 pm
After read this post, i try to submit to stumbleupon. As result, my new blog got huge traffic from stumbleupon! boost from zero to 500-700 pages view! Greattt!!
Davidlind
November 7th, 2007 8:45 pm
My thoughts about SU have changed in the last few months since I started using it. At first it was enjoyable to have the traffic spikes but then it became clear that this was a transient effect with little value in terms of blog growth. So I started building a “blog” there and meeting people who dropped by. I collected some really good photos and put them up. Now it is much more rewarding to just exchange greetings with someone I do not know and get to know them. It is so easy to do there.
I have noticed is my stats that some SU readers do come to my weblog. This fits in well with my strategy for long term growth and success. It’s not as exciting but it is more satisfying.
han
November 8th, 2007 4:34 am
I’ve tried SU for a couple of days the result is not that big but hey atleast i get 3 - 15 hits from SU :-) maybe ill try to implement some of the method you listed, thanks anyway.
Matt Ellsworth
November 9th, 2007 7:56 am
great tips - we have been using stumbleupon now for several months - but it still seems a bit of a mystery. Thanks for helping to remove some of that mystery.
MyGoodFinds
November 9th, 2007 1:15 pm
I must have reached the maximum limit of SU for promoting one’s blog and now they want me to pay $0.05 per click. Is there a work around it?
cyberst0rm
November 14th, 2007 9:25 pm
I have been submitting some of blog’s more interesting content to Stumble for the past 2 months or so. I initially saw a spike in traffic that lasted a few days, but then pegged off.
After that point I submitted many more high quality posts, but have seen little or no SU traffic.
Key point: Stumble brings fickle traffic. Traffic the may seem great on paper, but doesn’t necessarily equal more revenue!!
The Ultimate Marketers Blog
November 15th, 2007 4:08 am
I agree with you cyberst0rm. I’ve seen the exact same spike then drop off. Now, it doesn’t matter how many great sites I stumble and write detailed reviews for, I just don’t get much traffic.
If anyone has figured out a way around this (I bet it is to use their paid advertising), it would make an excellent and popular blog post!
Planet Berry
November 16th, 2007 3:39 am
Are there ways to segment the market with this service? At Planet Berry we focus on health and wellness topics ranging from the Planet to the Population. Thus, we are more visible to searches looking specifically for leading edge articles and views on these topics.
Thanks
Planet Berry
November 17th, 2007 1:00 am
The retention rate would be a terrific way to determine overall success of these unique traffic plays. Hard to determine success unless you can trap stats that show the overall performance. It may not be dollars associated here but time is money.
Mark Antony
November 23rd, 2007 3:39 am
Great advice! I think it helps if you ask yourself what keeps you on a web page yourself, and it’s much easier to be attracted to images than to text. Many people skim through web pages, and speed read, so anything that holds attention should always be born in mind.
coldhitz
November 24th, 2007 3:50 pm
I am new to blogging. I’ve been reading , and implementing these tips , which I am finding useful. I want to get to the point of having it become a source of income. However , I am finding this to be more fun than I anticipated. Sharing my pizza skills , with the world , has put so much zeal into my step. Why do so many people think it is wrong to comment on a blog , if you write a blog? Don’t other musicians got to each others concerts? I’m gonna keep filming my shows , and Vlogging away , with help from this great resource. Thanks.
Derek Baker
November 25th, 2007 11:28 am
Good tips, stumbleupon has not worked out all that bad for my blog so far.
chloe
November 28th, 2007 11:19 pm
until now i still don’t know how this stumble up thing works. i have signed up a couple of weeks ago at stubmbleupon but i havent used it. i still promote via link exchanges.
Reverse Funnel System Review
November 29th, 2007 2:32 am
Many useful tips, thanks
Mr.Pinoy
December 7th, 2007 1:45 am
Im still trying to get some luck with StumbleUpon. Im still new in blogging and your advice are really helpful.
Jon Ward
December 10th, 2007 8:18 am
I’ve had great success with StumbleUpon. Something you should keep in mind is to Stumble your best posts, if you’ve got some posts that are more for filler content, don’t bother with those. You want stumbleupon visitors to only see your best content.
Also, if you plan on changing your url schema, hold off on Stumbling any pages as the urls would no longer be valid after you implement SEF urls.
coldhitz
December 10th, 2007 11:06 am
Thanks for the advice , Jon Ward. I will save that one in my e-mail , as I watch this , and continue to develope my plans to implement Stumbleupon.
Jamie
December 11th, 2007 8:35 pm
Stumbleupon should definitely not be overlooked - in the last four months it has brought my site - The List Universe - 365,841 visits - making it my second largest provider of links from external sources.
Harris
December 14th, 2007 10:16 am
I had amazing success with stumbleupon, I went from 20 visitors a day to thousands a day to http://www.mindfeck.info, and different posts were stumbled. For some reason, my traffic completely disappeared lately. Any idea why that would happen?
Paul Bradish
December 14th, 2007 10:33 am
I’m a huge fan of SU, and am channel surfing daily :). This is a good post, I especially agree with point #2.
Julius
December 15th, 2007 11:09 am
Great advice. I just signed up at SU. Hope to get some traffic and exposure soon.
Michael
December 17th, 2007 3:40 pm
I’ve SUed one of my recent posts on http://apple.qoody.net just for curiosity. Got about 120 visitors same day, and probably will get another 100 today.
Sometimes I discover a jump in my stats for some of the older posts on http://blogs.qoody.net that comes from SU also.
I believe if used wisely SU can be a great source of traffic for a long run.
Patrick
December 21st, 2007 11:07 pm
Thanks for this article. My SU use has greatly benefited from this advice. I wouldn’t call myself a Power User or Top Stumbler, but I have begun networking more, and learning how to use this tool to benefit a lot of other blogs, including my own. This has also helped me learn to format my articles better. Thanks!
Melanie
December 22nd, 2007 2:01 pm
Darren, thank you for the explanation of StumbleUpon. I see the similarity between changing channels on TV. I know it’s not easy to build a successful readership, but with the tips you provide, the learning curve will be reached much quicker. I’m glad I StumbledUpon Problogger!
dicky
December 24th, 2007 1:48 pm
I had a question here. I try to submitting my own article, but when i login to my page and look into the “Page discovered”, i can’t found my article. But there was no problem when i submit other article. Can anyone explain this? Thanks.
WAHM Tara
January 16th, 2008 6:10 pm
Excellent tips for stumble upon users!
Lexus ISF
January 17th, 2008 6:23 pm
very interesting. need some more good stumbleupon traffic.
Airsoft Maniac
January 19th, 2008 9:03 am
This is very good advice. I am trying it out as I am typing, thank you very much for these tips. My blog will now hopefully get more traffic, and more devoted viewers.
akshay khanna
January 21st, 2008 12:18 am
hi
a good post.
many more new sites like su have also come up like say fleck,netvouz etc.
Steve
January 23rd, 2008 6:34 am
Well I have to say that I am impressed with SU and thanks to ProBlogger I stumbled into it. Great looking potential and found some solid networking leads as well.
Chris
January 23rd, 2008 8:06 am
I have officially stumbled into a stumbleupon post!
cellphoneguider
January 24th, 2008 1:31 am
I signed up for SU,but i donot know how to use it?when i face it i donot know what should i do first?what i can learn from here.After read your post,i think i should go and to learn SU,it sounds useful to bloggers,thanks the suggest!
rubu
January 24th, 2008 8:21 am
I wish I could get that same spike in traffic everyday.
Bill
January 26th, 2008 12:54 pm
I’m a Stuble - “channel surfer”. And I must say that I don’t really care much about a site’s mission statement. I like an interesting and compelling title on the post, definitely a visual of some kind and quality content.
Since I stumbled onto the post and it interested me enough to read it might I also add that additional links to similar content would be appreciated as well.
maheshexp
February 1st, 2008 4:58 am
Nice analysis on stumbleupon and their mental thoughts. But still I feel there are few other factors that make the people “Stumble” upon a website.
But I feel Stumble grabs more view than Digg.
Goodwork Skellie.
Roger
February 11th, 2008 4:47 pm
nice tips, I did this and got over 200 clicks in less than 5 minutes :)
Webber
February 13th, 2008 1:06 am
Thanks for great tips!!!!
James Bashkin
February 15th, 2008 6:38 pm
Thanks- you make it seem simple. That is both encouraging and depressing- I’ve made 23 cents!
Tom Beaton
February 16th, 2008 3:01 pm
This is a pretty legendary post. I am working on this side of my blogging now.
James Bashkin
February 16th, 2008 6:31 pm
I have to agree that I get very few referrals from Digg relative to StumbleUpon, but I’m not getting any revenue anyway. Maybe you;ll set me on the right path. J
Jose
February 17th, 2008 9:42 am
Hi,
I’m a member of StumbleUpon but I guess I’ve never used it because one needs to upload a task bar or something like that ?
Or am I making some sort of confusion with another social network ?
Kind regards,
José
Roger
February 17th, 2008 11:32 am
you dont need anything except from an account to submit to SU, but I think you mean their toolbar. It makes it easier to submit by pressing the thumb icon, but you dont need to install that