Written on February 14th, 2008 at 12:02 am by Skellie

How to Write Posts That Set StumbleUpon on Fire

Featured Posts, Social Media, Writing Content 158 comments

Skellie is a regular writer for ProBlogger. Check out her new blog Anywired if you’re interested in earning an income online.

Since yesterday, StumbleUpon has sent me around 20,000 page views. It’s the single biggest referrer for both my blogs, despite one of them having been on the Digg front page three times! You could say that StumbleUpon traffic (and lots of it) is one of the main reasons I’ve been lucky enough to become a pro blogger.

In this post, I want to share all the trade secrets I’ve learned about how to craft posts that set StumbleUpon on fire. These are tips and ideas I use on a daily basis to get anywhere between a few hundred and a few thousand (or more) StumbleUpon visitors every day.

I should note before we start that, while StumbleUpon use is heavier in some niches than others, these principles should help you to tap into SU traffic regardless of whether you’re blogging about blogging or Mexican walking fish. SU is arguably the most powerful promotional tool niche bloggers can use.

Learn the new rules

Your efforts will be hampered if you try to write posts to appeal to social media ‘in general’. Each service likes certain types of content and dislikes others. Digg likes mass appeal. Del.icio.us likes anything its users like, but an item won’t go popular unless the source page gets thousands of hits.

If you’re in a niche without mass appeal, SU can help you where the other services won’t. Digg’s categories are deliberately broad to avoid diluting its power to send waves of traffic. StumbleUpon’s categories can be much more specific. While the traffic is not always as targeted as you’d like, it’s still much more targeted than Digg’s.

This also fundamentally changes the way you approach ‘writing for social media’ when you’re writing for StumbleUpon. You no longer have to worry about pleasing everyone. In fact, sticking within the confines of your niche — even if it’s a small one — can mean the difference between badly targeted traffic vs. highly targeted traffic.

My first piece of advice on writing SU optimized content is to write posts for your target market, not for the many. This increases the chances that your post will be submitted to a more specific category yielding better targeted traffic.

Stumble no-go zones

Before I discuss the types of content that tend to do well on StumbleUpon, it’s worth outlining a few types of posts that rarely go popular on the service. I’m not suggesting that you cut out these content types, but it might be worth thinking about how you can make them more attractive to StumbleUpon.

  • Weekly link round-ups. One solution is to change your link round up to a weekly themed resource list.
  • News. Time-sensitive content is favored by Digg and Reddit, but StumbleUpon will generally only pick up timeless content. If it’s not going to be relevant in a month, it’s probably not going to get Stumbled much.
  • Posts that don’t make sense out of context. If your post doesn’t make sense without context it probably won’t get picked up by SU. Potential voters know that the visitors they send won’t ‘get’ your post.
  • Short, breezy posts. A short, value-packed post can do well on StumbleUpon, but breezy content without pithy tips is usually bypassed.
  • Posts that don’t sell themselves properly. New visitors don’t have much patience. If your mind-bending, life-changing post takes 500 words to really get going, your loyal readers will probably love it, but StumbleUpon will yawn. The value inside your post should be made clear as soon as possible.
  • Overly personal posts. Sorry personal bloggers, but this one is tough. If you’ve ever re-told a story about a friend to someone who doesn’t know them, you’ve probably noticed that the story doesn’t entertain them nearly as much as it entertained you. Highly personal content can be met with a fanatical response from readers who know you, but your average SU visitor won’t know why they should care.

Each of these content types may have a home on your blog and not everything can be optimized for StumbleUpon. The main reason I want to share these no-go zones is so you don’t pour unnecessary effort into one of these post types, only to find that it doesn’t send the traffic and potential readers you’d hoped.

StumbleUpon traffic.
Photo by swruler9284

Stumble-friendly post types

Just as there are certain content types that rarely sizzle with SU traffic, there are certain types of content that seem to be particularly well-loved by SU users.

  • Posts that look as if they took a long time to craft. SU users respect carefully crafted content. If your post is chock full of detail, examples, images, links or otherwise looks as if it took some time to put together, they’ll generally reward your efforts.
  • Unique how-to guides and advice posts. Certain topics have been done to death, but if you can tap into something people want to learn how to do but haven’t yet been told, SU will probably reward you.
  • Unique, novel and useful resource lists.
  • Pithy posts with poignant take-home points. If you can find the right words to say something important, or think of an apt metaphor, your post is likely to be popular even if it’s quite short.
  • Visually interesting posts. Captivating images can be a lot more gripping than a wall of text. I start each post I write on my blogs with an interesting image from Flickr and this always appears in the above-the-fold area of the screen. I think this might have a big part to play in my success with SU traffic. A gripping headline and a gripping image help to draw SU visitors into each post.
  • Treasure-trove content. Posts containing cool rarities and free stuff are usually highly popular.

There are other types of content that do well, but the above represents the most common formats for blog posts that fare well on StumbleUpon.

SUO: StumbleUpon Optimization

There are a few things you can do to optimize any post for StumbleUpon.

1. The Value/Curiosity headline formula. The two most effective ways to encourage someone to read your posts is to a) promise value that will make the time-investment worthwhile or b) make them curious. For option A, pick a headline that makes your post sound unmissable. For B, pick a headline that begs an explanation. For example: What’s the scariest fish in the Amazon? Hint: It’s not the Piranha. It’s far, far worse (source). Another simple hack is to make your headlines really big and eye-catching, so they gather more attention.

2. Start with an image. Our eyes are drawn to interesting images. Once you can bring a StumbleUpon visitor’s eyes down into your post, it’s a tiny step for them to make the move into your text.

3. Sell each post. Dedicate the first paragraph of each post to making it sound like something worth reading. Tell readers what they stand to get in return for their time investment.

Strategic tips

Having a core base of active SU users who read your blog is all you need to tap into a steady stream of SU traffic. If you haven’t yet developed this core base yet, here’s what you should do:

  1. Start using StumbleUpon and voting up content from other blogs and websites in your niche.
  2. Friend those who Stumble your articles and thank them. This will start a dialog that could turn them into a loyal reader of your blog.
  3. Write about SU and encourage readers to add you as a friend.
  4. Swap Stumbles with other bloggers.
  5. Link to your SU profile on your About page.
  6. Befriend active StumbleUpon users and stumble and review some of their content if they have a blog or website. Active users command more traffic and they’re more likely to repay the favor because they’re Stumbling all the time anyway!
  7. Add a Stumble button/link under each of your posts.
  8. Add a Stumble link to your Feedflare (find it in your Feedburner control panel).

Points to review

  • When writing for StumbleUpon, focus on writing value-packed posts for your target audience. Don’t try to accommodate everyone.
  • Be mindful of the post types that tend to receive little interest on SU.
  • Remember the post types that SU loves best.
  • Practice SUO.
  • Work hard at turning active SU users into loyal readers of your blog.

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158 Responses to “How to Write Posts That Set StumbleUpon on Fire” - Add Yours

  • Martin

    February 14th, 2008 12:27 am

    This makes a lot of sense. I’ve not focused much on Stumbleupon before, but what you say does correspond with the fact that this post…

    http://theuniversityblog.co.uk/2007/09/18/7-tips-to-top-sleep-3-tips-for-staying-awake/

    …has had thousands of pages views all originating from SU.

    Thanks for the explanation. Maybe I should be using SU myself, just as you suggest in your strategic tips!

  • Tom Beaton

    February 14th, 2008 12:28 am

    Some great posts. The hardest thing is getting started with Stumbleupon! When you are just starting out and have only a handful of readers, it is near impossible to get enough stumbles to get noticed!

    Once your traffic hits a certain level it is then able to attract a lot more using SU.

  • Dustin Brewer

    February 14th, 2008 12:29 am

    I like that this article focuses more on making quality content and less on gaming the system in some manner. I enjoy my stumbleupon stumbles. Great article as always Skellie!

  • Rajeev Edmonds

    February 14th, 2008 12:30 am

    I got surpised one month back when I started using SU. I stumbled my fresh post and within hours I got almost double hits I usually used to get. It excellent option to get free traffic. Creating posts optimized for SU does takes time , but I will say the rewards are extremely promising.

  • Jason A Clark

    February 14th, 2008 12:33 am

    Although I haven’t ever actually tailored an article to attract traffic from StumbleUpon users I have had some success with StumbleUpon. The advice in this article makes a lot of sense and sounds like good solid advice. I’d say that it would probably work.

    I’ve submitted this article to BloggingZoom.com so that other bloggers can benefit from the advice as well. Hope you don’t mind.

  • Mike King

    February 14th, 2008 12:37 am

    This is one of the most valuable articles I’ve read in a long time. Awesome tips and something that isn’t very well known. Huge potential though for any site. Thanks Skellie!

  • Shannon Lilly

    February 14th, 2008 12:38 am

    Excellent tips that I often have given to my readers, info like this is so valuable to those starting out in the blogging world. Excellent well written post! CONGRATS

  • Shankar Ganesh

    February 14th, 2008 12:50 am

    Nice tips, Skellie.

    I’d also like to add that it’s important that you have the content on the main fold and that it shouldn’t require vertical scrolling.

    Stumblers have less time to spare and in case you’re putting up your content down below, you’re not going to get votes.

  • Will Reinhardt

    February 14th, 2008 12:59 am

    Have you found that StumbleUpon visitors become regular readers? I’ve had similar pageview success with my cartoons (30,000 in one particularly memorable weekend), resulting in a grand total of zero regular viewers (no newsletter registrations, no RSS feed subscribers).

    Since that fateful weekend I’ve adjusted my site to make the feed more prominent and that has helped.

    I don’t deny the power of StumbleUpon, I question the conversion rates.

  • Brett Evans

    February 14th, 2008 1:02 am

    I haven’t used SU much but does it not work against you somewhat if you keep submitting your own content.

    Not sure. Maybe I have been informed wrong. If anybody like to shed some light on that for me that would be great!

  • Frugal Dad

    February 14th, 2008 1:07 am

    Awesome advice, Skellie! One of the things I’ve told some blogging friends is that Stumble users are just like television channel surfers – they have a short attention span and something has to grab their attention quickly or they will simply move on. You eloquently described that phenomenon in this latest post. Great job!

  • Sauce The Game

    February 14th, 2008 1:14 am

    Some great tips there Skellie.

  • Andrew Z

    February 14th, 2008 1:18 am

    One thing that doesn’t make sense is the Google Analytics logs from SU traffic. It seems they all visit the same page twice (but hardly any other pages). For a page with mostly SU traffic, the GA Navigation Summary shows the Next Page is 51% the same as the first page.

    Also, I was surprised to see how SU brought me more traffic this month than Digg and Slashdot combined. My story was listed on the Slashdot homepage (but not the Digg homepage), but I didn’t see much Slashdot effect. Perhaps it was just a bad story.

    Does anyone have any comments on how well SU, Slashdot, and Digg traffic converts into clicks? One other thing I noticed is that Slashdot users hardly much fewer pages than other sources.

  • Tim Tucker

    February 14th, 2008 1:18 am

    Thanks, this is a great article. A question for you: you say ‘Friend those who Stumble your articles and thank them.’ But whenever I get StumbleUpon traffic on my blog, I can’t find out who submitted it. If I click on the referral link (I use Wordpress), it just goes to a holding page that says ‘Your site has been Stumbled’.

    So, my question is: how do you find out who actually submitted the link to StumbleUpon?

  • zichi

    February 14th, 2008 1:19 am

    I have been blogging since 2005, and I have been an active member of Stumbleupon since Aug 07. I have to disagree with most of what is written in this post. The best way to get noticed on Stumbleupon is join, be active, build up a good network, write good original posts of interest, write what you would like to read. Stumblers like images but not just any image, there are many images already on stumbleupon. There is a 4,000 character limit when posting so that it always important to consider. Most strumblers will only initially see the headline which isn’t very important and the first 10 words or so, which is important. Stumblers like news posts about things like Burma but only when Burma is hot in the main media, like it was last year. Ask stumblers to give you a thumbs up and most actually will.

  • Jhong Ren

    February 14th, 2008 1:27 am

    :)

    great tips in using SU…in fact, there are just so many creative ways of using SU and also things to note to attract your stumblers to stumble your blog….

    thanks so much for your post! :)

  • Bruce

    February 14th, 2008 1:28 am

    I’m drafting a post at the moment, and I’ll add some of these ideas as well.

    Increased readership and socialization gives you a lot better feedback about the quality of your content.

    Great information as always.

  • blogrdoc

    February 14th, 2008 1:30 am

    Regarding your point about ‘getting to the point’ as soon as possible. For my long posts, I include an ‘abstract’ that summarizes the whole post in 5 lines or less. If the reader likes it, it’s up to them if they want to read the rest. The idea is that I don’t want to scare away readers when they see blocks of of text. I make *sure* to include the ‘money’ line/concept. Checkout my blog for some examples.

    I’d be real curious to know what other think. This idea came to me from the academic world where professors/researchers go through hundreds of papers (5-20pages long). They read the abstract to decide if it’s worth reading the rest of the paper. The result is that they can effectively go through dozens of papers in a couple hours.

  • jhay

    February 14th, 2008 1:33 am

    Excellent! Now this is timely since I just signed up for an account at SU. Thanks! :D

  • AngryJed

    February 14th, 2008 1:51 am

    so that’s why my posts never get stumbled, most of my rants are news and current event related. maybe I shoud start posting about topics that have a longer shelf-life.

  • CatherineL

    February 14th, 2008 1:53 am

    Hi Skellie – these are great tips. As you know, advice you gave on your own blog helped me get some huge stumbles, so I’ll be following this advice carefully too.

    Thank you.

  • RandomThinker

    February 14th, 2008 1:56 am

    thanks for the tips. I had it happen once, where I wrote a post and within a few hours had a 200% spike in traffic. I can’t quite figure out what was so unique about that one post as opposed to any others, but I did enjoy the traffic.

  • Gina

    February 14th, 2008 2:03 am

    How do you know who has stumbled your posts?

  • Lin

    February 14th, 2008 2:03 am

    Skellie, your tips and advice always inspires me and it has helped tremendously in getting many more Stumbles and positive reviews for my articles.

    I’m often surprised when looking at my stats to discover thousands of visits from Stumble Upon users to archived posts, even months after the initial Stumble/Thumbs Up.

    I’ve also been curious about possible dangers of stumbling our own posts after reading so much about how it tends to hurt bloggers rather than serves as help. ?

  • Tad Chef

    February 14th, 2008 2:13 am

    Very good round up, but don’t do one thing: “Swap Stumbles with other bloggers.”

  • ジェイソン (Jason)

    February 14th, 2008 2:15 am

    These are some pretty solid tips. I’ve recently been lucky enough to have some major rushes to one of my short stories through StumbleUpon, and I’m always impressed by how often the cycle will repeat itself.

    Seeing a huge spike in visits will be enough of a motivating factor to make any blogger try harder to turn pro :)

  • Carl-Johan Hunefalk

    February 14th, 2008 2:24 am

    Great tips, Skellie. Seems I have some work to do to improve my blog to get stumbled.

  • Ty Brown

    February 14th, 2008 2:30 am

    Are there any penalties for stumbling on your own stuff?

  • Ruchir Chawdhry

    February 14th, 2008 2:44 am

    Submitting to the right category is also essential. For more traffic I generally submit it to a broader category… For example, instead of Blogs, I’d submit my post under Internet.

  • Mike Panic

    February 14th, 2008 2:45 am

    I’ve had some really good luck with SU, one article did 45k unique views over 72 hours. I agree 100% that quality, crafted and time devoted posts do the best on SU, the people who use it are, for the most part, wanting to learn / read something.

    The major downside to SU that I’ve found is the horrible bounce rate. One day brought 20k unique views to a single article, not even a sliver of of those viewers went to any other article or the homepage of the blog. While SU traffic is great when it rolls it and lasts, on average, 10x longer than digg traffic (in some cases a full week’s worth of traffic spikes), the users tend to blow through sites spending only a few seconds on them before clicking on the SU button in their toolbar again.

    Just like digg, write a quality article and many will see it, but don’t expect to cash in off the traffic, get a spike in RSS subscribers or expect to see much more traffic on other pages of your site.

  • Martin

    February 14th, 2008 3:04 am

    @Will Reinhardt, given the number of page views possible, I’ve not seen a huge number of people subscribe to my RSS feed after a SU surge, but there’s still a healthy increase compared to a standard day without any major Stumbles, Diggs, etc.

    So it’s not to be sniffed at, but neither is it something to spend all your spare time on ‘getting right’.

    As I’ve said in a comment above, I don’t know much about SU, but it’s helped my site reach out to others, which can only be a positive thing. Skellie’s post has been useful in helping give me further insight and possibly using SU myself now.

  • Amanda Fazani

    February 14th, 2008 3:14 am

    This is a great post, Skellie. I’ve always noticed that your posts appear high up in the ranks of stumbled pages relating to blogging (and other similar subjects) so it’s great to read about the useful techniques of how Stumbleupon is best leveraged for visitors.

    Thank you for sharing your advice :)

  • eplfan

    February 14th, 2008 3:18 am

    Such a good tips.. Maybe it will help to increase my traffic..

  • Black Zedd

    February 14th, 2008 3:27 am

    I don’t have too much time in hand to stumble around, do reviews and befriend other stumblers. Well, that have to change…

  • Shawna R. B. Atteberry

    February 14th, 2008 3:42 am

    I’ve recently signed up with StumbleUpon and quite haven’t figured out what to do with it. Thanks for the article. It really helps.

  • Gab "SEO ROI" Goldenberg

    February 14th, 2008 3:43 am

    My first week this month saw 900+ visitors from SU, 1100+ if you count two more days. These tips are key.

    One more tip: Humour is great. Just like those chain email forwards that get around, SU users love to pass funny stuff around.

  • Stephan Miller

    February 14th, 2008 3:58 am

    I used to discount the Stumbleupon effect, seeing it as worthless traffic until post on two of my blogs got Stumbled back to back. SU is great. I like it a lot.

  • zichi

    February 14th, 2008 3:59 am

    Stumblers will spike the hits to your blog but most won’t stay very long, or read another post, leave comments or subscript to your feeds. To most, stumble is a ‘kind of drug’ and the most important is now many sites they can hit.

  • Rehuel

    February 14th, 2008 4:13 am

    I honestly don’t optimize for anything. Not Google, not SU… I do however change my style of writing so now and then when I learn something about writing to satisfy the reader.

    I just like to keep my style of writing, without having to optimize for search engines or such. Everyone writes about what people should do, I like to write about what I did, or plan to do.

    I think it’s very good to have lists with “How to” and “25 ways to …” but I also think it’s important that people sometimes read real experiences and learn the lessons from them.

    However, I would also like to have more people read my blogs, and I still need to learn how to use SU to promote them.

  • The Wiitards

    February 14th, 2008 4:29 am

    This is a very good break down of a StumbleUpon friendly site. I have had a lot of success with StumbleUpon. I just want to highlight that the images above the fold are super important. StumbleUpon is channel surfing for the internet. If you don’t have anything that is going to make the person stop you have lost a useful visitor and another potential thumbs up.

  • Blog Enhancing Tips

    February 14th, 2008 4:33 am

    This is a very good post because a lot of times people spend too much time doing the wrong thing on social media sites. You have probably helped thousands of people (bloggers) by posting this because now they won’t have to spend three to six months learning the ropes.stumble upon isn’t for everyone know. Not every niche works in every single social media site. For example: if you have any sort of Obama website than you would most likely want to submit your article to Digg. why? Because the users there tend to be younger and if you’re following politics then you would know that most of the younger class supports him. Just go to the politics section and you’ll know what I mean.

  • robdogg

    February 14th, 2008 5:33 am

    so true, SU has a very picky market and its one i have spent a lot of time mastering

  • Linda R. Moore

    February 14th, 2008 6:08 am

    The one article of mine that was Stumbled brought in 300 eyeballs, which was massive for the site. I’ve had absolutely no luck installing the toolbar for Linux, however. I’d love to hear from readers who have managed it.

  • Jason Bartholme

    February 14th, 2008 6:13 am

    Great post, Skellie. Some excellent points there to consider when I write my next bit of SU bait. Also, if you are lucky enough to get your content on the SU Buzz page, you can expect residual traffic from SU for a good long time. I still get about 20% of my traffic from SU.

    Keep up the great work!

  • Malin

    February 14th, 2008 7:00 am

    Great tips even though all seem “basic” to me (I might not apply it to my own posts though :P), but many others doesn’t know this…

  • Karen (Misc Mum)

    February 14th, 2008 7:42 am

    Brilliant Skellie! Love this.

  • Troy

    February 14th, 2008 8:04 am

    I like the way you’ve specified the “no-go” zones here, gives me a lot to think about. That tip about posts that took a long time to craft is very true. When I see a huge list of links or tips, I thumb it up sometimes even before scanning it. Probably the thinking goes, “There’s bound to be something good there later on.”

  • Andy MacDonald - SEO & Marketing Blog

    February 14th, 2008 8:06 am

    Another fantastic post Skellie. Personally the last few weeks i have been focusing more on Digg & Delicious, which has been bringing me some nice traffic, then all of a sudden, 2 days ago stumbleupon sent me 1,295 visitors in the space of 7 hours. I was amazed, so StumbleUpon has now become something i am trying to focus more on, and your tips are going to help me in doing so.

    Thanks for the great advice.

  • engtech

    February 14th, 2008 8:42 am

    One trick I did that has turned me into a StumbleUpon power user is submitting everything I bookmark in Delicious to StumbleUpon at the same time:

    http://internetducttape.com/2007/09/14/delicious-stumbles-stumbleupon-crosspost-same-time/

  • JB

    February 14th, 2008 11:07 am

    the images tip is a good one. stumblers love images and if they can favorite the post by photo-blogging a great image, that will increase your hits.

  • Mohit

    February 14th, 2008 11:50 am

    Thanks so much for this information. I am new to blogging stuff and learned a lot today. I will definitely create an account on SU and try this.

    ??????
    One question for Daren and all tenured bloggers..

    If someone is good at a certain topic and blog about it in a unique way, but there are already thousands of articles and resources, what should a person do?

    Should he/she write about it?
    Will SU consider these posts?

    Please help me with this.

    Thanks
    Mohit

  • Michael Aulia

    February 14th, 2008 11:57 am

    Thanks, I’ve never noticed the power of Stumblers :)

  • LifeTweak

    February 14th, 2008 12:06 pm

    Great post Skellie. Stumbleupon is the major traffic generator for my blog too….I’ve experienced the ‘digg effect’ on a couple of posts, but overall, stumbleupon leads by a huge margin.

    Thanks for your useful article! :)

    Manu.

  • Skellie

    February 14th, 2008 12:24 pm

    Thanks for the comments, everyone. A few responses:

    @ Tim Tucker & Gina: Hey guys — if you install the SU toolbar you can click the speech bubble icon to see who has reviewed and voted any given page :-).

    @ Tad Chef: If you genuinely like their content, and they genuinely like yours, surely there’s nothing wrong with that?

    @ Ty Brown: I’ve heard that you can only stumble the same domain 15 times. But if you’re writing good content, you shouldn’t need to stumble your own stuff anyway.

    @ Engtech: That’s a cool tool — cheers.

  • Neil Duckett

    February 14th, 2008 1:27 pm

    I’d like to share my stats from SU. Stumble Traffic just keeps giving. Since having a post stumbled about 2.5 months or so ago giving me an initial 267 unique visitors for there was nothing for a few weeks then boom, the same article went through again and hit 767 visit in early January …. still it hadn’t finished and 2 weeks later 1169 followed by another week later 1891 …… for the last month i’ve had no less than 150 visitors and on average closer to 300 unique visitors per day from stumble.

    To date, 17887 visits from Stumble with 2,34 pages per visit and a less then 30% bounce rate.

    I have a screen cap of my google analytics for any doubters out there!

  • Barbara

    February 14th, 2008 1:55 pm

    Hi Skellie,

    This was so helpful. I have been Stumbling when I have free time, and find it totally addictive. There’s some great stuff on their site, so it also becomes a great resource for bloggers. It’s like commercial free “television”. You are right though, when I stumble, I don’t spend much time on a site. Also, if it takes too long to load, I’m off to the next one.

    Stumble spikes are great to see, however, they do distort your actual visitor averages. I still wonder how the conversion rate is.

  • amelia

    February 14th, 2008 2:10 pm

    nice views but am the word “SU” is not that famiiar to me hope oto know more about that someday so that I can relate to it someday :)

  • Terry Finley

    February 14th, 2008 2:44 pm

    I’ve been a SU fan for years.
    Thanks for the great advice.

  • Jeff

    February 14th, 2008 4:17 pm

    Wow! Thanks for laying that out. I’ve had a few posts do very well with SU, and I didn’t really understand why others didn’t. I think I know now.

    Skellie Rocks! :)

  • Richard Janes

    February 14th, 2008 5:51 pm

    I’ve been sitting down for a couple of afternoons now and reading your posts. Thank you so much for all your help. I signed up to Stumble Upon today. We’re hoping it will help the site, but it’s also a great tool for being introduced to new designs and web applications.

    Thank you again!

  • Brett

    February 14th, 2008 6:43 pm

    Shame Stumbleupon has a usage limit – after that you have to pay. I can no longer submit any articles from my website after submitting around 30 posts over a period of 6 weeks. See this forum post:
    http://help.group.stumbleupon.com/forum/76187/

    “If you have exceeded the posting limit for posts from a single page or domain, then there is no further assistance that we can offer. There are a few million other sites which you might Stumble!™ and post from. That is, essentially, what stumbling is all about.”

  • Brett

    February 14th, 2008 6:46 pm

    Shame Stumbleupon has a usage limit – after that you have to pay $0.05/visit. I can no longer submit any articles from my website after submitting around 30 posts over a period of 6 weeks. See this forum post:
    http://help.group.stumbleupon.com/forum/76187/

    “If you have exceeded the posting limit for posts from a single page or domain, then there is no further assistance that we can offer. There are a few million other sites which you might Stumble!™ and post from. That is, essentially, what stumbling is all about.”

  • Daryl Tay

    February 14th, 2008 7:53 pm

    This is excellent. I just downloaded the SU toolbar and have been playing around with it and trying to figure out how to get on it. Now I have a great reference! =)

  • Mike Crowl

    February 14th, 2008 8:24 pm

    A terrific post! It’s great to have so much detail expended on a how-to. Makes me feel as though I could sit down and start discovering SU enthusiasts straight away!

  • Orfej

    February 15th, 2008 12:15 am

    StumbleUpon likes good titles and visually interesting posts and I saw that in several examples.But this is very nice article and thank you for strategic tips.

  • Sampath

    February 15th, 2008 12:17 am

    This is a great post i have ever read. After reading this I found the mistakes that I have done. Thanks a lot.

  • Mr. Javo

    February 15th, 2008 12:23 am

    Thanks for sharing, great post. StumbleUpon is my prefer social network, indeed is from I got the most of my referrer traffic.

  • Sarah (Real Life)

    February 15th, 2008 1:22 am

    Great tips! This may be a dumb question, but how do you find out who stumbled your post?

  • Madiator

    February 15th, 2008 1:51 am

    Yet another excellent post in Problogger.net. Thanks to Skellie! I must mention here the advantage of SU from others like Digg. SU promises a steady traffic to your website whereas in Digg, when its in the top page, you get lots of traffic, thus overloading the server!
    Its indeed awesome to note the implications of services like SU that were not started with these in mind!

  • Madiator

    February 15th, 2008 1:55 am

    And by the way, Mr. Brett above, what SU does is correct. I am indeed proud that SU has that constraint of 30 submissions from the same domain. Otherwise, you will be using SU only for forwarding your cause!

  • spostareduro

    February 15th, 2008 2:37 am

    SUO…now there’s one for the books. Thanks for the info..very well written.

  • Skellie

    February 15th, 2008 2:54 am

    @ Sarah (Real Life): When you install the StumbleUpon toolbar, navigate to the page you want to research and click on the speech bubble. That will show you who reviewed and voted up the content.

  • Leon

    February 15th, 2008 3:31 am

    How great is this post! It gave me a lot of tips. And I agree, StumbleUpon draws way more traffic than Digg and Del.icio.us. I’ve felt it’s effect for myself. Digg is mainly tech-centred and Del.icio.us is pretty much general.

  • Anna (Green Talk)

    February 15th, 2008 3:37 am

    Hi Skellie, Nice post. Just some comments though. I do find that stumble upon traffic is fleeting, but perhaps I have picked up a few RSS readers. It is hard to know. Google barely reports it but I have another stats plug-in on my blog which shows how well I did.

    I do friend the people who stumble me but they do not necessarily “friend me” back. I hesitate to thank them after reading a post on Caroline Middlebrook’s site about how rude people were to her when she thanked them. Has anyone experienced this when they have thanked a stumbler? If I know them, I thank them.

    Also, I have been toying with this concept and would love others feedback. I write about green products. I asked one of my friends to stumble my organic vodka story. He cleverly stumbled it in beverage rather than environment which usually is where I would stumble my green articles. I received so much traffic it was amazing. I tried it again with another friend who stumbled a racy green valentine post. However, she stumbled it under shopping. I did not do as well and I would have figured with a sexy title I would have alot of people interested.

    I was trying to get traffic from outside my niche to give cross appeal to my articles. My friend on the last stumble used tags too to hit other areas of interest including the environment. Has anyone tried stumbling outside their niche with any success? Is it hit or miss?

  • Bumeral

    February 15th, 2008 5:45 am

    StumbleUpon tips are very good but I have question about this topic.Does anybody know how StumbleUpon index pages – many my posts are not indexed.How long it takes to index pages ?

  • Johny B. Goode

    February 15th, 2008 7:09 am

    You certainly are a quality writer and publisher, Skellie.

  • Daryl Tay

    February 15th, 2008 10:22 am

    @Anna – wow that sounds nasty. I can’t imagine being rude to someone thanking me for stumbling them! I think I’d just be plain happy they noticed!

  • Terry Finley

    February 15th, 2008 10:33 am

    I have been using SU for a long time.
    I never thought of using it to get traffic
    to another blog or site. I do/did it
    for fun. There are tons and tons of
    great people, but it does have its share
    of jerks (just like anywhere else).

  • Blogsha

    February 15th, 2008 4:39 pm

    I have been blogging since 2 months and I love stumble and it brings me good traffic !

    Blogging
     | Making Money Online

  • Blogsha

    February 15th, 2008 4:40 pm

    stumbleupon gets me great traffic

  • Sangesh

    February 15th, 2008 8:28 pm

    Skellie your rock. Its always great to go through your post and always informative.

    Best of luck for your new site. May StumbleUpon send your millions of hits.

    One just hit :)

  • Welcome to Paradise

    February 15th, 2008 8:38 pm

    I’ve recently used StumbleUpon and it does bring me quite a good number to visitors and increasing too. I hope, these techniques will even boost my traffic.

    Good luck to you Skellie.

  • Bret_TechTraction

    February 15th, 2008 9:52 pm

    Thanks for the article. I really hadn’t thought that a SU audience might prefer a different type of article than a typical Digg reader. I believe my blog is better suited for the typical StumbleUpon reader with very little, if any, change in writing style. I certainly have seen siginificant traffic spikes when something has been submitted to StumbleUpon. Can’t say the same for Digg.

    Thanks for the post.

  • Blogsha

    February 16th, 2008 1:42 am

    great and helpful post.
    darren u rock !

    Shardul
    http://www.blogsha.com

  • hssiegel

    February 16th, 2008 5:24 am

    This is a copy of my earlier post, this time with the spelling fixed. Sorry.

    Great information. I have been working hard to get traffic to my blog without a whole lot of success. I have not tried to use stumble upon.

    Does SEO of the blog help with StumbleUpon at all? If I used an SEO optimizer like RaSof, will it make any difference?

    Thanks,

    Scott

  • Shey

    February 16th, 2008 7:59 am

    Thanks for the sweet post, you’ve helped validate a number of things I’ve been doing right and identify other areas to improve on.

  • Open English

    February 16th, 2008 8:54 am

    This was a great article with really useful tips. It’s a lot to think about but, in my opinion, really important. Sometimes people overlook the amount of traffic that Stumbleupon can bring.

    Thanks!

  • Daily Tech Impressions

    February 16th, 2008 9:25 am

    i use stumbleupon quite a bit in fact my website is a little over a week old and Im now getting 10,000 hits a day do to stumble, Entrecard and web 2.0 sites like sitehoppin.com and powerdropping.com…It works! Good article thank you!

  • Albert

    February 16th, 2008 2:55 pm

    I read all this stuff about forming relationships with others on these social networks so they can favor you later when you need them.

    It seems like it takes an ENORMOUS amount of time to have like 100+ friends on SU, and build your account to a high pagerank.

  • BloggingForBillions.com

    February 16th, 2008 3:25 pm

    Skellie,

    What a great article. This is the first time I have read you. Your blog is also great and its on my list as well. Thanks for creating great product for the blogosphere that I would recommend to anyone.

    Because of you I am going to StubleUpon!

    Thanks Again,
    Rob West:)

  • Oscar Valdes

    February 16th, 2008 4:39 pm

    Great advice for us newbees at blogging. I appreciate all the advice and hope to get on the same level. I would appreciate any comments from readers to know what they like to read.

  • Mizal

    February 17th, 2008 1:12 am

    Is stumbleupon traffic worth? I use digg only. Well, great post anyway.

  • randomguru

    February 17th, 2008 2:21 am

    thanks so much for a great post! i’ve just recently joined StumbleUpon.com, so right now it’s all news to me. but i’m definitely going to take your advice on the ways to optimize stumbleupon, and also the tips.

    your section on ‘no-go zones’ is quite informative and helpful. now to just apply these concepts as a newbie! ;-)

  • Lindsay

    February 17th, 2008 3:25 am

    This is a great post…I never realized the potential that Stumble Upon had for sending more traffic to my blog. Good to know!

  • Internet Business Blogger

    February 17th, 2008 3:43 pm

    I have had some success with Stumbleupon and always suspect that it is due to my lack of like it!’s and the large number of friends that I have.

    With any of these social sites I find that if you have good content and a chance that you will get noticed but without any leverage you are just one of 1000s of submissions that the sites see every day and you can get lost.

  • MRDPE

    February 18th, 2008 9:43 am

    I have found the SU traffic to be sporadic – sometimes good – sometimes non-existant.

    Also is there a way to “un-stumble” one of your own pages so as to be able to “stumble” another?

  • TechSilo

    February 18th, 2008 4:04 pm

    Probably, this is the best SU tip. I just create my new SU acc & will follow your advice. Thanks Skellie.

  • fto

    February 18th, 2008 10:30 pm

    I think having to many ads on your site also pushes away stumbleupon users.

  • Adam Moss

    February 18th, 2008 11:49 pm

    I think I’ll try StumbleUpon. I could do with some more readers of my site though. Good article btw…

  • John

    February 18th, 2008 11:53 pm

    Up until now I have actually not paid much attention to SU. This is something that i’m going to have to look into and maybe go back and do some SUO one some of my old posts.

    Do you have a few examples of posts that are doing well vs. posts that are not?

  • adii

    February 19th, 2008 12:02 am

    StumbleUpon: Marketing For Niche Bloggers?…

    Guru’s, irrespective of their field, are generally accepted to be, uh, well… guru’s… So if Skellie writes something about StumbleUpon, most bloggers around the blogosphere will sit up, take note and try emulate her formula. Her …

  • Invest

    February 19th, 2008 1:22 am

    this is a great post
    I tried SU several times but didn’t work for me.

  • michael curry

    February 19th, 2008 7:15 am

    I’ve linking SU With my squidoo and its been getting me traffic.Great post great work…
    mikec154.wordpress.com

  • Cesar

    February 19th, 2008 6:06 pm

    I already use Stumble but I never got more than 150 visitors per day from it. I didn’t knew that Stumble can genereate so much vusitors. Thank you for sharing.

  • Summer

    February 19th, 2008 11:52 pm

    Good Article. I’ve been using Stumbleupon for quite some time and I already experience in the boost of traffic. But I also hope that i can use also as quality traffic and gain sales on those visiting me. Nice job on the article by the way thanks.

  • TechSilo

    February 20th, 2008 12:26 am

    @fto

    I dont think ads the main reason why visitor leave from your site. Just coordinate them on unobstrusive angle, and you will be doing just fine. It just a behaviour, u know. Social website user just looking who is popular on the net. They come, looking around and leave. If lucky enough, they subscribe. (correct me if i wrong) :-)

  • Pete

    February 20th, 2008 4:03 am

    I was able to get almost 2000 visitors to our CEO’s blog http://www.mxpressions.com in less than a week using StumbleUpon. You’ll notice the “thumbs up” feedback kicking the traffic into high gear, and any “thumbs down” slowing it a bit. I still think that SU has to create more granular categories so that the traffic can be more focused.

  • etavitom

    February 20th, 2008 8:19 am

    Thanks for the great advice! I love stumbleupon…

  • Mandy

    February 20th, 2008 8:44 am

    great post I am new to stumble upon and it is taking some time to get to grips with all the features.

    I’ve had a comment left on a forum saying that SU users like photos and I should submit some, but how would I do that?

    Could you point me in the right direction, Thanks

  • Denise

    February 20th, 2008 9:14 am

    Thanks for the great advice! I’ve only been blogging for two months and am looking for ways to promote “Blessings from Above.” Feel free to check it out, but remember it’s still in its infancy: http://www.blessingsfromabove2.blogspot.com

    Thanks for taking the time to write this up. It’s so helpful!

  • dbp

    February 20th, 2008 6:08 pm

    Thus far, I’ve seen no correlation with my web traffic efforts and anything else. I’m putting out what I think is great content and still get no love.

    I’ve been at it for 40 days exactly and have a total of 300 unique vistors (awstats and google give about the same number) and I think I might have 2 subscribers. Is this about right?

    Please someone tell me if this is what I can expect for the first month or if this is really low traffic.

    Thanks!

  • Not John Chow

    February 21st, 2008 2:06 am

    There are many sources for traffic. I have found that Stumble, EntreCard, and SiteHoppin have all contributed to my blog.

    Whereas EntreCard’s traffic has led to an increase in my bounce rate, SumbleUpon and SiteHoppin have porvided traffic that seems to stick around a little longer.

    I think Skellie offers good advice. I also think that each of us needs to tailor advice to fit his or her own situation.

  • ITrush

    February 21st, 2008 2:42 am

    Are there any penalties on stumbling your own post?

    http://www.itrush.com

  • Mobashir Ahmed

    February 21st, 2008 3:14 am

    It’s pretty useful for a beginner like me.

  • Moin

    February 21st, 2008 4:59 am

    Good Advice! I’m not sure if SU traffic converts into clicks. 2,3 of my posts are getting stumbled everyday, every moment… but the click rate isn’t impressive if looking at the P-impressions.

    Maybe it needs more time =)

    Moin
    http://www.anewmorning.com

  • Harris

    February 21st, 2008 10:48 am

    My stumbles seem to have become worthless after stumbling one of my things. It’s kind of annoying that you don’t know how powerful you are. People are more likely to stumble things that are already popular, because it makes them more powerful, a vicious cycle.

    http://www.mindfeck.info

  • Justin(Pusha)

    February 21st, 2008 12:40 pm

    One thing that drives me CRAZY is when I stumble upon a group of photos. no description, no sources, no context, just pictures! Somehow people just keep “Thumbs Upping” these posts. If your reading this I encourage you to kill these posts. Especially the “Chalk artist” and “Freeze Frame” posts. Those ones drive me off the wall!

  • Ebony Jones

    February 22nd, 2008 6:12 am

    Thanks for this breakdown. I had used StumbleUpon a little but it did nothing for traffic. I see why now. Most of our content is time -sensitve news, politics, and gossip.

    We get good traffic from Digg and Reddit. But out biggest traffic generator is google organic searches…go figure?!

  • Demetria

    February 22nd, 2008 9:33 am

    Excellent tips!
    I’ve been looking into Stumble Upon for a while now…knowing it’s a great social media tool for internet marketing.
    I’ve been using sites like Twitter and Delicious, but after reading your post, I’m feeling a kick in the pants to move in the direction of Stumble Upon…thanks! :-)

  • soundboy

    February 22nd, 2008 12:03 pm

    Also making sure your page loads quickly helps the stumble traffic, they are a fickle crowd. For things like comics, stumble is gold.

  • Kerwin Stewart

    February 22nd, 2008 3:53 pm

    Thanks i tryed what you said and got 600 views in one day i am doing it your way from now on cause it works best for me.

  • seocontest2008 participant and stumbler Sandor

    February 22nd, 2008 9:56 pm

    Thank you very much for revealing the basics of the StumbleUpon optimization for blogs. As a participant to the Seocontest2008 international webmaster competition with focus on SEO, I already can confirm the great weight of the stumbles for attaining high SERPs.
    My skinny webpage exists only since 7 days, and by using a couple of blog posts with links to my seocontest2008 site, and stumbling them it reached to the search engine result position #135 within 5 days, and to the SERP #84 on the 7th day on Google. I forgot to mention the keyword used is seocontest2008.
    I can’t wait to see the results of applying your valuable tips.
    I’ll start using your advices today evening, and I’ll grow the number of my friends on StumbleUpon.
    I hope they will help me with a couple of stumbles.

  • seocontest2008 participant and stumbler Sandor

    February 22nd, 2008 9:57 pm

    Certainly I’ve added my thumbs up for your great blog post. Keep the good work on!

  • beverly black

    February 23rd, 2008 9:47 am

    Iam glad that you wrote this article because I did not know how to get started with Stumble.

  • modemlooper

    February 23rd, 2008 11:27 am

    Stumbleupon users do not convert easily. They just enjoy going to a random site. I think they hit the thumbs up button if the site looks good and the opposite if they dont.

  • Penny

    February 23rd, 2008 1:44 pm

    Great information here. I’ve learned quite a bit while browsing around on your blog. I also love how organized it is. With so much information, you have made it very easy to navigate through it all.

  • TechCache

    February 23rd, 2008 4:19 pm

    It is great if we can have CPM ads on our blog, since stumbler dont click on ads. What do you think? How to maximize our CPM ads?

  • Phillip Hines

    February 23rd, 2008 4:21 pm

    Agreed. The titles with excellent keywords really do set fire, I noticed that with a very good friend of mine at vigorouswriting.net

    This post is certainly a good reminder on how to write for the web.

  • Sam Freedoms Internet Marketing Controversy Blog

    February 23rd, 2008 9:47 pm

    Great…. get people more lost in the belief that this is how to become successful online. Yechhh… ewwww…..

  • maheshexp

    February 23rd, 2008 11:24 pm

    Good experiment on StumbleUpon dude…

  • prasanga

    February 24th, 2008 4:09 am

    Thank for sharing Darren, This post really clears up the whole process of stumbling. I have tried it and got some great results. Great post.

  • Terry Finley

    February 25th, 2008 10:32 am

    Great ideas to better use SU.
    thanks

  • Sibirskiy Tiger

    March 7th, 2008 6:39 pm

    Thanks for the info, I’ll give it a try

  • Reginald

    March 12th, 2008 5:26 am

    I’m wondering if the response you indicated is standard for SU or just in your case?

    It does sound almost too good to be true.

  • PcTuneUpGuy

    March 17th, 2008 5:24 am

    Wow, thanks Tammy. Did you just coin a new term? SUO? Brilliant!

  • Scott-LifeLindstrom

    March 24th, 2008 4:32 pm

    A very helpul post. I’v just started this blogging thing. Between Technorati, Digg, Reddit, SU and the rest, there is much to learn. This entry will push me to focus on SU for now. Thanks!

  • Matt Keegan

    March 25th, 2008 9:37 am

    Wow! 20,000 hits! I think my biggest number is just north of 5000. Stumble buttons links are a good idea — something I need to include on my flagship blog again.

  • indocontest

    March 26th, 2008 12:51 pm

    Thanks….
    Always love your tips and strategy…

  • Az

    June 14th, 2008 1:54 am

    I use stumbleupon quite often but there is one thing I have noticed. The people do not stay on the site for no time before hitting “stumble” again and if they do they almost never click ads or even come back. I have been told its the same with digg. Numbers are just numbers and people get all excited that they got 1000 page views a hour from stumbleupon but if they did not click one ad then what? I would rather have 600 page views a month and 2000 bucks sold of ads than to have 1 million page views and not a dime.

  • Chelsea FC- True Blue

    June 23rd, 2008 10:36 pm

    I am receiving pretty much nothing in terms of SU traffic. Hope that it picks up in the following months.

  • Alan

    July 4th, 2008 12:42 am

    Have been tinkering with SU for a little while now. So far my biggest success has been driving 90 visitors. Well, gotta keep at it. Thanks for the tips.

  • Explore Colorado

    July 5th, 2008 7:08 pm

    StumbleUpon tips are very good but I have question about this topic.Does anybody know how StumbleUpon index pages – many my posts are not indexed.How long it takes to index pages ?

  • Traffic2MyPage.com

    July 16th, 2008 3:37 pm

    thanks for that

    stumbleupon is a major source of my traffic and thanks for the great tips

  • ProBlogger is Banned from StumbleUpon

    August 1st, 2008 8:58 pm

    [...] How to Write Posts that Set StumbleUpon on Fire [...]

  • Earn money for surfing

    August 1st, 2008 9:37 pm

    Thank you very much for the info. I was mainly using digg.

  • eunice

    August 14th, 2008 1:52 pm

    I, too, realised that if I stumble upon some sites, my site gets a no. of stumbles too. I have been trying to find out how to optimize my site so as to get more stumbles and these useful tips come in handy now. Thank u.

  • ZaggedEdge

    August 17th, 2008 1:56 pm

    I totally agree about the images in the posts– good point, make them eye catching!

  • SEO Genius

    August 17th, 2008 7:14 pm

    Thanks, some great tips here that i will definitely implement soon enough :)

  • About Online Tips

    August 20th, 2008 11:09 pm

    Thanks a ton for these wonderful tips on Stumbleupon.

  • MOin

    September 3rd, 2008 5:21 am

    oh wow really great tips i like this article very much

  • How to Grow a Young Blog With StumbleUpon

    September 20th, 2008 12:01 am

    [...] How to Write Posts That Set StumbleUpon on Fire [...]

  • Bill Canaday

    September 23rd, 2008 7:38 am

    I’m thinking that SU has a useful limit for self-stumbling.

    I only Stumble my own posts when I am particularly satisfied with them … not all that often. Hopefully the SU self-stumble cap is not a life-time cap, but one pro-rated over time … say 24 Stumbles from the same domain per rolling 12 month period.

    At the current time, I’d be happy to write two SU-good posts per month … nay, I’d be ecstatic! But, if I did – and if SU allowed me to post just the first 12 of them – I’d expect that the blog would be so popular that I wouldn’t have to self-promote on SU any more.

    How many blogs do you know that kick out a ‘defining’ post every two weeks? Not many. Ernest Hemingway, eat your heart out!

    As a SU user, I stay … sometimes for hours … on the blogs / sites that have useful content. I will even leave them open overnight if I can’t finish them all in one session. OTOH, I’m amscray out of there if the site is junk. That is, if I am greeted by porn, flashing advs., stolen graphics (and nothing but!), all YouTube links, slow-pokey Flash content and so on. I will stay only slightly longer if the style is okay but the writing is junk. While I can appreciate that English is not the first language of many bloggers, it is my ONLY language and if you want to capture my eyeballs, you’ll have to do well by it.

    There seems to be no real limit to how many ways there are to create junk and foist it on an unsuspecting planet.

  • Gary D

    December 1st, 2008 11:45 am

    Excellent advice. I’ve seen my stumble traffic increase recently by following several of your tips. I’ll apply more of your tips and hopefully will see it continue.

  • Poh Heng

    December 26th, 2008 5:31 pm

    I have vastly different Stumble Upon results from different blogs i owned. Now i can understand why and will focus on the tips you have given. Thanks alot.

  • Toddler Parenting Tips

    December 28th, 2008 1:54 am

    This is a very informative post on Stumble Upon. Thanks alot.

  • Paul Morales

    February 24th, 2009 5:00 am

    Tons of great tips. I’m just now getting my stumbleupon going. I plan on getting more readers so I can get more stumbles on my own content.

    I’m still working on my way up ;)

  • Investment TIps

    March 12th, 2009 4:39 pm

    Awesome post with great tips for budding bloggers like me..will surely use these tips to reach out to a wider group of readers.

  • blogekle

    May 22nd, 2009 5:50 am

    Thanks for sharing, great post. StumbleUpon is my prefer social network, indeed is from I got the most of my referrer traffic.


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