Posted on Wednesday, 5th August 2009 by Frank
Lately after I write a post, there’s been one social network in particular that brings me in a solid amount of traffic for my posts. I know what you are probably thinking, it’s Twitter. Nope, it’s definitely not Twitter. It’s StumbleUpon. I honestly can’t believe I am saying this myself because I have always thought StumbleUpon was a social network that only brought traffic to those with high authority websites. I viewed it like Digg basically and really didn’t find the use in using it. However, there’s one major thing that StumbleUpon has done that really has increased the amount of visitors I get a day.
If you haven’t given StumbleUpon a chance yet, I suggest you do. Your website will benefit from using it. Interesting enough, well known bloggers have always said that StumbleUpon brings them a lot of traffic and is responsible for the majority of it. I can say that this is the case for my site as well. I am now going to get to the point and clue you in on why this social network can bring you a lot of visitors per post. It’s simple, use their URL shortener http://su.pr and you will see the visitors pile in. How does this bring in visitors you may be wondering? Is it like every other URL shortener? No, it’s not whatsoever!
Here’s what you have to do. First sign up for a free account on StumbleUpon. Next, you will need a Twitter account - which I am sure you have already, or at least I hope you do! Finally, when you go to the website for the StumbleUpon URL shortener, all you will do is post a Twitter update to your new blog post there. Granted you will drive traffic to your posts through clicks, but there’s an additional perk that made more unique visitors come to my site.
After you create the update you wish to send to Twitter, an Su.pr URL link will be created automatically to shorten your long URL. Once the update is completed, you will see below a list of your recent updates. Take the one you just made for example. There’s an image icon that says “thumbs up.” Make sure you click that and provide a review of your own post. This will allow your blog post to be added to the StumbleUpon database and have the potential of being “stumbled upon” by members of that social network community. The more people that give you a “thumbs up” on your post, the better chance you have of bringing in more unique visitors. Unique visitors are key when driving traffic to your site because they have never been there before and it gives you the opportunity to have them as loyal readers.
To give you an idea on how this works, I’ll give you an example directly related to how one of the links for my blog posts worked. I did a post recently titled Is It Really Apple’s Fault? Even though the link itself only received 6 clicks, I received 72 “stumbles” (it’s noted with a +72). This basically means that 72 unique visitors saw my blog post through StumbleUpon. What you should want to be accomplishing at this point is making those unique visitors stay on your site for a decent period of time and decrease your bounce rate (you don’t want your visitors to visit and leave quickly.) However this is all dependent on how compelling your content is!
In conclusion, this is why StumbleUpon is the social network I recommend to use if you are trying to bring unique visitors to your site. Yesterday, I brought in 103 unique visitors and I didn’t even write a blog post yesterday! Granted that’s not as many as most people bring in, but my site is young and for me it’s a step up. You can’t go wrong with StumbleUpon. This is coming from someone who use to think StumbleUpon was a waste of time. It’s really interesting how one simple feature can change your mind completely.
Further reading:
10 Tips For Interacting With Social Networks And Technology
The Difference Between Business And Online Social Networks
Where’s The Value In Social Bookmarking?
Is FriendFeed A Blossoming Social Network?
Popularity: 7% [?]
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my blog posts!
Tags: Social Networks, stumbleupon, traffic, unique visitors
Posted in Social Networks | Comments (9)
August 11th, 2009 at 10:20 am
I’m a big fan of Stumble Upon! I like their system of stumbling sites to be viewed by readers. The more active you use stumble upon, the more visitors you can get to your site.
StumbleUpon is simply amazing!
[Reply]
Frank Reply:
August 11th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
I have to agree 100% with you. At first, I didn’t see the full potential of StumbleUpon, but once that short URL came out, I knew the possibilities for visitors were endless. However, when you say, “the more active you are, the more visitors you can get” – what did you mean by that? What could I do to bring in more viewers?
[Reply]
August 14th, 2009 at 9:41 am
I’ve both stumbleupon and twitter accounts. I’m sorry but I fail to comprehend your tip :’Finally, when you go to the website for the StumbleUpon URL shortener, all you will do is post a Twitter update to your new blog post there.’ Can you please explain in detail for a dumb reader like me
thanks
[Reply]
Frank Reply:
August 14th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Sure, I can explain further. Go to this website: http://su.pr and you will see at the top right a spot to sign in to your StumbleUpon account. Under that you will see a spot where you login in to your Twitter account to link the two together.
After you do that, post an update in the box with the permalink to your blog post and click post to Twitter. Su.pr will now create a short StumbleUpon URL for your long permalink and that along with the update will be posted to Twitter. To get people to view your blog post to StumbleUpon, you will want to click the “thumbs up” box next to your update. This will allow it to be filtered into StumbleUpon’s database to be viewed by other users. The more “thumbs up” you get the more views you can get. For me, I have had one “thumbs up” get me 86 views through StumbleUpon. You will be able to know this from the stats shown on Su.pr. Next to your update you will learn how many clicks your link got on Twitter and then under that number you will see +86. This says you have 86 “stumbles” or views from StumbleUpon users.
[Reply]
August 15th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Thanks Frank for explaining in detail. I tried it today and found it quick and useful!
[Reply]
Frank Reply:
August 15th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
I am glad you found it useful and that my explanation made sense to you. I think it’s worth using for any blog post you do. I only use it when promoting my own content. I’ll “stumble” content of others when I am on the site directly.
[Reply]
August 16th, 2009 at 12:13 am
[...] Which Social Network Will Bring Guaranteed Visitors [...]
August 19th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Frank,
I don’t get much traffic through Twitter, but StumbleUpon gives me a nice decent amount. I don’t like Digg as much anymore because they are always changing up the service.
-Kai
[Reply]
Frank Reply:
August 19th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
Kai,
StumbleUpon is definitely best for driving traffic to your site. Twitter gets me clicks here and there, but not that much traffic. The most amount of clicks I received on my own through twitter was maybe in the high 20′s. When I was re-tweeted, I had about 61 clicks. The bounce rate is what I need to lower. StumbleUpon brings you a lot of unique visitors though, which is what everyone wants.
[Reply]