stumbleupon Archives - Marc's Blog

Even though this blog is popular, one of my big goals is to get more blog traffic. My logic was that a little more of something beneficial wouldn’t hurt. I read various articles and blogging books. I knew several methods in other people’s articles and books, but one method that was repeatedly talked about was a method I never dared to try: submit your blog to StumbleUpon. Reddit and Digg were also mentioned, but I decided to focus my time on StumbleUpon.

I had created an account a few years ago, was barely active, and then just left it behind. When I logged into my StumbleUpon account for the first time in a few years, I had 125 followers. Not bad for a few years of inactivity!

I decided to promote my latest articles on StumbleUpon, but to no avail. Most of them got a few visitors, and the most amount of visitors I got for one blog post I shared on StumbleUpon was a little under 50 visitors. I knew StumbleUpon could produce big results because I saw the spike in traffic it gave other bloggers, so I wondered, “Why not me?”

I finally struck gold with my blog post 20 Thoughts To Live By. Unlike all of the other blog posts I shared on StumbleUpon, this was a very concise blog post. The other blog posts I shared were in-depth. My in-depth blog posts were not getting as much attention on StumbleUpon because people simply use StumbleUpon to surf the web and interact at the same time.

I put the blog post on StumbleUpon late at night. I got about 150 views from StumbleUpon that night. As I went to bed, I thought of StumbleUpon as a simple experiment that panned out nicely.

When I woke up, it was easy to see that my blog post went viral on StumbleUpon. On the day it went viral on StumbleUpon, that one blog post brought in over 66% of my blog’s traffic. At the time, my blog averaged 800 daily visitors and 1,100 daily views. On that day, my blog got over 2,879 visitors and 3,429 views. My blog’s traffic tripled overnight all because of one StumbleUpon post.

[tweetthis url=”http://bit.ly/1EXMGlG”]Learn how one blog got over 2,500 extra visitors in one day from #StumbleUpon.[/tweetthis]

A few days after the blog post went viral on StumbleUpon, I decided to assess the experiment to see whether StumbleUpon was worth it or not. One of the most commonly discussed disadvantages is that virtually every StumbleUpon visitor only counted as one pageview. Most of the people who came to my blog from StumbleUpon only viewed that blog post and stumbled to the next page on StumbleUpon. Even though I saw record-breaking traffic, I only got 13 subscribers which is the same daily number of subscribers I already got prior to the blog post.

There was some good news about going viral on StumbleUpon. The first reason is that I now have massive social proof. The social proof of your blog post being shared by thousands of people shows that your blog post is valuable enough to have been shared by thousands of people.

Social media still plays a big role in the search engines, and StumbleUpon is a social network. A few days after the blog post went viral on StumbleUpon, I noticed that blog post getting more traffic than usual. My belief is also that when visitors scroll down to the end and see the blog post has been shared thousands of times, some of them will be more likely to share that blog post. People like to share what is popular.

In Conclusion

My opinion about StumbleUpon is that in the short-term, it just produces a big number with no dramatic change. The only short-term change is the social proof at the bottom of your blog posts if you have the StumbleUpon button enabled. In the long-term, people who visit your blog on StumbleUpon multiple times may decide to return. All of this StumbleUpon traffic results in more attention from the search engines. When people see the blog post is popular on StumbleUpon, they may decide to share it on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, thus increasing your blog post’s search rank (therefore, it increases your blog’s search rank).

What are your thoughts on StumbleUpon? Do you have any advice for going viral on StumbleUpon? Please share your thoughts and advice about StumbleUpon below.

StumbleUpon is one of the most underrated social networks on the web for getting blog traffic and growing your presence on the web. You do not need to have thousands of followers on various social networks for your content to be seen by thousands of people.

One of the most common reasons people do not give StumbleUpon a try is because of its reputation for a high bounce rate. Many people who visit your blog through StumbleUpon only visit for a few seconds and then move on to the next webpage. However, some marketers have noticed long-term relationships with visitors that come from StumbleUpon. Other than that reason, here are five reasons why you need to give StumbleUpon a try.

#1: Old Content Can Go Viral Too

You can make the same argument for any social network. The only difference about StumbleUpon is that it is extremely easy for content to go viral there, and old content can go viral too. Some content that was posted on StumbleUpon weeks, months, or even years ago may suddenly become viral. Therefore, if you are posting on StumbleUpon, and the post does not go viral, it is a seed that can grow and become viral later.

On other social networks, the chance of an older post going viral are not as likely. Tweets quickly go out of view on a feed (they get shoved down to the ever-growing bottom of the feed), and within a few weeks, most YouTube videos go from new to old. On StumbleUpon, it does not matter how old the content is. It still has a good chance of going viral.

#2: Posting On StumbleUpon Is Easy

StumbleUpon is by no means a difficult social network to post on. While YouTube requires a good video, all you have to do on StumbleUpon is take the link from any webpage, paste it, put the link under a category, and then write an optional comment. You can send out a few posts on StumbleUpon every day, and as you write more posts, you will have a higher probability of one of your posts going viral.

[tweetthis url=”http://bit.ly/1wb8HUO”]It’s easy to post something on StumbleUpon, and it’s not difficult for posts to go viral.[/tweetthis]

#3: StumbleUpon Is A Different Type Of Community

StumbleUpon is not the type of community commonly associated with social networks. Unlike Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, StumbleUpon allows you to surf through other people’s websites while socializing in the process. It is a different social network with a different community for you to engage with.

#4: StumbleUpon Is Growing

The same case can be made with other social networks, but StumbleUpon is growing fast. StumbleUpon quickly went from another site on the web to a social network that gets more than one billion stumbles every month. As StumbleUpon continues to grow, going viral will present a greater impact in your traffic. When you go viral on StumbleUpon, you will get a big spike in traffic. Some content on StumbleUpon stays viral, and that spike in traffic may suddenly become the new norm.

If the traffic you get from StumbleUpon slows down, you may gain more traffic from other places because of the exposure you got from StumbleUpon (i.e. search engines, someone who saw your blog post on StumbleUpon mentioned it in a tweet or one of their blog posts). The more StumbleUpon grows, the greater the impact is of going viral, and the impact of going viral is already remarkable.

#5: Your Content Can Go Viral On StumbleUpon Even If Someone Else Share It

It is true that we can’t do everything all by ourselves. We need help from other people. Having a StumbleUpon button at the bottom of all of your blog posts gives your readers a chance to help spread the word on StumbleUpon and possibly make your blog post go viral.

In Conclusion

StumbleUpon may be different from the other social networks, but it is a social network that bloggers and entrepreneurs alike can no longer afford to overlook. StumbleUpon is a great social network for getting more blog traffic, and this social network makes it easier for your older blog posts to go viral. Even a blog post that was written years ago can still go viral on StumbleUpon and get a lot of attention.

Do you use StumbleUpon? Are you going to create a StumbleUpon account? If so, be sure to follow me on StumbleUpon so we can interact with each other.