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.
Great tips, I agree…SU can be a great source of traffic if you know how to work it.
So what’s your mission statement?
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.
Yeah great tips darren SU has given me alot of traffic in some cases 1000 visitors in 1 day!
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.
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.
For what it’s worth, I stumbled this post at least. ;)
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?
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.
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.
Stumble is hit and miss for me. I’ve had lots of traffic and none.
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.
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.
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
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.
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!
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…
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!
Great info, this article motivated me to apply a more appropriate description to my blog. Now I need to make it pretty.
I’ve never used Stumble Upon before but that sounds like a good way to get some traffic without requiring 100 votes/diggs!
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.
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.
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
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.
I love StumbleUpon traffic. It comes in huge waves but I see lots of repeat visitors from Stumble after the initial wave.
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).
I agree about Stumbleupon. It gave me over 1000 hits before i even knew what it was.
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.
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/
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.
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?
Yea Darren, I agree with you. been stumbling pages a lot.
Title is the key for Stumble Upon. It should be catchy (and controversial)
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.
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.
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.
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!
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 ;)
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.
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.
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.
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
Please. Are we aloud to post adsense and cripsads on the same blog? Sorry to impose.
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.
Great post, I recently signed up with stumble upon.
thanks for the info I recently signed up with Stumble upon.
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.
Great post with a lot of useful information. Thank you so much.
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.
Stumble upon sends good traffic steadily while digg is a big burst and boom.The sudden traffic rush is over even sooner.