Skellie wrote this post. She writes plenty more advanced blogging tips and strategies at Skelliewag.org. You can also get to know Skellie on Twitter.
It’s ironic that arguably the biggest challenges for a blogger come when they are least experienced–when their blog is just a few weeks or months old.
Any blogger will tell you that turning a new, undiscovered blog into a hot piece of web property is not easy. The Darren Rowses, Leo Babautas and Yaro Staraks of the world went through this same difficult teething period, like everyone else.
The accepted idea is that when you first launch your blog, growth will be very slow because you’re only able to toot your own horn to gather new visitors, by commenting and leaving links back to your blog, by asking for links and by guest-posting.
All these actions will help your blog grow, but it might take several months before your blog generates any kind of real traction and things start happening without you to push them along.
But what if there was a way to grow a new blog quickly?
I want to suggest that there is one method for growth of a new blog that can be more effective than any other, yet it’s commonly overlooked. It is very possible to grow a young blog with very little starting traffic mainly on the back of StumbleUpon. Here’s how.
The premise
How would you feel about receiving 1,000 visitors on the first day of your new blog’s launch? How would you feel about receiving 1,000 visitors on any day? This number might seem unattainable to you at the moment, but it isn’t. Not with a little preparation.
The ingredients for this strategy are:
- A network of at least twenty active StumbleUpon users.
- Stumble-worthy content.
Did you know that you can use the StumbleUpon toolbar to send pages to your StumbleUpon friends with a little message asking for a quick stumble? If your network of SU friends knows you and likes you, and the content is good, they’ll be more than happy to oblige. Each stumble can bring several hundred visitors to your blog. Reviews arguably carry even more weight when determining the amount of traffic that is sent to your content.
If you can get 20 people to stumble a single page you send to them, you could receive not just one thousand visitors, but possibly more than that. If your content is good enough to go viral on its own, you could receive several thousand, or several tens of thousands!
That’s all well and good, but it’s also easier said than done. And like most things that are easier said than done, it’s very much worth doing. You might have found yourself a little troubled at the two ‘ingredients’ outlined above. After all, how do you ‘build a network of at least twenty active StumbleUpon users?’ What can you do to make sure your content is ‘stumble-worthy’ (whatever that means)?
Photo by Toronja Azul.
The how
First, let’s deal with building a network of StumbleUpon friends. Once your blog takes off you’ll find this easy. Readers will ‘friend’ you and, because they like your stuff, will probably help you whenever you ask for it, as long as you’re willing to do the same in return. The problem is that your blog hasn’t taken off yet, so how do you create your network?
Unfortunately, the answer isn’t StumbleUpon. It’s not a great place to meet new people on its own. Instead, try emailing other bloggers who are also in the same situation and working to get their blog off the ground, and ask if they would like to be friends on StumbleUpon. If you want to increase your odds of that blogger actually being on StumbleUpon, look for a link to their profile on their About page. You could even go through the comments at ProBlogger. I expect most ProBlogger users know the value of having a StumbleUpon account by now!
The truth is that if you befriend people in this manner (being, for mutual benefit) you’re going to have stumble their stuff as much as they stumble yours. If you’re getting friends from anywhere you can, you’re not always going to like what they send you, but you should still be willing to stumble it as an investment in your own blog. Social media purists will disagree with me here, and if so, you’re welcome to build a network by other means (spending five to ten hours on StumbleUpon a week will do it).
If you have some choice as to who you add to your network, try to collect people who consistently produce content that you like.
You should expect this networking strategy to be successful because most bloggers feel guilty about sending their stuff to people for stumbles but really wish they could do it. Some do it anyway. I don’t know many bloggers, particularly new bloggers who are also going through a challenging ‘baby blog’ period, who wouldn’t welcome the approach of someone who is more than happy to stumble their stuff.
The logistics of this aren’t immediately obvious but they’re quite simple once you remember them.
Sending pages to others
To send pages, you have to install the StumbleUpon toolbar.
Once you’ve navigated to the page you want to send to another user, click ‘Send to’ on the toolbar and select the target user from the drop-down menu. You can send a message to accompany the page. Generally you should ask for the specific action you want (stumble, or occasionally a review), and most importantly, offer to help out the other person in return.
If you’re always asking for stumbles and never giving them, people will tire of you quickly. That being said, you should be vigilant to make sure the people you send pages to are actually stumbling your stuff. If not, there’s no need to be angry as it’s their choice, but you should work on adding a new, active user to your network in their place.
Creating content that works with StumbleUpon
Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, you need to build your ability to create content that is well-optimized for StumbleUpon. If you are continually getting stumbles on content that is clearly not suitable for social media then the StumbleUpon algorithm is likely to stop sending traffic to your blog all-together. If all your stumbles are coming from mutual friends and not from unaffiliated users then this is a pretty good sign that your content is not actually stumble-worthy.
If it sounds scary, it isn’t. As long as you provide genuine value for others, your content should generate some stumbles without your help. Best of all, there are a few solid principles you can follow to create content that is consistently well-optimized for StumbleUpon traffic.
Here are two posts I’ve written previously at ProBlogger about writing great Stumble-worthy content and converting the resulting StumbleUpon visitors into loyal readers:
While pursuing this strategy, continue to expand your network of SU friends and send content to different people each time. There’s a lot of evidence to suggest StumbleUpon’s algorithm rewards blogs that are stumbled by a wide variety of users, rather than the same people all the time.
Try this strategy and see if you can get more traffic than ever before. Good luck!
Hey Skellie, I notice you write a lot about Stumbleupon. This shows how much you believe in its ability to really drive traffic. I completely agree that, for new blogs especially, it’s the way to go.
I appreciate you sharing this great info and will start focusing more on adding stumble friends as I start my network of stumblers.
Anyone interested in working with me to get our blogs more traffic through Stumbleupon, just let me know. Eric.
Great post!
Growing a new blog with StumbleUpon is great if you want to get some traffic.
My blog receives about 200-300 visits from SU daily, with spikes of up to +1,000 visits every week.
The arsenal definitely has to be the 20 active members, who are willing to help out.
I have about 70 of them :)
isn’t networking great?
Thanks for revealing my secret :p
StumbleUpon has been like one of the more prominent ways to get traffic especially with interesting articles and posts that can go viral on its own after the first push.
It’s still possible to make friends on StumbleUpon, not only for help in stumbling but as in keeping in good contact with one another.
There are lots of gems out there to discover too from that social media site too.
Thanks for the share here Skellie! Nice seeing you here on ProBlogger too. :)
Daniel
Thanks for your post Skellie. I had lost some faith in StumbleUpon but I’ve been inspired to try again. I’m hoping to add some more friends so if anyone wants to add me then feel free. I’ll certainly be looking through the list of users on Pro Blogger who added their details a few weeks ago.
STUMBLED!
I have been using SU for a long time and have never used the “Send to” command, I kind of feel silly now.
Thanks.
I was thinking the same thing that Skellie has talked about stumbleupon more than once. I joined SU but have not actively used it. I certainly will give it a try. I’ll look you up Eric!
I see the main problem for most people is that they do not even know they can send certain posts to others stumbleupon users. If they do know they can do it than they are only sending a blog post to other people but they are never stumbling that person stuff. This will only anger other users on stumbleupon and then they will never even review or stumble your blog post. You have to be fairly active on these kind of web sites to get the traffic you are really looking for. If you are not active than you can waste a lot of time trying to create good content and never get the traffic you are looking for from stumble upon.
My number one recommendation is to just be as active as you possibly can be and you should have no problem getting traffic to your blog from stumbleupon.
I see the main problem for most people is that they do not even know they can send certain posts to others stumbleupon users. If they do know they can do it than they are only sending a blog post to other people but they are never stumbling that person stuff. This will only anger other users on stumbleupon and then they will never even review or stumble your blog post. You have to be fairly active on these kind of web sites to get the traffic you are really looking for. If you are not active than you can waste a lot of time trying to create good content and never get the traffic you are looking for from stumble upon.
My number one recommendation is to just be as active as you possibly can be and you should have no problem getting traffic to your blog from stumbleupon.
Question: if I have 2 blogs, do I need to have to separate SU accounts in order to drive traffic to both of them?
Yeah, I have been telling bloggers to use StumbleUpon but with the massive warning of not abusing the system we love soo much. Right now I think the spam level there is tolerable, but it will probably overtake this site eventually just like it has done to several others. For the time being, its a great way to find users who care about your specific topics, but it has to be one of the funnest sites ever made :)
The only problem I’ve found with SU traffic is that it is very ephemeral. Bounce rates are enormously high and time spent on the site is fleeting. A 1% conversion rate for RSS would be enormous for StumbleUpon traffic.
I have had trouble building a network there…being a ‘Mommy Blogger’ there aren’t that many of us who network at SU (that I’ve come across – not that I dug that deep) and I haven’t figured out why – we network everywhere else.
Maybe I should invest some time in recruiting a network there.
ps. My profile link is on my about page if any other moms are reading this and want to connect :)
Thanks for that. I’ll definetely try it. Since I created a blog only a week or so ago, its been very difficult to generate any traffic, and you’re write, leaving comments and links to my blog seemed to be the only way in the beginning because most other sources seems like you need SOME traffic already to generate more. But I’ll go out there and try to follow your steps.
I personally find it annoying to have my stumbler friends send me their own pages for review. When that happens I often unfan them. If your page is good, your stumbles will take care of themselves. Stumbleupon is a very different culture than Digg or Twitter, that’s why I like it. People on stumbleupon are very sensitive to what they consider ‘spammers’, at least that’s my experience.
This advice is priceless for beginners such as myself. I do plan to seriously try this method out. Contacting new bloggers who are in a situation similar to mine was not something I had ever thought of, and it’s a very clever way to go about it.
I’ve read some blog posts referring to SU but none really clarified how to go about it. This post has cleared up that issue. Thanks Skellie, looking forward to your next post!
Skellie, very nice article.
I have one question about stumble. I’ve been using stumble very actively for a month now and I noticed that traffic from stumble comes in hundreds but only for a short period of time i.e. 20 minutes. For example yesterday I had about 1000 visitors from stumble for about 20 minutes. Do you know why this happens. What triggers this storm?
My Stumble profile for anyone interested in joining me is:http://myln.stumbleupon.com/home/
Shameless Stumble username plug:
TheodoreHuxtable
This is fine article and explained the path to follow .
Any i would like to know does this work for all kinds of blogs.
Earlier i found some ware that digg is good for technology blogs, stumble for news kind of blogs….
Any possible clarifications ?
Thanks for this post. I have gotten I high number of referrals from Twitter and StumbleUpon, but still have to get my bearings on the latter. Have been wondering how to leverage it for my blog.
I was getting discouraged that despite commenting on other blogs and joining blog rings, I was getting very few comments. My blog is only two weeks old, so maybe I am impatient, ha ha. But I really want to maximize traffic. Thanks for the info about Stumble Upon!
This is a great post. Thanks so much for sharing Skellie and Darren! I had a stumble account a long time ago and totally forgot about it. So, this was a nice refresher to remind me that stumbling can work!
Eric…I’d love to link up with you and anyone else on stumble upon to help get all of our blogs a little more traffic. I’m new to stumble upon so I don’t really have a network. My username is: dominickevans for anyone who wants to add me! I look forward to using this excellent resource to help others (and myself!
It makes a scary feeling for me to go all the way do as Skellie has mentioned. The harder you work the luckier you get. right. i will do it . thanks
Completely agree with your view on SU and highly recommend the suggestions you have shared Skellie.. Have been thanking stumbleupon profusely ever since it sent a good 500+ visits daily in the first couple of weeks of my new blog on behavioral finance…the best part of SU like I have seen is that the traffic sometimes rises up in between when a few guys thumb it up much after the original stumble… helps find newer audience as well besides the guys you know on SU
Personally I never liked such link/stumble/… exchanges, but I’m not sure now…
If your blog is awful, it doesn’t work anyway, and if your blog is great, it can speed up the promoting process
If anyone is interested in networking together using Stumble Upon, the follow me on twitter and leave me a twit that says that you’re interested, or click my name and contact me using my blog.
Twitter Account – http://twitter.com/steven_sanders
I haven’t had luck with stumbleupon but I started up with it again yesterday. I’ll stick with your plan and see where it goes. If anyone is interested in adding a travel type blog to your stumbleupon sphere of influence you should look me up.
great article skellie,
how about throwing some light in the same way on twitter,
i could never really get a hang of it really
I have problems with stumbleUpon I have created Links to stumbleupon from my page but when I click on it it brings me to the page and then asks me to create an account I have tried signing in ahead of time in another browser instance and I still get the same thing any advice on how to get this to work. You can see an example at: http://kidzense.blogspot.com/2008/09/lets-get-ready-for-weekend.html
TIA
Mike
This is so much help. New to blogging and still in the process of setting up site and so much to learn; for me anyway. Thanks Skellie.
I wonder if the rumoured sale of StumbleUpon will effect it positively or negatively.
I’ve found I’ve had little success with Stumble, occasionally I’ll have an article stumbled and get 50 hits or something out of it but that’s so rare.
I agree with Dante that SU is a different culture that is VERY sensitive to anything they consider to be spam… While I agree with Skellie that SU can be very helpful, I would just suggest being careful that you don’t give a thumbs up to very much junk…
I have always wanted to make a few Stumble Upon buddies and have a mutual friendship where we each Stumble each others content.
The benefits of this approach are very rewarding. You could also do it over and over again, which leads to a totally new way you can market your blog.
Just thinking of the possibilities is making me excited! I love Stumble Upon, it’s a network that many bloggers fail to see.
I would reccomend anyone who is new to Stumble Upon or anyone who wants to know how to market their blog, go check out Caroline Middlebrook . This is a very good course of using Stumble Upon to market your blog.
Thanks skellie.
Skellie,
Interesting Stumble networking idea. Though Stumble regularly works for my site, I’ll say that Stumblers many times are browsers–most for a few seconds.
I’d much rather be Dugg, Propelled, Yahoo’d.
I’d also like to invite Toronja Azul to submit her adorable puppy photo to our Cute Mugs section at: http://www.BasilAndSpice.com
Kelly Jad’on/Founder
I just read the Problogger book, and the last chapter (or near the last chapter) was about blog real estate. It’s great to see that there’s more info available online.
BTW, the book was great. The best $20 I’ve ever spent on a book!
Thomas :)
Skellie I appreciate the post as I am in the baby stages of my newewst blog. I have friends in the SU network that have used it for years and it has been very effective with SEO as well.
Thanks again!
Mat: Try posting a joke or a funny pic, and you’ll get stumbled like crazy (although you need a few stumblers for the “starter”)
I’ve got 15,000 traffic in 2 days from StumbleUpon once (and 8000 visitors 2 days ago, actually). Just make sure that your blog is ready for it. I needed to install a caching plug-in to make sure that my host didn’t “crash” lol
and yeah,as I said..stumblers don’t have much time, so they prefer short posts (and mostly jokes)
Great post; I’ve seen so much on stumble and had yet to really figure out the value of the system.
Shameless request:
username: Everyday-Finance
Anyone with an interest/blog on anything finance, from investing, to savings to consumer reviews, etc., please join my network; i’d like to get something going.
Alright, so I may sound mildly retarded here, but each time I stumble this particular post from my toolbar I just installed, I end up at some ad-heavy site. It doesn’t add this post to my stumble profile, but something unrelated. What am I doing wrong here?
tx
Fantastic post! Thanks, Skellie. I love the practical application tips, I’m going to use them.
This is an awesome post. My young entrepreneurs blog has been going for about 6 months and I really need a jump in traffic. This would be a great idea. Thanks for the tips
StumbleUpon has been like one of the more prominent ways to get traffic especially with interesting articles and posts that can go viral on its own after the first push.
It’s still possible to make friends on StumbleUpon, not only for help in stumbling but as in keeping in good contact with one another.
There are lots of gems out there to discover too from that social media site too.
Thanks for the share here Skellie! Nice seeing you here on ProBlogger too. :)
Good advice – I have been writing SU-worthy content and getting traffic, and do have a few active/power users too.
One thing to note: asking for stumbles via toolbar reduces the amount of traffic you get, as does discovery of your posts by the same user several times (be it you or your friends).
I love how you peel away the FUD to get to the essence of what works. You have a knack for prescriptive guidance.
Okay… I’ve setup a secret stumble upon group page on my blog for anyone that’s interested in trying this crazy method.
It never hurts to try. What do you have to lose?
http://www.steven-sanders.com/stumble-upon-secret-user-group/
Wow, thanks Skellie. I’ve dabbled in SU for a while, but now I’m going to make it a bigger part of my blogging efforts.
Thanks. You have a new fan :)
Maybe I’m alone here, but I restrict StumbleUpon for root pages and keep to Digg and other bookmarking sites for deeper pages.
On a side note, you may be interested in a recent blog post of mine, How I Organize My Life Online in 3 Simple Steps, including StumbleUpon, Digg, and Del.icio.us.
Thanks, Skellie! That was one well-written, well-thought-out article.
StumbleUpon, here I come.
Blogosphere, you better look out.
Excellent article. I would of preferred the article to go a little more in depth but overall a good brief look in to SU.
Yes,,good, when the young blog has a chance to become popular with stumbleUpon, thans, great post