StumbleUpon is a great service which allows members to submit, vote and review content. Because of the great resources provided, StumbleUpon can be a great traffic provider for websites or simply webpages. Read impNerds article StumbleUpon: A Beginner’s Guide for more information.
What is important to Stumblers?
Design - Stumblers like simple, yet elegant design. Generally Web 2.0 sites do well with this.
Content - Same as anything. The content has to interest the stumbler. Be unique and creative.
Blended or little ads - Like all social networks, Stumblers aren’t fans of ads. Keep them at the very least blended or remove them all together for the page receiving traffic.
Offer a contest - Everyone loves a contest. Offer something for them to participate in.
Broad tagging helps - If you Stumble your own page use as many tags as possible while keeping it relevant. This will help send the page to Stumblers who have similar interests of the page and help your page be found using the search feature.
How to retain StumbleUpon visitors
Brand your site. Whenever they see a certain image, word or even think about a category, make them think of your brand.
Offer email subscriptions - If you offer a RSS feed, be sure to offer email subscriptions. Although RSS feeds have taken off within the past year or two, many Internet users still don’t know what RSS is or how to utilize it.
Welcome StumbleUpon visitors - Everyone loves to feel welcome, so if you notice a page getting tremendous StumbleUpon traffic, welcome them.
Interact - Everyone loves to be a part of something. If you have a way for visitors to comment, respond as quickly as possible.
What determines how much traffic I receive?
Number of StumbleUpon users who thumbed up - by far the most important
Number of users in your network. A wider reach will translate into more people seeing what you stumbled.
Number of StumbleUpon friends you have - may increase authority of your stumbles
Number of profile reviews and thumbs up - may increase authority of your stumbles
Who tagged or submitted the page - was it a power user or just a newbie?
Positives about being Stumbled
Traffic is long term. Many Stumblers return to pages after they have thumbed them up to see if anything new has happened.
Webpages can receive anywhere from 100-8000+ unique visitors a day from Stumbles.
Negatives about getting Stumbled
Low CTR - Stumblers don’t like to click. They come for the content, not the ads.
No significant RSS subscribers - Although many do subscribe to RSS, usually it is deleted after a few days.
Diverse demographic - Many types of pages do well, but videos, humor, web 2.0, pictures do the best since they can be embedded on Stumble blogs.
Other ways to get traffic through StumbleUpon
Use the email feature - email anyone as long as you know their email address
Send-a-friend - send to mutual StumbleUpon friends
Stumble websites that link to yours - Will indirectly increase traffic to your page by sending Stumblers to the page you are linked from.
Written: Sep 22, 2007
Tags: stumbleupon, traffic
Leave a Reply
Steve
January 9, 2008 @ 1:17 pm | Reply
Stumble websites that link to yours - Will indirectly increase traffic to your page by sending Stumblers to the page you are linked from.
Isn’t this a contradiction if there is a really low CTR from Stumble traffic?
Gary R. Hess
January 9, 2008 @ 3:11 pm | Reply
No, not at all. Why would it be? A low CTR doesn’t mean they don’t click at all, just not often. And I was speaking in terms of ads, not links in articles.
MInTheGap
January 9, 2008 @ 1:30 pm | Reply
I think you mean “stumblers don’t like to click” when you said “stumblers don’t like to quick“. Good analysis!
Gary R. Hess
January 9, 2008 @ 3:13 pm | Reply
Nice catch!
Brian
January 10, 2008 @ 7:37 pm | Reply
I like the post.
I don’t know if this is confirmed, but I heard somewhere that the longer you stay on a page before giving the thumbs up has a higher impact on the traffic that is sent. They say that stumbleupon times it and figures that a longer stay means the reader read the whole article thus giving more weight to the page.
Gary R. Hess
January 10, 2008 @ 11:43 pm | Reply
Interesting, Brian. I haven’t heard about that one! I’ll have to look into it.
midomssh
March 14, 2008 @ 3:24 pm | Reply
great info thanks for sharing