Stumbling Upon StumbleUpon.com Once Again
Just like fashion and styles, trends in Internet Marketing move in cycles… things go in and out … and in out.
I love it when something that I’ve considered “old” or even “no longer relevant” pops back up again.
That happened a few weeks back with StumbleUpon.com.
Stumbling Upon an Old Strategy
Amy and I were looking into a traffic uptick for one of our FizzNiche.com clients. “There are a ton of referrals from StumbleUpon.com,” she said, “have you ever heard of that site?”
“Yeah,” I answered, “but I didn’t think it was really relevant anymore.”
Boy was I wrong!
(As I’ll reveal in the next installment of our ongoing FizzNiche (fka Spin-Niche) Case Study - one StumbleUpon user doubled the traffic to one of our client’s sites – in just a week!)
Almost Instant Results
We started testing it – and started seeing results almost instantly.
And – it’s really easy to use.
So, I want to give you a few quick pointers on using it – and I want you to go and test it (today!) on your own sites.
Stumbling Upon Results For Your Site
Okay… StumbleUpon.com works for your site in two ways:
First, you can StumbleUpon your own pages…
In this case, you’ll need an account (signup free at: http://stumbleupon.com). Much like “liking” on Facebook, you add links to your profile, include a comment and – this is where it’s a little different – tag the link with keywords and place it in a designated category (more on “why” below).
Signup for an account, add a link. The next day – check your Google Analytics stats. I can almost guarantee that you’ll have at least 2 visitors referred by StumbleUpon.com. Or, if you’re like one of our clients – it could send you 500 new visitors.
Second, you can add a StumbleUpon button to your social sharing options…
We use a plugin called SexyBookmarks by Shareholic to handle the social sharing on our and our clients’ sites. It’s one of my favorite WordPress plugins. It has an option for StumbleUpon.
We’ve now added it to all of our sites (you can see it below). It makes it really easy for our visitors to “stumble” our pages. With a quick click of that button, they add the page to their profile along with the category and comments for all of their followers to see.
What Makes StumbleUpon Different
So… why is this different? How is this not just another “thing” to have to do each day?
Well, like I mentioned above – it drives traffic and it does it fast.
Why? Because it doesn’t rely on your followers. It introduces your stumbles to the entire network.
Cool – right? Even without a single follower on the social network, your links still get viewed.
How? Users not only ADD links, they also choose to VIEW categories, people and channels and start “Stumbling”. In this process, they are presented with link after link that have been added to the category/channel/etc.
So… if you add a page about “Weight Loss”, it will be added into the rotation of everyone looking at “Weight Loss” articles. Stumblers can then give links a “thumbs up” which makes it appear more in results and they can even re-stumble it, adding it to their own “likes” – giving it even more weight in the topic.
Give it a try. Go to: http://www.stumbleupon.com/explore and type in a keyword that fits your site. You’ll be given site after site that fits the keyword.
While you’re doing it, you’ll hit a point where you think, “Hey – MY site should be in this mix…”
And you’re right – it SHOULD BE. So – add it!
Don’t Wait for Monday!
Take two minutes and give this strategy a try. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised!
Well if you look at this graph from Compete it’s no surprise that it is making a resurgence. I am using it a lot more now to curate links to submit for Twitter. I use Buffer App and it works pretty well. I actually think all the spammy stuff that blighted StumbleUpon is not there any more.
Here is the link to the image. http://www.screencast.com/t/qKzRfWTa
Thanks, Jim – that graph really does explain it!