Matt’s Mailbag
Q. My SU (StumbleUpon) traffic has been getting lower and lower over time, probably because I have the same set of people stumbling. How do you maintain healthy traffic levels from social media to all of your various sites? Do you have any SU or other social media tips that you’d be willing to share?
A. There are a number of things you can do to help your StumbleUpon traffic improve, though I cannot say for certain if you will reach the levels of traffic you are accustomed to.
That being said here are a few tips to keep in mind:
- Submit only on occasion to SU (once weekly, perhaps twice per domain), preferably having someone discover and stumble the article for you. Follow up with your own stumble if you like.
- Change the people whom you ask to stumble on your behalf. If SU catches you forming a “band” of stumblers, you’ll see diminishing returns.
- I don’t usually get that much traffic with Digg, Reddit and Mixx. SU rules!
- Comment on other blogs — good, relevant comments in order to get the owner’s approval. Place your article’s URL where the URL is featured after your name and email address.
- Spend some time stumbling daily. I like to click on my friends favorites and run through 50 to 100 at a time. When you stumble, people stumble back and the traffic begins to flow. Leave related comments from time to time; add discoveries too.
As always, good solid content will help drive people to your site, whether you plan to rely on social media traffic or not. When writing articles, don’t forget to cite other people’s work and embed a link back to their article.
I’ve been using StumbleUpon for two years now and have seen my traffic numbers fluctuate dramatically. I don’t rely on SU alone, but it does remain an important source for helping bring traffic my way.
Tags: Digg, mail bag, Mailbag, Mixx, Reddit, social media, StumbleUpon
Mailbag, Social Media | Matthew C. Keegan, 23 Jan 09
By gagay, January 24, 2009 @ 6:23 am
happy weekend!
dropping by!
gagay
By nipsy, January 24, 2009 @ 2:59 pm
Good tips..I belong to stumble, but still have a hard time figuring it out. Was just starting to wonder if it was worth my time. I can’t even figure out when people stumble me!!
By Patricia, January 25, 2009 @ 8:39 pm
Nipsy says it best. You have to BELONG to these sites in order to be able to tag people with them. No matter how much I like your post, if I don’t belong to Digg or Stumble or whatever, I can’t do anything about it. That’s why I like commenting. You don’t have to join anything to leave a comment. By the way, I like your post.
Patricias last blog post..Are You Low Mach or High Mach?
By bandisusi, January 26, 2009 @ 2:19 am
I have’nt in stumble yet. I will try to follow this one and practice your tips.
bandisusis last blog post..Affiliate Program … Who Making Money?
By MattK, January 26, 2009 @ 5:29 am
You got that right, Patricia! You have to belong to these sites and, in the case of StumbleUpon, have their toolbar installed to find out who has stumbled you, etc.
Agreed — commenting on posts is still very important. And, no membership is required!
By PaulsHealthBlog.com, January 26, 2009 @ 3:34 pm
Even good content makes it tough for Stumbling and Digging, as there is so much competition.
By Matt Keegan, January 26, 2009 @ 3:44 pm
Paul, I’ve just about given up on Digg as that site is occupied by a small cohort of followers who control everything.
I’m still finding success with StumbleUpon as I have built up a large following of stumblers over the past two years and have stumbled more than 36K pages.
Some pages do quite well, others do not. I can’t say for certain that content always makes a difference.
Matt Keegans last blog post..3 Mistakes Guaranteed to Increase Your College Costs