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Update: After reading other blog articles about stumbling yourself I found that it’s not as big a deal as I previously thought. I do think getting reviewed by a top stumble is the best way to go but not necessary. I now stumble my posts.
It is not the most exciting for me to admit my mistakes but I think it’s important to recognize them to improve. The mistake I made was not a huge but I think it’s important to share it with others so they don’t make the same. StumbledUpon is a fairly new social networking site that allows you to “StumbleUpon” or discover a site. You can either download the toolbar or Firefox plugin. Each time you visit a website you have the opportunity to click on the “I like it” button which is a thumbs up or the thumbs down button. The toolbar also has a feature where you can browse the already Stumbled website.
The first person that clicks on the ‘I like it’ button for a site has the opportunity to ‘discover’ the site and give it a review. Anyone can review a site but only the first person that ’stumbles upon’ it can discover it. The member that discovers a site is forever at the top of that reviews page. The great thing about StumbleUpon is that you can get a huge wave of traffic on the first day you are stumbled. This would have been really great if I had not stumbled myself before the site was completed. I also believe that if there was a way to get one of the Top 100 stumblers to review my site it would have been a much larger wave of traffic. I first heard about StumbledUpon at Dosh Dosh. Dosh Dosh was StumbledUpon by Zennor who has stumbled over 4,000 sites.
I am not exactly sure why I stumble myself in the first place and then doing it before the site was complete was also rather silly. The day that I stumbled myself I got 80 visitors within 3 hours. This wave caused my Alexa score to improve by about 300,000. I really think I would have been better off not Stumbling own site but I suppose I should be happy about the Alexa score improvement.
At the SEM Zone we’ve seen alot of traffic from StumbleUpon. And I’m the one who submits all the pages. I wouldn’t worry about it to much.
BTW, you can stumble each page for your site. So everytime you post is a new stumble opportunity. If you want someone else to stumble you, I’d be happy to do it for you. Shoot me an email or Google Talk IM - nathania dot johnson at gmail dot com - that goes for anybody who reads this comment.
Also - friend me on Stumble - my name is wrtrgrl
Nathania, thanks for the input. I think it might be more beneficial to be Stumbled by someone else. I StumbledUpon CellRater the other day the author said he got 692 hits from my Stumble. It could have been the time of day or the topic of his blog that did it. But I think it was because someone else discovered his site.
I stumble my own pages, meaning I write them and submit them when I believe they “add value” to the community. Over time, the traffic I have received from S.U. has been amazing and I enjoy finding sites as I stumble, including this one. Thumbs up to you too!
Hey Matt, Thanks for the input. I suppose it’s not a bad thing to stumble yourself but I am sure it’s better to get stubbed by one of the top stumblers. If I had to do it over again I think I would have contacted one of the tops stumblers to review my home page. But I suppose I could still do that with an article.
monawea - thanks for the heads-up on stumbling upon yourself. great article!
nathania - thanks so much for the stumble - you said some really cool things! enjoy the smoothie
–steve
Interesting anlaysis. Maybe I’m not understanding how best to use “Stumble” or because my blog is about television or sports and not say making money online, I have submitted a few pages to Stumble and it’s resulted in next to no traffic for me. Is it because I’m submitting the blog posts myself? That doesn’t seem to be a problem for others. Is it an issue about the topic just not being popular on Stumble? Any help/thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Swarheit, if you submitted the pages you are okay. However, you need to stumble through as many pages in the category (sports, whatever) too. I find when I spend a lot of time in one category stumbling, the stumbles happen.
Thanks a lot Matt for your advice, I appreciate it. So do you mean Stumble, as in, review other sports sites or just use the Stumble Bar to “stumble” from site to site and add them to my favorites? Sorry to be such a “Stumble” newbie, but I’m trying to figure my way through it, and I keep reading about the success people have with Stumble, and it seems like a great tool to find new sites, so if I can figure out the best way to use it, that would be great.
-Scott
Swarheit, make sure you stumble Sports topics only. You should change your S.U. Toolbar to show you a your selected topics. Go to the Sports topic and stumble away. Make certain that you give thumbs up to the pages you like. Also, work very hard on adding similar stumblers. Feel free to look up me (MattKeegan) and add me. I will do the same.
Stumble daily if you can. The longer the better, but ten minutes per day can add up.
Okay, great, thanks again. I’ll start doing that. My blog is more than just sports (I blog a decent amount about TV too, so maybe I’ll check those sites out too on Stumble). I appreciate the advice.
-Scott
A tip to use when stumbling - is utilizing the tags. Use as many words on the tags function as you can think of that relate to the site you’re stumbling.
When people sign up to StumbleUpon, they choose the topics they’re interested in. You’ll reach a wider range of people if you include many different tags.
If you’ve already stumbled your pages - try to go back into your initial review and add more tags.
Well Nathania, your stumble yesterday helped increase my hits to almost 1000. Typically I only see about 50 a day. What a great tool SU is. Now I just have to hope other people will stumble my site too.
thanks again,
–steve
ps monawea - i didn’t know i had, but my first stumble was by myself. how did that happen eh?
Hey Monawea, I’m ‘Zennor’ and I arrived here because Maki from Dosh Dosh (who Stumbles as ‘Autorave’) stumbled you.
The internet is a small place
As the others have said, don’t worry about it too much, even old Stumbles can get ‘re-activated’ if a major stumbler gives them the thumbs up.
You’re right Zennor, the internet is a small place.
Keep on Stumbling!
–steve
Hi folks,
I just started using SU recently thanks to the tips on this site and others linked from here. I was questioning whether or not is was acceptable to Stumbe my own pages and from what I’ve read here it seems to be ok if I truly feel that whatever post I make adds value to someone, even though that could be a subjective opinion.
Rather than risk some kind of ratings punishment from SU (does one exist?), I’d prefer that anyone reading this feel free to visit my site and explore it to see if you consider any of my posts “stumble-able”.
Thanks for taking a look, and thanks for providing your great site!
One Eyed View
Hey One Eyed View,
Its OK to stumble your own pages but be selective about what ones you stumble. I’ve learned from experience there that a limit is placed on how many times you stuble the same domain. Its not written in the rules anywhere but trust me there is a limit.
StumbleUpon is an excellent way to get traffic to your site. One of my posts got over 7000 hits from being stumbled. It wasn’t one of my best posts either. Just a funny picture. We should try to stumble each other’s articles and work together to drive more traffic to each others blog. The BlogCatalog proves that working together as a community has a positve result. Cheers to Monawea for the idea.
Thanks for the info RTenalio. I would be happy to start SU-ing your posts. I like your site, a great mix of things. I’ve been active in the Blog Catalog community for just over a month now, and I’ve met some great people, read some great blogs, although I haven’t posted the SU/blog catalog post yet, I will do so soon.
Happy blogging and I’ll see you on SU and Blog Catalog!
Much has written about this. Many of the top bloggers bookmark their individual posts as they write them.
Guess they feel everything they write is important. I would say in the long run, it is important to be first to use any of these services when they are new, and just consider it part of a traffic building strategy.
I often repost articles on Ziki, and Zimbio…just more exposure. Google seem to index all of the social sites as well (even comments, so watch what you say).
The mutual syumbing is a great idea…I’m doing it right now!
Thanks for the pointers.
Thanks for the great post.
Please feel free to stumble my blog if you like it anyone.
Thank you.
http://getpaid-now.blogspot.com
PS. I just stumbled you.