Late last week I noticed an increase in website traffic, instead of averaging 600 for a couple of days unique visitors were hitting high 800’s.
Curious as to what had caused this jump, I investigated further.
Stumbleupon.com was passing me around 3 times the traffic that Google was, nice!!
Why??
I have a post regarding questions an SEO content writer are likely to be asked, and this post was 5 times more popular than the next most popular post.
I do not have a clue how Stumbleupon works, and having had a quick look for 5 mins I am still none the wiser. I need to find out!!
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StumbleUpon really can generate lots and lots of traffic! I am loving it!
Hehe, loving stumble too, so far I got 1200 uniques from them today for my ultimate guide to robots name=”meta” tags 🙂
StumbleUpon can be quite a time-hole if you are procrastinating. 😉
It’s somewhat similar to Digg, and yes both SU and Digg can drive “alot” of traffic.
It’s good for link bait, however i find the traffic has a very high bounce rate and they don’t spend long on the page. I don’t target social bookmarking much anymore since i submitted something funny, and the traffic ground my server completely in to the ground.
SEO Carly,
I find that StumbleUpon’s bounce rate is not quite as high as many say it is, if you have good content and a good looking site people will have a look around. My clients stats show that many Stumblers spend slightly less time browsing the site than users directed through the SERPS.
StumbleUpon traffic is semi-targeted, although random, 99% of users are being directed to sites within a field they are interested in.
One thing they do say about StumbleUpon is that design is being brought back to the forefront and this is where many blogs may suffer a little. Stumblers will look into a well designed site (something cool and interesting), when a poorly designed site that does not catch the eye may just be skipped.
Social bookmarking site can bring you traffic. But take note that this type of traffic is temporary unless people keep on bookmarking your site at the same rate, which is quite unlikely.
The problem with stumbledupon is the channel surfing mentality, not many people come deeper into your site unless it is engaging, do we need to start building sites which grab the channel surfer and bring them in?
Some good points by Neil above.
Although some people may not venture deep into your site they may well Stumble it and come back for a longer look another time. StumbleUpon seems to be great for some initial exposure… a bit like sending out a press release.
While I am guilty of using Digg, StumbledUpon and other sites like that in a “channel surfing” capacity, it certainly is a wonderful way to find new sites.
I have regularly added sites I have found this way to my RSS reader, so it shouldn’t be completely discounted.
If it forces the content producers to write better content, so be it. 😉
I receive around 755 visits a month from Stumbleupon. They are a great traffic source. Of course they are no where close to the 5,711 I receive from Google, but I can not complain.