Stumbleupon

[RachiRach]

Hey!

We got stumbled on and I can see in our site stats the referring page is basically /refer.php which says

One of our members added your page to the Unknown topic on StumbleUpon.
Each time our members who are interested in Unknown "stumble upon" your page using our toolbar, it will record an entry on your referral logs.

And also now quite a few from people's st-u bookmarks.

I have been to st-u and looked and done searches on our site url plus loads of other keywords etc. All I am getting in return is a page of tags.

Is there a way of finding us, I'd love to see what it was for exactly. Is anyone experienced with this site?

[sunfunbill]

Yeah, I get that same thing about twice a week. They just have you listed somewhere in thousands of others. You don't get hardly any traffic from it.

Only way to get traffic from them is if you get a bunch of people list you.

[balls_deep]

it takes a while to build a good su account with relevant friends.

If i stumble my own pages i'm guaranteed a few thousand visits from them.

[RachiRach]

I did get a few thousands hits and, I liked it!

Balls - you have a built an account, so it is like a social network and you are sharing your bookmarks I assume?

[balls_deep]

Originally posted by RachiRach
I did get a few thousands hits and, I liked it!

Balls - you have a built an account, so it is like a social network and you are sharing your bookmarks I assume?

yes, it's social networking.

Each article should generate a few thousand hits within about 3 days if you have a decent account and relevant friends.

[RachiRach]

can i see yours?

I'm feeling a bit like a dummy, as i do have an account on there from a while ago. Back then I favourited two articles but now i can't figure out how to do it. I have the stumble tool bar, when i click on 'i like it', nothing happens.

[RachiRach]

Oh, because I was doing that on a site that I already had in my favorites.

[balls_deep]

Originally posted by RachiRach
can i see yours?

I'll show you mine, if you show me yours

sure... ill pm you a link

[Hammer]

SU is great for traffic but lousy for making money. The vast majority of the traffic will stay on your sites for only a matter of seconds and will practically never click on any ads. The same is true of Digg. If you get to the front page you can get a ton of traffic but it's nearly useless to your bottom line.

[timelord]

SU is great for traffic but lousy for making money. The vast majority of the traffic will stay on your sites for only a matter of seconds and will practically never click on any ads. The same is true of Digg. If you get to the front page you can get a ton of traffic but it's nearly useless to your bottom line.

That's been the feedback I've read from a few friends who have had sites submitted to both networks.

The problem with people who use Linked In, Digg, Stumbled Upon etc is that they tend to be web savvy thus unlikely to convert to a sale - at least in adult. For mainstream it's a whole lot different.

[Hammer]

Originally posted by timelord
For mainstream it's a whole lot different.

Actually I've experienced the same exact phenonemon with my mainstream sites.

For example:

When Hammer Uncut was very new, only a few months old, it was getting several hundred to a thousand uniques a day and was doing about $5 a day or so with Adsense. Adsense has never done particularly well on that site because there is no real focus to the site and although the ads in some cases are targeted on the permalink pages, it's not really the type of site Adsense is designed for. However, I think the example will still illustrate my point.

One day someone Dugg one of my posts and it made it to the front page of Digg where it stayed for about 2 days before it began slowly dropping back. During the first day I registered about 65,000 unique hits from Digg and about a thousand more from other pages.

Now, since that was about 65 times more traffic than the blog had been getting on average one would expect that my revenue for that day would have gone up 65 times and instead of $5 I would have made $325.

Nope, it didn't work out that way. I ended up making $25 for the day or 5 times more than usual up to that point.

In my experience based on server log stats, SU, Digg and other social network type traffic stays on the site a very short time. They read the story that interested them and then quickly return to Digg or Stumble to the next site. I've also noticed a very small increase in bookmarkers from that type of traffic as well. I think they have tunnel vision for the most part.

[timelord]

In my experience based on server log stats, SU, Digg and other social network type traffic stays on the site a very short time. They read the story that interested them and then quickly return to Digg or Stumble to the next site. I've also noticed a very small increase in bookmarkers from that type of traffic as well. I think they have tunnel vision for the most part.

I think social network traffic is useful if there is a succinct/clear proposition directed to visitors that relates to the original article the followed.

The quality of the posted article heading/substance x the quality and substance of the propositions on ones site, determines the resulting benefit/s.

[xxxpilot]

The key to social bookmarking conversions is the topic of the article and testing like mad. I've had some articles convert very well for getting signups to an affiliate program for internet marketing about 2 years back, only got about 10k hits but out of that got about 500 signups. Pretty hefty conversion rate for the amount of work that was put in.

However, I've tried the same thing with other non-adult programs and found that the conversions didn't work nearly as well for me on those. It may be that they've developed a sort of tunnel vision no doubt but if it's focused and you lead them to the conversion through the article you should be able to get a decent conversion with minimal work.

[RachiRach]

It's true that a large percent only stayed less than 30secs (LOL) but I did notice an increase in affiliate signups.

It makes sense that if surfers are looking for new sites on stumble upon then they would be interested in the new sites that we have to show them too.

Besides that the increase in traffic and page views on alexa.com looks good for potential advertisers.

Thanks b_d I'll check my PMs.

[Hammer]

The trick is getting traffic to one of these focused articles you guys are talking about. In my experience, it's pretty tough to get the exact post I want traffic to, to get listed on Digg, it's very hit or miss and very hard to predict. SU is a lot easier to control and if you've got enough fans, especially some that like your stuff and will add their reviews, digging your own stuff once in a while can work quite well. I usually get around 8,000 hits or so to a post that I Stumble. The thing is that if you Stumble your own stuff too often and don't Stumble other sites (discover, not just thumb up) it won't take long to get branded as a spammer and then it's all over.

[mynameisjim]

I've read COUNTLESS comments on Digg where people seem personally offended by seeing adsense on an article page. Many of those people run ad blocking software as well.

They also don't like when people rehash a story. For example, blog about a story then link to the real story in hopes that readers will hop on your blog first and maybe click a few links.

Plus, 90% of Digg users are pro-piracy. Not exactly the best market when you're trying to sell stuff.

I haven't visited Digg in several months simply because I couldn't stand the comments anymore.

Like others have said, SU can work better but you have to work more.

[timelord]

I haven't visited Digg in several months simply because I couldn't stand the comments anymore.

You read the comments? I know what you mean dude. I just browse the their RSS feed from day to day and look at headings that capture my interests.

I personally find Kevin Rose to be a little boring, so haven't become a hardcore digger.

[Hammer]

"SU is a lot easier to control and if you've got enough fans, especially some that like your stuff and will add their reviews, digging your own stuff once in a while can work quite well."

I just noticed I misspoke here and don't want to confuse anyone.

I meant to say stumbling your own stuff instead of "digging your own stuff".

[RachiRach]

So "Discovering" is when you bookmark or review a site that is not yet on the SU network and the "Thumbs Up" is what you give something that is already included on there?

[balls_deep]

Originally posted by RachiRach
So "Discovering" is when you bookmark or review a site that is not yet on the SU network and the "Thumbs Up" is what you give something that is already included on there?

you always use the thumbs up to rate a site you like, if you are the first person to thumbs up a site you get to write the first review for it (ie discover).