Jump Start Your Traffic With StumbleUpon | Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge

Hello fellow Bloggiesta-lovers! I hope you are as pumped up about improving your blogs and scheduling some posts in advance as I am. So, I randomly tweeted Bloggiesta yesterday because while driving in my car I was thinking about this weekend and oh man, it would be so cool to do a mini challenge on Stumble Upon but it’s WAYYY too late for that. THEN! They tweeted me back and were all, hey if you can get it up on Thursday – go for it. So, y’all with margarita in hand I shall bravely give you a mini challenge about an ignored potential goldmine of page views.

Jump Start Your Traffic Using Stumble Upon | Good Books And Good Wine

So, what’s StumbleUpon?

Basically, it’s a content discovery website that helps waste time. Really, that’s what it is. Users can submit different webpages to StumbleUpon and so when people log into stumble upon and stumble through the books niche, there’s the possibility that they will stumble across your review or your post on why you love classics.

I can attest to StumbleUpon working as far as bringing traffic in. There’s been days where I’ve submitted a review and then ended up with an additional 150 page views referred by StumbleUpon. In short, it is awesome. However, you can’t always expect immediate results.

So, today’s challenge will be just getting you started on StumbleUpon.

1. Sign up for Stumble Upon. You can make your own account or log into it using Facebook.

2. Select your interests — I have Books & Literature set for mine.

3. Make sure you have a social sharing button for stumble upon set up on your blog — if you don’t you can add one by using this link. Personally, I prefer to just use the button that comes with Jetpack sharing on WordPress.

4. You might also want to install the StumbleUpon tool bar, but you totally don’t have to.

5. Next, Stumble your BEST content. You can do this by either clicking the stumble upon button you added onto your post, clicking using the toolbar or by going here: https://www.stumbleupon.com/submit 

Now when you stumble your content, make sure it is in an appropriate category – so if you’re submitting something bookish, submit it to Books. Be sure to click yes for it being work safe — unless you have naked pictures, then don’t do that. As for tags, I typically put in things like: books, book reviews, fiction, etc.

6. But don’t be a leech. For real, don’t be that person. Be sure to also stumble interesting content created by other websites. I often stumble posts from my friends’ blogs, for example.

Note: You aren’t going to always get immediate page views off the bat. Sometimes it takes a little while. You just have to be diligent and take an extra two minutes each day to submit something. Don’t submit too much of your own stuff though because they’ll totes penalize you.

Legit, it’s not hard to use stumble upon, just include it with your other promotional efforts.

A few good resources for Stumble Upon Tips:

The Secret To Getting Highly Targeted Traffic From StumbleUpon

Getting Mass Traffic From StumbleUpon: The Definitive Guide.

So, I don’t really have a prize or anything. Just you know, the reward of learning something new for your blog!

So, yeah – let me know in the comments if you use Stumble Upon and if it works for you!

ADDENDUM:

If you are on blogger, apparently it’s not as easy as checking a box on your Jetpack plug in. So, to add StumbleUpon buttons to your blog, I found two tutorials:

Dora The Techpolrer – this was written August 2012, so it’s less than a year old.

and

Misadaventures In Motherhood – this one is really comprehensive, but I have no idea when it was written.

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April is in her 30s and created Good Books And Good Wine. She works for a non-profit. April always has a book on hand. In her free time she can be found binge watching The Office with her husband and toddler, spending way too much time on Pinterest or exploring her neighborhood.
About April (Books&Wine)

April is in her 30s and created Good Books And Good Wine. She works for a non-profit. April always has a book on hand. In her free time she can be found binge watching The Office with her husband and toddler, spending way too much time on Pinterest or exploring her neighborhood.

Comments

  1. Thanks for this, April. I tried StumbleUpon a couple of years ago but didn’t really get it. Your post hast encouraged me to try again!

  2. I am not at all familiar with Stumble Upon or stumbling but I just took a few minutes and read thru some of these links and I think this looks pretty neat. I’m bookmarking this since it’s time for me to cook dinner but I definitely want to come back and give this a try. Thanks April!

  3. Well, I’m not doing bloggiest just now but I think I’m going to look into this stumble upon thing 😀 thanks for sharing 😀

  4. Thanks for sharing this, April! I had heard of StumbleUpon but had NO idea what it did. Since Bloggiesta doesn’t officially start until tomorrow, I gave it a whirl and it looks like it should be interesting!

    Thanks for the tutorial. 🙂

  5. AH thank you so much for this! I totally picked your brain for info on StumbleUpon a while back, but this is more info and YAY. I can’t wait to do it – I must admit, I am a total StumbleUpon slacker.

  6. Thanks for this.

    So, they penalize you for submitting your own stuff? So, what’s too much? Can you submit once a week ,or once a month?

    Mostly, is it for promoting other blogs?

    If it’s more for promotion, then what’s the difference than promoting on Google Plus or Twitter?

    What’s the scoop?

  7. HMM.. this is quite interesting, April! And i know you know your stuff! 😉

  8. I’ll have to try this! Thanks for the idea, April!

  9. I always see the little SU button, but I’ve never actually used it. Probably because I instinctively knew I would lose hours of my life to this website.

    I’ve signed up and am definitely going to give this a try. Thank you for opening my eyes to something new!

  10. Thanks for the tip, April. I’m definitely going to look into this this weekend.

  11. I signed up and this looks fun! How did you get your button on the bottom of each post?

  12. I already had a Stumble Upon account, that I totally forgot about, so I’m going to have to give it a shot. I’m kind of working out the kinks (user errors, lol) right now.

    Thanks for the info!

  13. I totally can’t figure out how to get the button in my posts on Blogger, but I am going to have a serious problem tearing myself away from StumbleUpon!

  14. Cool – I just went and figured out how to add the stumbleupon button to my posts. I’ll be adding creating an account and submitting some items to my list of bloggiesta tasks!

  15. Thanks for sharing about how StumpleUpon helps drive traffic, I’ve heard of it but didn’t know how it worked. Very useful mini-challenge, they are all great, now let’s see what I can actually get done! Hope to speak with you the Bloggiesta chat in the next hour!

  16. Thanks so much for this! I’ve actually never even heard of StumbleUpon before but it sounds like a new addiction. 🙂

  17. Thanks for this post! I’ve never really understood Stumble Upon, but I’m trying it out. Looking at my new account, I still don’t completely get it, but perhaps it will grow on me.

  18. Thanks for this post! I’m pretty sure I signed up for StumbleUpon awhile back and then never really got into using it. Your post has inspired me to go back and try it again! Thanks for the great info!

  19. This is awesome – thanks! I know I signed up for StumbleUpon awhile back, but I haven’t used it effectively. Thanks so much for the clear and easy directions!

  20. Thanks for this tutorial! I’m excited to check out StumbleUpon

  21. If I could get a Stumbleupon button on my blog I’d be the happiest girl…any tips? 😉

  22. Great post! I’m not formally taking part in Bloggiesta but I like to check out the mini-challenges and this one is great. I’ve never used StumbleUpon before but I love it already!

  23. Well I did it! It took me a while to install the button to my blog but after that it was easy going 🙂 I stumbled this post 🙂

  24. This was amazing, thank you SO much. I have had StumbleUpon for awhile but just ignored it, I honestly didn’t think it would be super useful to me. This has shown be different! I’ll be slowing adding my reviews(the thing I get the least amount of traffic on)! So helpful!

  25. StumbleUpon is fun, i usually end up getting completing sucked in! I couldn’t manage to install the badge on my site, does it only work on self hosted wordpress blogs?

    • I have a WordPress.com blog. There’s an option for a StumbleUpon button if you go to your Dashboard, Settings, then Sharing. It’s possible your StumbleUpon button is currently under either “Available Services” and not “Enabled Services,” or under “Enables Services” under the “more” menu.

  26. Allison @ The Book Wheel told me about StumbleUpon and I do get a decent, small, but decent, amount of hits from there.

  27. I never thought about StumbleUpon before as traffic for my blog. Going to start this soon since I already have an account!!!

    Angela’s Anxious Life

    Angie

  28. Thanks! I always forget about Stumble Upon. This was a fun challenge to do. I submitted one page, and will probably do more in the future!!

  29. Thanks, I use Stumbleupon to stumble other people’s posts. I was never sure wehter I could/should do it with my own. I will use it more often.

  30. Thanks for this! I always forget to stumble my post but do see a difference when I (or others do). It’s definitely one of those sites I really don’t “get” but I’m thankful for the new visitors and page views it brings to my site.

  31. Thank you so much for this post! I know I’m probably going to waste tons of time on Stumble Upon now…but I’m not complaining, hahaha! I’m stuck on adding the Stumble button on my pages at the moment, but I’ll figure it out when I’m far more awake and have the patience with HTML problems.

  32. Thanks April! Looking forward to some Stumbleupon traffic. Thanks for reminding me of Stumbleupon.

  33. I’ve seen Stumble Upon around the blogging world but never really understood what it was or what people did with it. Your post cleared that all up and I have to say this may be an even bigger time waster than Pinterest! 🙂 I’m so glad to have found it. I can’t wait to start stumblin’ and helping others stumble as well.

    So glad you decided to put this mini-challenge out there!

Trackbacks

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