While StumbleUpon is a popular social bookmarking website, many individuals and businesses are using it as a valuable Internet marketing tool to increase their online traffic.
StumbleUpon, owned and operated by eBay, is used both as a search engine and a social bookmarking site to rate websites, web pages, online video clips, audio files and images. Those who register with StumbleUpon (it’s free) can submit ratings for websites they visited.
Using StumbleUpon can easily help your website attract visitors. The more people who stumble upon your website and like it, the higher your ranking grows. A high ranking means even greater traffic to your site from StumbleUpon members and beyond. StumbleUpon can be even more valuable to your website if visitors leave a short review about your site along with their rating. And we’re talking major traffic potential when you consider that StumbleUpon currently has nearly 8 million members and growing.
Website owners who use StumbleUpon have noticed an immediate increase in their website traffic. Those who track traffic diligently say StumbleUpon generates more clicks to their site than any other search engine. It also increases their search engine ranking.
But the key to success is having good content on your website. It needs to be informational or educational, providing the reader with something of value. If you are selling products or services, include informational content on your website that speaks to a trend in the industry, a new finding, or current events that have a connection to your product or service. Currently, StumbleUpon has 500 different topics. Use these categories to create content that meets the personal preferences and interests of StumbleUpon members.
To retain the new visitors that StumbleUpon brings to your website, add feeds, email subscriptions, contests, or special offers to your website to encourage StumbleUpon members to become long-time customers.
E-commerce websites can also benefit from StumbleUpon if it’s creatively designed or has an intriguing way of branding a product. The social aspect of StumbleUpon will enhance the exposure of your site. It’s viral marketing at its best.
StumbleUpon can also help your website gain more traffic through its buttons. You can add a button to your website and encourage your visitors to submit your content to StumbleUpon. It’s a free and easy way to spread the word about your site.
If you’re looking to enhance your website’s presence, it’s time to StumbleUpon a new marketing tool and give it a try for yourself.
Do you use StumbleUpon as part of your marketing plan? How does it work for you?
Adam Toren
How would StumbleUpon work for, say an advertising business? What types of websites does this site usually benefit?
This is an excellent question! As a suggestion, if you write articles or blog posts that include links back to your website or if they are on your website – bookmark them! It is great SEO and any business could potentially benefit.
Very imformative post. I had never heard about StumbleUpon until one referrer sent 71 views to my site in one day. Problem is, it happened that time and hasn’t happened since. How can I get that to happen again? Any ideas?
It’s a great new way of sending traffic to your site. I never thought that it was worth anything but it’s really useful if someone finds a good post and they want to share it with the world.
Fantasic post – keep the traffic tips coming!
Like any social site you have to provide interesting content before you will gain any following. Also it is not smart just to stumble your own stuff.
The most popular sites on Stumble Upon are humor based and video based. For your ad agency perhaps a viral video keeping your agency in the background will work nicely.
A good technique with SU is to sign up for their paid program.
You can buy your way into people’s “Stumble” buttons so they see your site.
Of course it’s up to you to capture the eyeballs (subscribe?) but at least it’s guaranteed traffic.
The reason this is great is that if people “thumbs up” your page it will be sent to other users, and you don’t pay for those other views.
Therefore, if your page really is stumble-worthy, you get many more views than those you paid for.
StumbleUpon is an effective marketing tool to bring tons of traffic to your site, however, from my experience, each visitor is much less valuable than traditional internet advertising and of course organic referrals. The bounce rate from stumbleupon visits is typically about twice as high as other internet ad referrals.
Thanks for passing on these useful tools, this will help me alot.
I’m still a fairly new member at StumbleUpon, but, more and more, I’m coming across websites and blogs that speak of StumbleUpon as a good marketing tool, and since I have a new blog that’s less than a week old now, I think looking into using StumbleUpon as a marketing tool may be well worth my while. Thanks for the excellent tips here!
Just wondering if other folks are finding StumbleUpon to be a useful marketing tool to market their sites? Also, how effective have you found it for eCommerce sites?
Thanks.