Stumble Upon is a network I have been playing with a lot these last few weeks. I have been determined to crack the secret and find out how people get so many views from it.
While I still have a fair way to go, I have managed to up my Stumble Upon views from an average of 50 views per post to an average of around 1500 views per post.
I appreciate that for the big bloggers, this is nothing, but for me an extra 1500 views on a post makes a huge difference.
I firmly believe every blogger who wants to up their page views should be using Stumble Upon. It is one of the easiest places to promote your posts once you get the hang of it.
Let’s start with the obvious:
What is Stumble Upon?
You know, this is the question I get asked the most when I mention Stumble Upon and I’m still not sure how I would categorise it. It’s a cross between a magazine and a blog reader, but at the same time it’s neither. The best way to discover what it’s all about is to go visit – click here to go have a look.
How does Stumble Upon work?
It’s really simple. You add blog posts (or any other webpages) by clicking “add a page”.
You then enter the url of the page you want to add and select the categories it fits into. Click save and your post is now visible on Stumble Upon.
You then press the stumble button to go through some of the pages others have added. I often plan on popping on for five minutes and find myself there hours later – there’s always something of interest popping up. You can choose to stumble certain categories or you can stumble everything.
When you are shown a post, you can give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down. This determines whether you will be shown more or less of that type of page in the future.
Every time a post is stumbled, it is re-added to the queue of posts to be shown in it’s relevant category.
The Blogger’s Guide to Stumble Upon
Here’s everything you need to know about using Stumble Upon as a blogger:
Debunking the Myths
Before I start on how to get your posts seen, let’s debunk some myths:
Myth 1: You shouldn’t add your own posts to Stumble Upon.
I’ve read a lot of posts that tell you this, and I know a lot of people who regularly use Stumble upon will be cringing when I say it’s ok to add your own posts. Let me explain why I can confidently say it’s ok.
In the time I have been using Stumble Upon, I have added approximately 150 of my posts. I have added approximately 10 of other people’s. For the record that’s not because I don’t share other people’s stuff – I tend to share other people’s posts to Twitter. Also, for the first five months I was using it (I’ve been using it around 6 months in total) I didn’t know that it was a thing to add someone else’s posts.
So for the first five months, I didn’t add a post that didn’t come from my own blog and every post I added got views.
Also, Stumble upon doesn’t know it’s your site. At no point in the sign up process does it ask for your website.
It doesn’t care what you add, it just wants people to add things, otherwise, it has no reason to exist.
Myth 2: You should 50 posts from other people for every one of your own posts you share.
This ties in with my first myth. It’s just not necessary, although if you do want to share other people’s stuff to Stumble Upon, it won’t harm you in any way either.
Myth 3: You shouldn’t Stumble your own posts.
I have no idea where this one came from. If you don’t endorse your own stuff, why should anyone else.
How to Get Your Posts Seen on Stumble Upon
Follow the below steps to start getting views from Stumble Upon:
Adding your posts
Firstly, obviously you need to add them. When you have done this, a box will come up saying the website wants to close this window. Say no and it takes you to the post you’ve just added.
Set up a list where you save your posts. When you are taken to a newly added post, add it to the list (I’ll explain why later). Once you’ve done that, click stumble. It is now in the queue of posts to be shown.
Promoting your posts
There are various groups on Facebook (I will be posting more about these later in the month) you can join that run a daily Stumble Upon thread where people stumble each other’s stuff, which keeps it in the to be seen queue.
How to Keep Your Posts in The Stumble Queue
So, you add a post, it gets seen for a while and then it fades off into the background right? Not necessarily.
There are some posts that always do well on Stumble Upon – photography posts and how-to posts always seem to get a lot of views.
If you have a post that takes off in a big way, it will be constantly in the queue because people are stumbling it. If your posts aren’t in that category, or aren’t getting a whole lot of attention, there are two ways to get them back into the limelight.
I suggest doing both of these for best results:
1. Stumble categories
If you click “add an interest” you can tell Stumble Upon which topics you would like to be shown most of. Make sure all the categories you post to are on this list.
When you add a new post, and for a day or two after, select the category you listed it in and stumble through those posts.
I add 3 posts to Stumble Upon daily and I stumble around 100 posts. The more you stumble a category, the more visibility posts you have added in that category are given.
2. Stumble your list
Remember earlier when I said to add your posts to a list created for the specific purpose of adding your own posts? This is why.
Once a week, visit that list and click stumble through this list. Then do just that.
Stumble every post in your list. They are now all back in the stumble queue to be shown to other people.
Unfortunately, Stumble Upon have changed the way this works – read: made it worse. To stumble your lists now, you have to do it manually – this means starting with each post in turn, as the “stumble list” feature no longer seems to work, and after stumbling one post from your list, you end up back on the main stumbling page.
The Down Side To Stumble Upon
If you think this all sounds too good to be true, trust me, it isn’t.
There is a slight down side though. It is very rare that anyone using Stumble Upon clicks through to another of your posts. Generally people read your post on Stumble Upon then stumble away from it.
This causes your bounce rate to go up massively. In my experience, no one has ever asked me about my bounce rate, so for me it’s not a big deal, but it’s just something to be aware of in case you work with brands that do ask about it.
Do you use Stumble Upon to promote your blog posts? Do you get a lot of traffic from it? Do you have any tips to add? Let me know in the comments 🙂
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This is a fantastically useful primer. You’ve inspired me to write some blog tool posts too so double win!
Thank you 🙂 I’m glad you feel inspired by this, I’ll keep an eye out for your posts!
This is great. I randomly see traffic coming from StumbleUpon and really want to start using it more. Thanks
Thank you, I hope it helps you build up your Stumble Upon traffic 🙂
That bounce rate is killing me!
I know, it’s the one thing about Stumble Upon I would change!
I’ve been getting some traffic from stumble and have just been trying to get to grips with it so this is really useful. Thanks. #BrilliantBlogPosts
Thank you, I’m glad you found it useful 🙂 Stumble Upon is such a good site once you get to grips with it.
Thank you so much for this post. Ive signed up for Stumble Upon and walked away. Time to go back to it today
You’ll be addicted in days lol 🙂
Really useful, I need to stumble more, thank you x
Thank you, I love Stumble Upon 🙂 x
That’s such a brilliant post! An hour ago, I was just browsing on Instagram and I spotted your post about Stumble Upon, then I came to your site and now I’ve been on Stumble Upon for the best part of an hour! I had no idea how it worked. I had done the ‘Stumble’ thing by just pressing the button and then closing the page and I was wondering what it ever did… I had no idea about the whole site behind the ‘Stumble’ button, he he! Your post is brilliant, informative and I’ll definitely be reading your follow-up post. Thanks for sharing! Pinning now!
Thank you 🙂 I’m glad you found it useful. It’s easy to spend hours on Stumble Upon once you get into it. It took me a while to suss it, but once you do it’s brilliant.
I use SU a fair amount – I didn’t know the theory behind stumbling your own lists and likes – it makes a lot of sense so that will be my next goal!
It’s definitely worth a try, it really does improve your views and if you’re on there a fair amount anyway it won’t seem so time consuming
Really great guide!
Thank you 🙂
Thank you so much for doing this post, sharing what it’s about and how to do it! I really think I must try stumble upon now! xxx
It’s a really good site once you get the hang of it, give it a try 🙂 x
Wow that is so many views Debbie!! I’ve had a few posts get a lot of views but most don’t go up that high! I will have to try your idea of stumbling categories, sounds like you are on to a real winner there! Great post & advice. x
Thank you 🙂 It really does work, my views have definitely increased since I started doing that x
Very useful post and one im working on! Thanks Debbie!
Thank you, I’m glad you found it useful 🙂
Read this last night and went straight to SU to stumble my posts. This morning I saw some views from SU and thought ‘ooh it worked’, until I realised it was me from last night!
Oh no, that must have been disappointing! It does work, but it might take a little while to build up. I found it took a few days of consistently using SU before I saw any real results
This is so useful, thank you. SU is a bit of a mystery to me still so I will saving this page and going back over to get my head round it! #brilliantblogposts
I’m glad you liked it 🙂 It’s a great site once you get used to it!
Thank you, this is really useful! StumbleUpon is one of those things I’ve heard of but have no idea what it’s about, so I’m going to have an experiment with it 🙂
It’s a really good site once you get the hang of it, I hope you enjoy it 🙂
I’m just getting into StumbleUpon and I’m loving it so far, I’ve had lots of traffic from it. x #binkylinky
It’s a fab site isn’t it 🙂 x
This was a very interesting post. I have used stumble upon for a while now but very passively. I do get some traffic from it but I never really understood how to make it work for me more. Thanks for such a useful post! #BinkyLinky
Thank you 🙂 I love Stumble Upon. I love that you can get traffic with very little effort!
Great post Debbie! I will have a nosey and see if it works for me! My stats have been a bit crappy recently so a boost would be good :- ) xx #binkylinky
Hi Debbie, I did give StumbleUpon a go last year, but felt I was wasting my time (probably because I had no idea what I was doing really).
You’ve shared some really useful tips and I may even give it another go one day.
xx
When I first started out, I did feel like I was going through the motions a bit, but I had heard such good things I stuck with it and starting playing around to see what worked. It is worth having another shot at it 🙂 x
I joined SU ages ago and never really used it at all. Yesterday I was looking at my Google analytics and had a bunch of traffic from it! I’ve never posted on it! So I logged in today and now I’m going to attempt to use it! Thanks for sharing this info – there a lot to take in!! #TheList
Oh, other people must have been sharing your stuff there! It’s a fab way to bring in traffic, and it’s very little effort once you get the hang of it 🙂
Really informative post will be checking it out Thanks for linking to the #binkylinky
Thank you and thanks for hosting 🙂
This is hands-down one of the best blogposts I’ve read and comes at a time when I’m blogging more… I had no real idea about su and now I do. Thanks! 🙂
Thank you so much 🙂 I’m glad you found the post. SU is a fab network once you get used to it!
I haven’t really tried stumble upon will be taking a look soon great post thanks for linking to the #binkylinky
It’s a great site Emily, and once you get the hang of it, it can really make a difference to your views. Thanks and thanks for hosting
Oh wow I am so off to stumble my list after commenting here. I had only done one because it was more convenient I never thought that it would put them back into the list. Thank you for dispelling some of the myths 🙂 I am hoping to add more posts in the coming days as I still have all my historic ones to add. Thank you for joining us at #BloggerClubUK hope to see you again next week x
I think Stumble Upon is one of those networks people are scared to play around with in case they lose their traffic. When I started playing around, I was only getting around 50 views per post so I figured if I lost them, I’d live! I have loads of old posts that need adding, but I never seem to get around to it. Thanks for hosting, see you next week 🙂 x
Such a brilliant post, very useful Thanks for linking up to #TheList x
Thank you, I’m glad you found it useful 🙂 Thanks for hosting x
Oh my God how amazing is this? Spent the day banging my head against a wall because I found so much rubbish/conflicting advice about how to use Stumbleupon. Then just went on to the list to grab the badge and realised I’d not commented on last week’s linkups. And there you were with a gem of an explanatory post. No wonder you get them views (although I’m laughing at the ‘fair way to go’ and ‘1500 views’ mention in the same line. I don’t do badly but I’d die and go to heaven with 1500 lol) #TheList
Thank you, I’m glad you found it useful 🙂 Lol, I’m never really sure what’s good/bad views wise and I didn’t want people looking at it thinking “oh is that all”!
Iv’e only just joined stumble upon – I’ve added a few posts and seen quite a big rise in stats already! So thanks for this post as I wasn’t sure about if I needed to add other people’s stuff.
It’s such a good site! I wouldn’t worry too much about adding other people’s stuff unless you want to, as long as you are stumbling plenty of pages.
Another one I’ve read is that SU will only allow you to add a certain number of pages from a specific website. If you have already added 150 of yours, I’m going to assume this isn’t true. SU has been very hit and miss for me. Some stuff I’ve added has been seen 1000+, others only a handful. I try to add 10 pages of other peoples work for every one of mine, both just in case SU really does label people as spammers, and also for the good karma. I also like that I have a list there of all the favorite things I’ve read and added
I’ve read that too but when I’ve looked into it on the site itself, I really think they are more concerned with business sites that are using the free service when they should be paying. I can’t see them concerning themselves too much with what people are doing unless they can make money from it. It can be a bit hit and miss but I always think it’s worth adding things, it only takes a few minutes and you never know when one will attract a lot of attention.
This is so helpful…I signed up a while ago and just left it as didn’t really understand it so this post is just what I needed… I am having a nose around now! Does it matter how often or when you add your posts? For instance, can you do them in bulk?
Thank you 🙂 It’s a great site once you get to grips with it. The most I have done at any one time is 3, I wouldn’t recommend adding a lot from one url at once, and if you add more than one at a time, make sure you stumble some other posts in between.
Thank Debbie, does it make a difference what time you stumble? Is it similar to Twitter in terms of hitting peak time traffic?
I’ve experimented with times and it doesn’t seem to make any difference so now I just add when I post. I think with it being such a big network with users from all over the world, whatever time you post is peak time in some of the time zones.
Stumble Upon: The Blogger's Guide - Live Love Blog
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I have tinkered with StumbleUpon, but didn’t see the value.
I will be revisiting it now.
I was like that at first then I started to see traffic trickling in and I decided to work out what to do with it. I hope it brings you some nice new traffic!
I need to get on this. I had no idea but looks really useful for boosting hits x
It’s brilliant! And so easy to use too 🙂
really helpful thanks
I can’t figure out how to stumble my list. I click the button and then it takes me to the first one, but then when I click stumble again it just stumbles randomly – can you explain a little more. Sorry if it’s obvious.
I’ve just taken a look and it’s not working for me either. Not sure if it’s a temporary glitch or if they’ve changed the way it works. I’ll keep an eye on it and see if it gets fixed and if it doesn’t, then you can manually stumble each one by starting in a new place on your list each time.