StumbleUpon – To Stumble or Not To Stumble?

by Jenn

StumbleUpon is a great tool to help push traffic to your website or blog.  When you check your blog stats and see the impact StumbleUpon can have on traffic to you blog it’s natural to want to Stumble, but there’s some posts that you should stay clear from.

To help you get a better understanding of how to use StubmleUpon, let’s talk about what it actually is.  StumbleUpon is designed to help people easily discover new amazing information on the web.  When you join, you’ll choose categories that interest you, and StumbleUpon will introduce you to great web pages, photos, videos, and more.  Without StumbleUpon it’s likely you would never run into it.

If you’ve used StumbleUpon, it’s an amazing tool.  I have found some awesome blogs that way.  I probably would have never ran into them without using StumbleUpon.  It works that way for you blog as well.  StumbleUpon shows you the web based off the categories you’ve chosen and off the posts that have been liked or disliked by the people you follow.

There’s a category for just about everything, if you’re into photography it’ there.  Maybe you enjoy fashion, there’s some wonderful fashion posts, as well as just about anything else that you fancy.

It’s important to remember that just like anything StumbleUpon has rules that must be followed.  What are these rules?  StumbleUpon has content restrictions, I suggest you know these before you start Stumbling everything you like.  You cannot Stumble things such as offensive, anything promoting racism, hatred, physical harm,, harasses anyone, false or misleading information, violent information, etc.  I suggest reading StumbleUpon Terms of Service.  It’s always a good idea to read before engaging in anything.

Have you been submitting posts and discovering they are not doing well?  Here’s a few types of posts that you should stay away from Stumbling.

Giveaways

StumbleUpon users don’t want to see giveaways while their Stumbling.  Let’s face it, we don’t head over to Stumble giveaways.  They want meaningful, informative, engaging content.  If you’ve done a review and included a giveaway, yes its informative and StumbleUpon worthy, but wait until the giveaway is over, delete your giveaway tool and keep only the review.  Reviews are definitely something you should submit on StumbleUpon, just not giveaways.

Boring Posts

When I say boring posts, I don’t mean the boring content.  Hopefully we are all trying to write, awesome content.  By boring posts, I mean pictures.  When people are Stumbling, the posts we submit have a short amount of time to grab their attention.  What grabs attention quickly better than an awesome photo?  It’s important to not only have quality content, but good visual appeal if you want your post to get the attention it deserves.  This is a good tip for any post, even if you’re not submitting to StumbleUpon.

Category, Category, Category

Do you know what category your post belongs in?  When you submit your content to StumbleUpon, if you want it to get any kind of attention, be sure it’s in the correct category.  There’s MANY different categories available, but if you submit your post called “10 Tips to Good Parenting” to a spots category, it’s likely it will not pick up any traffic.

Only Your Own Blog Posts

Okay, I do submit my own posts to StumbleUpon, but I also Stumble often.  It’s okay to Stumble your own posts, but remember you have to Stumble others posts as well.  Just be sure and use StumbleUpon for more than just a tool to submit your own blog posts.  You don’t want to be though of as being spam.  It’s one thing to have an affiliate link or two in your review post, it’s a different story when you submit your affiliate link directing people to sign up for something.  Don’t do it, if people wanted to find that type of information they would find it elsewhere.

Affiliate Links

Stay away from anything that could be considered spam.  If you have posts letting readers know about awesome deal, GREAT!  We all love awesome deals, but don’t submit it.  Now if your posts is informing readers how to find awesome deals, where to look, or how to maximize coupon usage.  SUBMIT!

In the end, think of StumbleUpon has a tool, it’s a tool that will help you increase traffic if used correctly.  Also, use StumbleUpon.  If you visit a blog, read an amazing post, SUBMIT IT!  That’s truly what its there for, to share the amazing content on the web.  So head over to StumbleUpon, set up your account, and start Stumbling, you’ll quickly see the power it holds for both stumblers and bloggers.  Just like anything, if used correctly StumbleUpon can drive lots of traffic to your website or blog.

This is just my opinion based on my own experiences using StumbleUpon.  If you’ve used it for different reason and found it to be successful, please leave me a comment I would love to hear about your Stumbling experiences

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