SEO BLOG

Do you think Digg or Reddit is the place to go nowadays? Never used StumbleUpon until now? You should, both as a user and a webmaster. Users get highly relevant content that matches their preferences, that’s the way of social browsing. Webmasters get substantial and steady traffic. Especially new and small non-profit blogs like mine can get a regular, even daily traffic boost. That’s not all though to say about StumbleUpon, it’s not just any traffic, it’s the best and most targeted traffic I have ever seen!

Let me present 7 reasons why StumbleUpon traffic is the best traffic out there:

1. Lowest bounce rate on the planet! The bounce rate (you can check it in Google Analytics) tells you how many users just ran away instantly after landing on your site. Even very targeted Google traffic has a bounce rate of 70, 80% which means that 4 out of 5 users won’t read your page and hit the back button. The bounce rate of StumbleUpon: Approx. 30% !!!
2. New visitors: StumbleUpon traffic means over 95% new visitors, new visitors that are really interested in your topic not just any visitors.
   
3. Most pages/visit: This number tells you whether a reader just clicked on a post and then went ahead somewhere else or if s/he just kept on reading more on your site. StumbleUpon users visited 2 pages per visit. That means they read the article that was stumbled and then clicked on the homepage for instance to read more or at least to check what this blog is about. Other traffic sources reach 1,5 pages/visit.
4. Steadiness: There is no server outage caused by StumbleUpon! Digg can mess up your server, cost you much money and damage your reputation. StumbleUpon traffic comes in steady recurring bursts, SEO 2.0 has been stumbled several times by now, 5 articles have been submitted by users, but one particular post has been stumbled repeatedly. It means that every time a user decides to “like” this post you get a burst of traffic, which in my case is 100 - 200 visitors, not much you might argue, but for a new blog like mine that counts 200 visits without social media it’s substantial.
5. No flames: Digg and Reddit users hate you for no apparent reason because those services force topics upon people whereas StumbleUpon just sends you those who like your topic anyways. I noticed that I was dugg by the stupid flame comments “you suck on the internet” on my post. StumbleUpon users in contrast behave like surprise guests because they stumbled into your party in a way. So they don’t offend you. On a side note: I was submitted to Reddit and was buried in an instant, probably for being a SEO.
6. International traffic: While Digg is predominantly white, middle class Americans and Europeans StumbleUpon even brought me some of the rare users from Africa. This is a truly varied international community.
7. Instant traffic: While new blogs and sites won’t get any significant traffic from Google, StumbleUpon can jump start your blog. My blog was stumbled on day two of SEO 2.0 at a time where Google sent 2 visitors per day. The first significant traffic from Google began to pour in after two weeks but still amounted to 20 - 30 visits. After a month I received more traffic from StumbleUpon alone that from Google’s organic search.

Conclusion: If you set up a new blog or site that targets a niche, you are on shared hosting and you do not want your hosting bill to skyrocket or you are non-profit anyways try to target the StumbleUpon audience and skip the “you suck on the internet” mobs of Digg and Reddit.

Also do not concentrate on Google. Google does not send any significant traffic to new sites to prevent spam. So only older authority sites can built upon organic Google traffic.

If you rely on commercial success concentrate on StumbleUpon first and then go on to other social media when you can afford the 300$ hosting bill and your success makes you immune against flame comments of the mob. Instead of the mob following the lowest common denominator choose the smart mob of StumbleUpon and other social browsing services.