Subscribe to RSS FeedAre You Choosing The Right Category In StumbleUpon?
Most of us use StumbleUpon to boost traffic to a certain post of ours in the end hoping that we can gain a few more subscribers or at least readers to our blogs. There is nothing wrong with this, it is in fact the whole purpose of StumbleUpon….to alert others to interesting and helpful information.
When you submit a page to StumbleUpon you are given a choice of a main category to submit under as well as adding extra categories that relate to the topic of the post. Choosing the right main category is extremely important because you want to be sending people that are interested in that topic to your page. If you write a post about changing your blog’s header image you aren’t going to want to submit the page under the Environment category.
A few days ago I was going over StumbleUpon and got to thinking a little bit more about choosing the right category. As an example, a few days ago somebody submitted my post about changing your blog’s colors using CSS. Looking at the StumbleUpon page we can see that they have the category set to Search, which is probably why I didn’t get a whole lot of visitors and why I didn’t get any thumbs up. I’m not blasting them though, we all make mistakes or it could have possibly been a error from StumbleUpon. Most likely if you had submitted that post to StumbleUpon you would have used the web design category or something similar to that.
That is what got me thinking though and the whole reason for this post. Surely the post is about web design, there is no contesting that. But if you think about it, is that really the right category for it? StumbleUpon users are a bit more computer savvy compared to your normal computer user. Most of them are using FireFox and they are already using social media to interact with others. I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that users that are interested in web design most likely already know how to change the colors of a webpage. While the post applies to web design in general I had used blog in the title as I was trying to target bloggers. Are you seeing where I am going yet?
I believe that a post like that should have been submitted under something like blogging or weblogs or a very similar topic. Most bloggers can choose a theme for their blog but most of them know nothing about CSS or HTML and how to use it to customize their theme. I am sure that that post had some great potential to work well with StumbleUpon as most of the comments I got on it were very positive. I know that you can’t go back and change the main category yourself and I am not even sure if you can contact StumbleUpon and request to have them change it. In any event, I know that it helped at least a few of my readers and the whole point of these last few weeks of posts have been just that……to help, inform and educate.
I think I have come up with an idea to help combat this problem though. From now on, if I feel that a post could do well in StumbleUpon I am going to be leaving a box at the end of the post explaining which category I would like for it to be submitted under. Of course you can submit any of my posts into any bookmarking sites but I figured it might help to give some people a little bit of guidance.
StumbleUpon is a great way to drive traffic to your site or blog. I personally have used it to drive over 2,000 visitors to one of my sites in about 3.5 days. The great thing about it is that they allow you to add extra tags when submitting a page that can help increase traffic. So the next time you are submitting a page from your own site or somebody else’s take the time to really think about who the post is trying to target and not necessarily what it is about. You can always add the extra tags to help with relevance and gain a few extra stumblers.
Do you agree with me about this or think that I don’t know what I’m talking about?
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October 19th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
I think the site was submitted to the right category, however I can see where you are coming from. Now, I personally think people using SU may find the content in question a bit more useful within the blog category, however, I do wonder if it could penalize a site by not putting it under the correct category in regards to what the content is about?
Taras last blog post..5 Tips For Small Business During A Slow Economy
October 19th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
I agree with you you Jarret. That is a good idea and stumblers should be aware of where they are placing a post. However, you have to be excited that people are stumbling your post in the first place, right?
Good idea to make the category suggestion at the bottom. Especially as you build your relationship with your readers, they will be more and more likely to follow your advice and help you out.
Freddies last blog post..Using the SWOT Analysis for Bloggers
October 20th, 2008 at 5:51 am
Well this goes in my SU folder. I’m just gettin’ goin’ with it.
I think a hint at the bottom of the post is a great idea
Dennis Edells last blog post..Blog Revamp Update: Done - WOOHOO!
October 21st, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Makes sense to me, and I would certainly appreciate the guidance. Picking a category is downright traumatic for me, and one of the reasons that I rarely Stumble or Digg posts. At least on Digg, if someone else has already submitted it, I can just go “Yeah, what he said”. :-)
WordVixens last blog post..You Wanna Make Some Money For Me?
October 22nd, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Hi Jarret,
Feels kind of strange writing that given that I have the same first name. I hear people raving about stumble upon traffic all of the time, but it hasn’t really done much for my sites. Other than creating a huge friend list on stumble upon and asking them to thumb up your post, is there anything else you can do to increase stumble traffic?
thanks,
Jarret
Jarret Morrows last blog post..Lifestyle change, fish oil, and red yeast rice vs. Simvastatin to reduce cholesterol?
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:00 pm
@Jarret - Hey, thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment :)
I would say to increase SU traffic is to just write content that people will like and want to tell others about.
I know that you have probably heard that quite a bit but you hear about it so much because that is what works. People tend to like lists of things, like Top 10 Ways To Skin A Cat. Ok, maybe not that but you know what I mean.
Of course, like I stated in this post, submitting to the right category can have a huge impact on the success or failure of the page that you submit.
SU traffic really isn’t great traffic, at least in my opinion. You have to really have some great content and want to make stumblers check out other posts on your blog. I think it’s good for burst traffic, but traffic over time? Not really, stumblers are already in “browsing” mode and not necessarily information mode.
At least that is my take on it, I’m sure that others or even yourself may have a different opinion.
I checked out your WordPress.com blog, are you submitting posts to SU on that blog? I would have to say that most SU users are pretty tech savvy and know more about computers than most users do. In my personal opinion, not trying to bash your blog or anything, your writing is too “scientific”. You use a lot of big words in your latest post lol
If I was you, I would have taken your post http://jmorrow50.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/fuel-your-brain-with-blueberries/ and put up a list on there of the benefits. People scan when they read to find content and using a list makes the benefits stand out. Then when they see the benefits, they can go back to read more specific information. You stated some benefits to blueberries such as lowering cholesterol, blood pressure as well as preventing UTIs ,cancer, and cognitive decline.
See? That is a lot easier to read rather than a line of text, at least for me. I would have also taken the text that you bolded and stuck it inside of a blockquote or styled it to stand out more. You have it mashed in with a big wall of text but you describe some great benefits to why you should eat blueberries and it could have a larger impact if you made it stand out by itself.
October 22nd, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Jarret, thanks for the feedback. I agree that I need to write my posts to a more general audience. I’ve done this for many posts, but seem to frequently revert to my scientific writing background. I really like the idea of listing the key information at the top and then providing the supporting information to follow. Great site and thanks for the tips. Oh, and yes I had submitted a few posts to SU on that blog, but subsequently found out that SU doesn’t allow this–unlike digg.
Cheers,
Jarret
Jarret Morrows last blog post..Lifestyle change, fish oil, and red yeast rice vs. Simvastatin to reduce cholesterol?
October 22nd, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Well, you can submit your own content to SU but you have to make sure that you are using SU for other’s sites as well. I’ve heard that a ratio of 10:1 is a good combination meaning you stumble 10 sites before submitting one of your own.
SU doesn’t mind that you submit your own site but they want you to provide something back instead of “spamming” your sites if that makes any sense. But it is always best to get your friends to stumble a post for you and make sure that it is somebody different each time if you can.