As with any linkbait, I was watching the referal logs like a hawk. I submitted the page to Digg, and it did manage to get popular -- but then was promptly buried before getting more than a hundred diggs or so. I also seeded Stumbleupon with the page. It was the best thing I could have ever done.
I know we've said it before, but we're continually amazed at Stumbleupon's ability to drive traffic. If you have good, linkable content, it will send you a few visitors. But if you create truly great content, it will strike a cord with a lot of people and send you lots of traffic. How much? Well, here is a chart of the top 10 referrers to the Mythbusters page since last Friday.
13,000+ visitors from Stumbleupon. Word. That's more than every other referrer except Gorillamask (next 2 bars). It's 11,000 more than Netscape (6th bar). Goes to show you how much power is placed in good content.
I'd start taking into account an item's "Stumbleability" when you're thinking up linkbait. Will the landing page grab visitors' attention right away? Will it be clear and concise on what it is and what the user's call to action is? Is it awesome? The Mythbusters page was all of those things, and was rewarded with lots of love from Stumbleupon.
Jeff, you forgot to mention the best part about StumbleUpon - it's fantastic ability to reach broader audiences that you normally would with just one big link. The diversity of links pointing to your Mythbusters page is remarkable, particularly considering the short time span it's been up.
BTW - Did I tell you how thrilled I am that you throw your weekends and nights into building linkbait for our clients? It warms my heart :)
I agree stumbleupon gives you alot of traffic, but alot of this is often very short visits. When I stumble sites, 90% of the time I move on after 4 seconds, but still itdoesn't do any harm!
Very true. Per Rand's post from yesterday, Stumble visitors (at least for SEOmoz) are HORRIBLE for converting on much of anything. Still, a lot of those visitors linked to it from their blog, myspace, whatever...and that helps.
I agree, StumbleUpon does rock.. although I wish it would build more extensively on its community features.
I wonder if you have more options for community interaction and profile customization when you are a paying member?
I heart Stumbleupon - it sends continuous traffic and it sends a lot of it. Plus the Pageviews/visitor is highest of any referrer (for my blog anyway)
This is just amazing - I had no idea stumbleupon could deliver that much traffic. I guess I'm going to have to look to using them some more. I haven't used them too often - sticking mainly with the bigger ones.
"I also seeded Stumbleupon with the page."
You mentioned Stumbleupon in a prior post, but I can't quite figure out how to utilize it or what you mean by the above sentence.
Do you have to open an account there and then you submit a particular post to SU just like you can do with Digg?
Thanks,
Vic
By seeding it he means you install the stumbleupon toolbar and then thumb something up
A lot of people don't know, but StumbleUpon has a front page equivilant to Digg. It's called Stumble Buzz https://buzz.stumbleupon.com/. One of my articles made it to this page and we got a good chunk of visitors in a short amount of time.
Stumble Upon is a CPM dream...
But is it possible that you get buried at Digg because you openly publicize that you're doing linkbaiting for Drivl? It's no secret that Diggers despise this whole concept.
You're giving diggers too much credit. They just burried it because it was "dupe content." Take a look at the comments on the digg listing and you'll see what I mean.
That would be giving them a lot of credit. ;)
I was referring more to the fabled "in-house" editorial controls... those people might pay more attention to the SEO community. But even then, it's far fetched to say the least.
Yeah, and I'd like to add "dupe content phghgsh". I spent HOW LONG rewriting all those myths?! :P
i second that emotion. it took me a week to just compile all that information, that you so brilliantly edited.
I don't think every Digger read the SEOmoz blog, saw the Digg submission, and went, "Hey, that's something from Drivl! It must be linkbait! Bury it!"
Rand until you started talking about StumbleUpon a few months back I hadn't really tried it. Now I have the toolbar installed and do stumble around from time to time.
I'm always amazed at how well the pages that appear match my interests and I've stumbled on quite a few sites that are now permanently bookmarked.
Is it frowned upon to submit your own pages? I assume your StumbleUpon profile should be more than just a listing of your own pages.
I did submit one of my own pages right after I signed up for an account and was impressed by how much traffic it sent. Nothing that would impress you, but for me at the time it was a lot. It wasn't a particularly great page so the traffic stopped right away, but it was eye opening as to what might be.
For one of my sites, I receive about 30% more traffic from StumbleUpon.com than Google. I think Google is dinging me for duplicate content, so the bump in traffic from SU visitors is quite welcome.
You can pay $0.05 a visitor through their advertiser program, which I heard from a few people is good for getting the eyeballs.
Wow your page was built for StumbleUpon. Totally sweet design man - really. It also deserved to make the front page of digg but I would likely need to rant to tackle why it didn't make it. A shame.
Also StumbleUpon is in my top 3 for most referrers and like Rand says, it's a great tool to reach a nonSEO demographic.