NOTE: This tip violates StumbleUpon’s TOS.
If you are tired of the over priced cost of advertising on popular blogs over at Entrecard, you might be interested in my new discovery. If you paid 400+ Entrecard credits to advertise on popular blogs and receive a few visit, then it’s certainly not worth it. I have read posts from disgruntled Entrecard users who complain about the unreasonable advertising cost of some blogs yet drive few traffic. Some Entrecard users with expensive advertisement cost even complain about their overpriced advertising cost.
What is a more effective way to get MORE traffic to your blog than advertising at JohnChow’s Entrecard widget?
Get your traffic from StumbleUpon for a very cheap cost. I’m not talking about paying StumbleUpon for traffic, that’s a different thing. I’m talking about getting traffic from SU by paying Stumblers to stumble upon your best posts. We’re not talking about real money here. We’re talking about Entrecard Credits, which you can easly earn from dropping your Entrecard. With less than 200 EC Credits, I got someone to stumble upon some of my posts and got lots of traffic from it.
Want some proof? Here’s a screen shot of my traffic statistics from FireStat. Obviously, most of the traffic referrals came from StumbleUpon, a proof that paying someone to StumbleUpon your post can give you more traffic than getting your banner advertised on expensive Entrecard widgets.
I found that there are a lot of Stumblers who are willing to stumble upon your post in exchange for Entrecard Credits. You can visit the Entrecard Shop for more details. You need to be careful when choosing the stumbler to stumble your post. Not all of them have wide network, which is suppose to bring traffic to your blog. I did some experiment myself until I figured out which among them can really bring traffic.
Maximizing Traffic From StumbleUpon
Usually, when you pay for someone to stumble upon your post, you will be provided with a form where you can send the page on your blog that you want to be stumbled. In order to maximize the traffic you get from StumbleUpon, make sure to give the URL of your best post. In my case, I gave the post that received the most comment from my blog readers.
Within 24 hours, the post I submitted received over 1000 visits from StumbleUpon users. To get the same traffic from advertising on popular blogs at Entrecard, you will need to advertise on 10 blogs as popular as JohnChow.
Thoughts On StumbleUpon’s TOS Violation
Maki of DoshDosh, pointed out in one of the discussions at BlogCatalog that the practice of sending PM’s encouraging or inviting other stumblers to rate/review sites in exchange for reciprocal reviews/ratings, monetary, or any other form of reward is strictly forbidden.
That’s the main reason why at the beginning of this post, I made sure that you know that this tip violates SU’s Terms Of Service.
Why did I still bother to write about this tip? Well, I noticed that exchange stumbling and exchange rating is widespread in the Blog-o-sphere. There’s even a site exclusively created for this purpose - SUExchange.com. And yet, they’re not even banned from StumbleUpon. There are also numerous thread created everyday for SU requests and SU exchanges. And yet, again, most of these websites involved haven’t been banned.
Personally, as a blogger, I believe that this is an ethical strategy that can be compared to buying traffic from StumbleUpon or Adsense or any PayPerClick companies. It only becomes bad, because the SU people don’t allow their users to engage in this activity. Most likely, the reason why SU forbids this activity is to ensure that only quality posts (articles, images and videos) are stumbled. But if you analyze it closer, SU has a built-in quality control mechanism to make sure that only useful and quality post gets stumbled and ultimately gets traffic.
Let’s get back to my case awhile ago. Someone I paid stumbled my post and shared it to his 200 or so networks. This means, my blog probably will receive 200 visits but I received more than 1000. Why? It’s because the people who visited my post found it useful so they ended up stumbling it as well. If my post was of poor quality and of no use, it should have not received more than 200 visits. The point is, when you pay for someone to stumble your post, your traffic is limited to the number of his network assuming that your post is of poor quality. But if your post is useful and ’stumble-worthy’ you should experience a build up of traffic, like what happened in my case.
Moreover, if someone I paid with Entrecard credits stumbled my post, it won’t usually get to SU’s homepage or become popular not until it achieves a certain level of popularity among SU users. Until then, it will just be a part of the stumbler’s page.
What do you think? Should StumbleUpon tolerate exchange stumble/rating? To some extent, they already do.
Thank you for your time. Your feedback is much appreciated. 
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Link responded on 10 Mar 2008 at 10:26 pm #
Thanks for mentioning my post at the top there.
I took the Entrecard widget down this morning actually. The traffic was dropping dramatically as I became less and less involved with the community.
And, of course, the traffic isn’t of very high quality (not that I think SU traffic is any better).
InfoDoorway responded on 10 Mar 2008 at 10:32 pm #
SU is definitely a good way to generate traffic, but I wonder how the traffic converts? Do the visitors subscribe to feeds? Do they click on ads? I’ve received spurts of good traffic from there before but it didn’t seem to generate many return users. I mentioned this on my blog already, but I wonder if sites like SU exchange are bad for blogs. I still think traffic from major SE’s, other blogs and word of mouth are best.
Jay responded on 10 Mar 2008 at 11:01 pm #
There are so many social bookmarking exchange sites out there, but quite frankly, I hope they don’t really come down on the SU thing and strictly enforce it.
Jay
DatMoney.com
Mr. Javo responded on 10 Mar 2008 at 11:16 pm #
I’m agree with you. I have seem blogs of 500ec/day and it has 20 subscribers, that obviously do not work. Buying Stumbles with e-credits it is a good way to expend your credits.
sylv3rblade responded on 11 Mar 2008 at 3:49 am #
I think I’ll focus on SEO rather than exchanging traffic. I don’t have much time on my hands as of the moment so doing things right for the best SERP is the best course of action for me.
Wakish responded on 11 Mar 2008 at 3:31 pm #
That’s a wonderful tip.. I myself realized that buying ad space from EC users with high price was actually not effective. Their high price is mainly (for most of them..) due to their high active card dropping..etc
I made the experience the other day, I bought an ad spot at 5EC and one at 55EC.. the result was that the 5EC blog gave me 2 hits while the other one was useless..
You definetly shared a very cool method here.. I think I should try to implement it soon..
Once again, Rocky you rock!
Best Wishes,
- Wakish -
Wayne Liew responded on 11 Mar 2008 at 8:25 pm #
If someone participates actively in a webmaster forum trade sections, they will see such requests being posted minutes after minutes and the trend started right from when Digg became popular as a traffic source.
I haven’t try their services out on the stand that the quality of traffic will not match those who really come to your blog via recommendations from links on other blogsor search engines.
BloggingMix responded on 11 Mar 2008 at 10:00 pm #
@Jack,
Your welcome mate! I just don’t think getting rid of your Entrecard widget is a good move as it is still a potential great source of traffic!
@Indoorway,
I’ll be writing a blog post about that. I’m trying Paid SU traffic. I’ll write about my experience in the coming days. So far, traffic is really coming good.
@Jay,
I don’t think they’ll do that. The SU exchange is widespread in the Blogosphere and like I said, SU has it’s own mechanism to ensure that only good posts get stumbled, hence, get more traffic.
@ Javo,
I sure is worth the EC credits I paid. The traffic is just awesome.
@Sylv3rblade,
I have to agree with you. SU traffic is short term in nature but unlike Digg, SU traffic can hit you back when another popular stumbler stumble your post. Good luck to your SEO. I personally believe is a good long term traffic source. Although, a sudden change in Search Engine’s algorithm could mean, a change in your SE traffic.
@ Wakish,
Thanks for constantly dropping by. I’m glad you found the post useful. Glad we share the same experience.
@ Wayne,
I’ll comment more on your comment after paying for traffic from SU. So far, as per experience, I’m quite satisfied with SU’s traffic. More on it in my coming posts.
Cheers everyone!
roel responded on 11 Mar 2008 at 10:03 pm #
Is it allowed to Stumble your own post? Can it be done? Sorry for the ignorance.
BloggingMix responded on 11 Mar 2008 at 10:07 pm #
@ Roel,
Yes, you can stumble your post. I did it in some of my post. However, I’m not sure whether it’s against SU’s TOS but many stumblers are doing it. Haven’t heard of anyone penalized for doing it either. Although, would have it been nice if others stumble your post instead of yourself?
TheAnand responded on 12 Mar 2008 at 7:32 am #
yea, but I do not think there is nothing much SU can do to stop this practice of reciprocal exchange. I had a look at suexchange sometime back and ended up creating much user friendly and easier way to stumble exchanges at stumblecult.com Though its in closed beta, its gaining popularity by the day.
Diana responded on 16 Mar 2008 at 9:12 am #
I think the only benefit from SU traffic(appart from the raising joy
) is the increase of Alexa traffic rank and Compete traffic, which is pretty important if you want to monetize your blog.
Diana’s last blog post..ProjectWonderful: Advertise and make some bucks
Advertising on expensive blogs - Page 2 - Bloggeries Blog Forum responded on 18 Mar 2008 at 5:18 pm #
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