StumbleUpon Just for a Day

This is not a paid add or otherwise reimbursed plug for any social network. I just wanted to share.

There are lots of reasons to take time during your week to blog.  Many bloggers are trying to make a go of it financially.  I'm not sure how that works.  Most visitors to my blog are other bloggers rather than people looking to buy something.  However, I guess if you get your Google rank high enough and get enough traffic, the numbers work in your favor and you get enough clicks to make some income.

Some bloggers write because they love writing.  Some write as a way of journaling their thoughts.  Some write as way to express their opinions to the world.  I'm sure there are many other reasons to blog. My reasons for blogging are probably most related to the latter two examples.  I blog to journal my thoughts as I seek a closer walk with Jesus.  However, I am also eager to share my views and receive feedback from others that may be now or have walked a  similar journey.

I've had various ads and Amazon links on my site before.  I don't believe anyone ever clicked on them or purchased anything through these ads.  I've since taken them off as I noticed all they seemed to do was slow down my page loads.

Anyway, the point of this long introduction is that I do want visitors to my blog.  I want to share what I'm thinking and hear from others that have an opinion or view, regardless how much it may differ from my own.  In the blogosphere with thousands of blogs, how do you find readers for your blog?

Before joining Entrecard, I probably had anywhere from 1 to 20 visitors in a given day.  With Entrecard, that number quickly increased to 50 to 200 visitors in a day.  Of course, we all know the Entrecard game and most of those visitors are just there to drop.  That's ok though.  From time to time a post may catch someone's eye and they'll stop and read and they may even leave a comment.  I do the same myself.

Suddenly, last Wednesday, I had a crazy day of activity on my blog.  The hits spiked to 1,300.  The craziness actually started on Tuesday with 700 hits and then faded on Thursday with only 400.  By Friday, life on Seeking Above was back to normal.

So what caused all this increase in traffic?  StumbleUpon.  For some reason, a post from July 1, Radical Christianity, had caught on in the StumbleUpon circuit and increased traffic to my site 10X.  I don't know if many folks were stopping to actually read the post, but Seeking Above gained quite a bit of exposure that day, at least compared to what I had seen in the past.

I used to Stumble all of my new posts myself, just to try and get my blog on the StumbleUpon circuit.  I guess StumbleUpon sees that as spam and they no longer accept a post from my own site.  I can understand this limit as a way to prevent spam.  However, now I'm dependent on other bloggers to Stumble my posts for me.

Traffic is back to normal now.  I have plenty of other posts that have been Stumbled, so I am not sure why one post really took off last week.  However, I still see a steady stream of StumbleUpon traffic, just nothing like a thousand in a day.

I don't know why others blog.  However, I am going to assume that most of my blogging friends out there do want other people to know about their site and enjoy new visitors, either just to share or maybe to make some income.  Whatever the case, I'm now a strong believer in StumbleUpon (in addition to Entrecard) as a great source to let others know about interesting blogs.  One of my routines now, as I visit other blogs, is to make sure I Stumble all the good posts and especially my Entrecard favorites.

If you come across a post here that you like, comment if you want to share and have the time. However, if you just want to show some blogging love, Stumble it with a Thumbs Up!

Grace and Peace.