Just a quick update on the great effects of StumbleUpon. While, many may look at this traffic and scoff at how common and low it is. For me and my personal sites, it’s a huge amount of traffic (though, the site I work on at my day job pulls in approx. 1 million uniques a month, so it’s not like I’m seeing the ocean for the first time–but it’s still fun).
I had been getting a trickle of SU traffic since launching wpZipper.com last week and then around noon EST this past Monday the flood gates opened:
By the end of Monday, the site had received just under 1,000 unique visitors. By Tuesday, that number had almost doubled. For such a small, new, and generally unknown website it was quite exciting to see this many people visiting. I could also see the StumbleUpon page for wpZipper start to fill up with people who also “liked” the site.
Of course, all good things must end. And, with a resounding thud, traffic landed back around the 250 uniques range on Wednesday. Though, comparatively speaking, 250 uniques is hardly a thud. I’ve been “dugg” before and it can bring tens of thousands of unique visitors within an hour or two. So, this is not on that level, but still a fun thing to watch.
The real value here isn’t the boost in traffic, it’s that so far this week over 3,000 people have been exposed to wpZipper and I’m starting to see the site being mentioned in blogs (several Spanish-speaking ones, oddly enough–there are some good looking Spanish blogs out there… just wish I could write Spanish beyond asking where the bathroom in the library is!).
First, if you haven’t heard of StumbleUpon, check it out right now at StumbleUpon.com.
In short, it’s a free service that lets web surfers rate websites with a thumbs up or thumbs down. It also allows you to “stumble” through their massive directory of websites that others have stumbled upon. All of this is done through the StumbleUpon toolbar. If you are the type of web surfer that remembers the good old days when surfing the web was a fun exploration of the unknown, cool, and weird–then this is the toolbar for you. It makes surfing fun again.
A rather nice side benefit from using the service that I’ve stumbled upon (har-har) comes from giving your own blog posts a “thumbs up” using the tool bar. This is basically along the same lines as submitting your posts to social bookmarking services. However, if you take a little time and carefully use appropriate tags and a good description when you are submitting your post (using the thumbs up button), I have found you will often received a large, but short-lived bump in traffic.
Depending on the time of day and the content of your post, I easily see a spike in traffic of about 100-200 unique visitors within an hours time. Now, for larger, higher traffic websites, this may seem like a drop in the bucket. But, for smaller, struggling blogs it’s a nice experience.
I mentioned writing a good description and tags for a reason. If you don’t, you may still get a bump in traffic, but the visitors may “hit and run” without browsing or commenting (or doing anything else you’d normally want them to do at your site). The better the tags/keywords, the more appropriately matched your visitors will be, and the more likely they will be to browse, comment, subscribe to your feed, etc.
So, give it a shot. Create an account with StumbleUpon and start stumbling. Stumble other sites as well as your own and you’ll develop a small following of other SU users that pay attention to your stumbled sites.
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I need a new laptop. The one I have is an old, clunky, power-hungry, hot, slow, heavy mess of a laptop and I’m quite ready for a technology update. Unfortunately, I don’t have the spare cash to get the laptop I want. My wife and I have recently paid down a fair amount of credit card debt, and I’m in no rush to “charge it” again anytime soon.
So, because of my mild addiction to registering domain names, I have built up a small list of domains I’m either not using or under-using. So, instead of continuing to spend money keeping unused domains afloat, I’m going to start selling them in an attempt to raise enough money to buy my new laptop.
This post will serve as my continually updated list of domains I have for sale and how much money I’ve raised towards my shiny, fast, new laptop.
If you are interested in any of these domains, please make an offer using my contact form.
| Site Name |
Type |
Status |
|
| blogOhio.com blogNewEngland.com |
Domain |
For Sale |
|
| I registered these two back when I started blogINDIANA.com. My thought was after some time perfecting the Indiana site, I could attempt it in two other regions (and those two were the only ones available that I tried at the time). | |||
| collab.ws |
Domain & Website |
For Sale |
|
| This is one of the few sites I’ve actually done something with. It basically offers a hosted version of the free & open source project management software called ActiveCollab. ActiveCollab is designed to be downloaded and installed on a user’s server, but it has some strict server requirements that not everyone has access to. I do, so I thought it might make for a useful service. It’s less than a month old. I haven’t done any advertising for the site yet, but I’ve managed to attract 3 paying customers so far. | |||
| NewToYou.org |
Domain |
For Sale |
|
| I’ve had a couple different lofty ideas for this domain name. The first one (that prompted me to buy the domain) was to create a centralized version of the Freecycle Network. This domain could be used for dozens of great ideas. There’s even Jim’s New To You store in downtown Greenwood, but I doubt they’d be willing to pay me much for the domain. | |||
| curbd.org |
Domain & Website |
For Sale |
|
| A simple blog I created to post links to various articles and tutorials on how to reuse common and household items and remake them into useful things. The concept behind the domain is that you are finding value in things that people have thrown to the curb (or curb’d). | |||
| EZTags.org |
Domain & Website |
For Sale |
|
| This was kind of an experiment to see what was possible in terms of Google PageRank and backlinks. This is a simple website that makes it easy to generate meta tags for your website as well as a tool to check for broken links. It has a PageRank of 3. | |||
|
Domain |
Sold: $50 |
||
| Pure domain speculation. Lots of possibilities for this domain. | |||
| Indiana85.com |
Domain |
For Sale |
|
| Registered with the intent of blogging about the rise of ethanol use in Indiana. Was going to create an interactive map of local places to fill up with ethanol as new pumps open up. I still think this is a great idea. | |||
| IndyShirt.com |
Domain |
For Sale |
|
| The perfect name for a local (or independant) t-shirt shop. | |||
| LogDog.org |
Domain & Website |
For Sale |
|
| A full-blown web service, LogDog lets non-profits and other volunteer groups keep easier track of their volunteer’s service hours as well as letting individual volunteers track their own hours. Check out the website for more details. Currently, a few members but no paying customers. I’m not in a hurry to sell this site, but I will part with it for the right price. | |||
| MetYou.org |
Domain |
For Sale |
|
| Still have a great idea for this domain (which I’m not sharing). There are several ideas that this domain would be perfect for. So, for the right price, I’m willing to part with it. | |||
| IndyLance.com |
Domain |
For Sale |
|
| The general idea for this was going to be a freelancer website for posting and finding work. As with a few of my domains, “indy” can stand for “indianapolis” or “independant.” | |||
| RealtyIndy.com |
Domain |
For Sale |
|
| I purchased this domain at an auction and I’m not sure I want to give it up. However, I will consider all reasonable offers. | |||
| ShortStory.ws |
Domain |
For Sale |
|
| A few ideas for this domain involving (obviously) short stories or collaboratively written stories. | |||
| SitePing.com |
Domain & Website |
For Sale |
|
| Read this article for more information. Not in a hurry to part with this website. I have a few more feature ideas in the works. However, for the right price, I might part with it. | |||
| SiteRaffle.com |
Domain & Website |
For Sale |
|
| Currently, this is a website that lets anyone post their ScratchYourself.com tickets to be added to the rotation. The point being that you can increase your chances of winning prizes the more other’s play your ticket (if someone wins a prize on your ticket, you win that prize, too). | |||
| SlimWebHosting.com |
Domain |
For Sale |
|
| Purchased at auction. There is a small trickle of traffic hitting this website (less than 50 hits per month). | |||
| SquareShare.org |
Domain |
For Sale |
|
| Purchased this domain as an alternate idea for NewToYou.org (above). | |||
| CaptionFoo.com |
Domain |
For Sale |
|
| Intention was to create a photo caption website. | |||
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