I love trying new restaurants.

I learned quite a while back, that you can get a good idea of how a restaurant is by trying one of the staples for that type of restaurant. So at a new seafood restaurant, I order the clam chowder. At an Italian restaurant it is a question of how good their bread is (and if it’s real Italian bread) and how their spaghetti is.

Photo courtesy of Rick Dikeman
Almost without fail, I’ve found that if a restaurant doesn’t do well on the basic items, they probably aren’t going to excel at the other items either.

In any business, staples are the mainstay. They are the things that people are going to look for over and over…and what will keep people coming back to you. If you do well at those, you will have fans. Fail, and people will leave to find someone who understands the basics.

Twitter is having a hard time with this right now. Lately it seems that it’s up almost as often as it’s down. Almost.

Even when it’s up, it’s having problems. Last weekend, for example, clicking on the ‘Older’ tab at the bottom of the page took you to the top of the page. You had to manually add “/home?page=2″ (or whatever page) to see the older entries.

For two days, I had a direct message I couldn’t get to. Every time I’d try to check, Twitter would error out.

And people are noticing. Other communication sites are gaining followers as people decide reluctantly that Twitter doesn’t have the basics down anymore.

Big companies make great examples. It’s easy to point to one and say, “See, here’s what they’re doing wrong.”

But it’s not just big companies who need to pay attention to their staples. Even the smallest blogger needs to know what people expect from their site…and make sure that above everything else, each visitor receives that.

So what do you look for when you visit SU Comments? And for your own blog, what are your staples? Are you meeting your visitors’ basic expectations?

If you haven’t noticed yet, I love learning. If I find a site where I can learn a lot, I’ll hang out often, trying to learn as much as I can about almost anything. I’ll freely admit I’m new to a lot of the ideas of Internet Marketing, and I’ve learned a lot in a short time by listening (or reading) as people discuss their own businesses. Recently, one of my IM friends mentioned that a good estimate is to figure that for each 1 sale you make, you need to have 200 people visit your site. So, if you want 10 sales, you need 2000 people to visit…that’s a lot of people!

Of course, that’s where the social web comes in. Sites like StumbleUpon and Digg can make a site rush to the top of the popularity chart and bring in scads of hits. The problem comes if you’re not really ready for those hits (I’ve watched the Digg effect in action…not pretty) or if you can’t use them.

And now I can hear some of you going, “But of course I can use them…its just that they’re not doing anything. They visit my page and then poof! They don’t even explore the site or click on any links or anything.”

I think the thing a lot of people don’t think about is that the majority of social sites are specialized. News or Tech sites like Digg are extremely specialized. If you want to sell something to those visitors, it needs to fit the page they’re visiting. Not the website, the page. For instance, I doubt I’d sell many copies of Stumbling for Beginners to someone who reached this page from Digg. On the pages geared towards beginners though, it would probably do well.

Sites like StumbleUpon aren’t quite as specialized. With SU, you have people visiting who are interested in a topic, not because they read an interesting title or the blurb about it caught their interest. So as long as your whole site is about that topic, you’re probably going to have people from SU visiting more than one page.

Here on SU Com, I discovered how fun it is to look at the number of visitors I get. I have several stat sites that I enjoy checking, seeing where everyone is from and even what operating system most of my visitors use. It’s fun getting lots of visitors and watching the numbers go up. The only problem is that sometimes the focus can become trying to raise the numbers instead of trying to take care of visitors. I am not a number. I am a person. I’m not entirely sure about you, but unless you’re a googlebot, I suspect you’re probably a person also. And as a person, you’ve probably come here because you want to learn more about Stumbling or something I said or did caught your eye.

Now, if you’re a googlebot, I don’t have to worry. You’re going to explore every page, probably in more depth than I’d like. If you’re a person though, I have to give you a reason to keep reading. Making a post that’s designed to attract Digg users or SU users without the rest of the site offering similar content won’t do me any good, even if it does raise my stat numbers.

Also, and for some people this is a very important point, bringing in SU users and probably Digg users as well, is unlikely to help increase your profits if you are relying on insta-ads (Adsense, etc.). I can’t find the statistic I thought I’d bookmarked before, but I believe it was 75% of SU users use Firefox. I can easily believe this to be true, since 97% of all of you who visit my site use Firefox. I also can’t find any stats for the number of firefox users who use Adblock (my research skills seem to be suffering today), but judging from the complaints I’ve been hearing about SU users on many sites, I’d say a decent percentage of SU users also use Adblock to block insta-ads.

So, where does this leave you if you are trying to make money by blogging? Well, first, I’d keep in mind this comment I came across while trying to find the above statistics:

People need to get past the idea that every single visitor needs to be monetized. Instead, recognize the indirect benefits of having more users. Even if a Firefox user doesn’t buy something or click on an ad, he or she may tell someone else about the site and they may click on an ad or buy something. Word of mouth is an ongoing process — and even if someone doesn’t directly contribute to the revenue of a site, the fact that they potentially could cause others to drive revenue is the key.

Second, I’d suggest looking at how Adblock works, specifically how an ad is disabled on Adblock. Why? Because it’s very easy for me to disable insta-ads…one click and I don’t have to see any ads that didn’t require the poster to do some work (yes, I am very outspoken in my dislike of insta-ads. For the majority of bloggers, it’s not hard to prove that the space given to the ad company would bring in a lot more profits if other ads were utilized). I know the Adblock site argues against putting any ads on your page, and by and large, it’s not that difficult to block every ad, but most people I know don’t do that. What most people I know of (and I’m guessing the majority of people) do is to block the big companies who overwhelm you with ads, and just forget about the sponsor type ads…and even, occasionally, click on the ads if there’s one that catches our fancy.

So, to sum everything up, how can this help you to market to StumbleUpon users?

1) Don’t try to draw the SU crowd with gimmicks. Yes, a lot of us like fun sites, and you’ll get a lot of hits if you put something fun on your site. But fun doesn’t equate to click-throughs, which you’re more likely to get if you draw me with real content.

2) Have several posts that reflect the content I’m there to see, and make sure whatever you’re selling on that page reflects that content also. Make the other posts on the subject easy to find, don’t make me search for the content I’m interested in…I’ll go somewhere else that doesn’t make me do that.

3) Forget about insta-ads. There’s a good chance we won’t even see them. Make your ads applicable to the areas we’re interested in, the subject of your articles. Don’t use pop-ups, pop-up blocking was one of the main reasons I first started using Firefox way back when.

4) (One I forgot to mention earlier.) Join SU if you haven’t already, then check out the reviews for your page. See what people have said. Look at the tags and see if the page is tagged right. If not, send a report and suggest the correct category (this is a very important step, since many of the stumblers who visit will come because the category is something they’re interested in).

97% of my readers use Firefox.

Now, to me, that makes perfect sense. I’m a die-hard Firefox fan. I fell in love with it the first time I discovered add-ons for it. The add-ons turn Firefox from a rather slow, memory hogging browser (yes, I’m aware of it’s drawbacks) into a system that can do everything I could want and then some. Plus, I first found StumbleUpon while looking through the Firefox add-ons.

One of my very favorite add-ons (and I’m sure it’s a favorite of many of you) is Adblock Plus. What it does is block all the ads that drive you crazy when you’re web surfing.

I’ve been using Adblock for so long that I don’t even think about it anymore. In fact, the only reason I’m talking about it now is that I’ve been studying the various types of web ads for a project I’m working on. So, I started talking to some friends who use Adsense and various other types of insta-ads on their sites.

While I was talking to them, I discovered something. Several were getting StumbleUpon traffic, but very little of the traffic was turning into sales. It wasn’t until one friend asked me to look at his site and tell me what I thought, that I started to realize what the problem was. I couldn’t see an ad on the whole site. Not one. Checking back over the other sites, I noticed the same “problem.” No ads.

Now, I don’t know if you’re like me. I can’t stand insta-ads. I love having the ability not to see them. On the other hand, I understand that there are people out there who work as hard at blogging or harder at blogging as many of us do at other jobs. They try to give their readers interesting and informative content, and hope that some enjoy their blog enough to click on an ad or perhaps buy a product. Understand, I’m not talking about spam blogs, I’m talking about many of the blogs we love, such as Coffee with Allan Cockerill or Ooh! Shiny!

I know my own opinion is that I will read a hand-written ad. I don’t even mind the sponsor ads in their little square boxes. And an interesting banner ad has the possibility of grabbing my attention, as long as it doesn’t use flash, since it’s unlikely I’ll turn flash on to view it. I just can’t stand pop-ups or insta-ads. But that’s just me, and after studying this some, I’m really curious. What do you think? Do you use Adblock or a similiar program? Do you mind the insta-ads? What ads are your particular pet peeves? What ads will you actually pay attention to? And why do people use space for insta-ads if so many people hate them?

I’m guessing that the guys at SU headquarters are figuring if you’re new to SU, you’re going to depend on the toolbar to learn your way around the site, since to me, the new pages seem more like they’re made for people who have been stumbling for a little while. It’s easy to find “people like you,” not too hard to find the top ranked sites of the day (although it’s harder to find the Buzz, a daily list of the instant hit sites, pages that were discovered and became popular in a matter of hours) and it’s easy to see what your friends have stumbled on.

I LOVE the Recent reviews section. It’s probably one of the main things that keeps me from switching back to the old layout. It’s really nice seeing the most recent items my friends have posted:

Okay, lean in close everyone, I’m going to share a secret. Are you listening? Okay, think about this. If you are getting the most recent posts from your friends, what are they getting???

Yep, they’re getting your most recent post. Without you having to lift a finger to suggest it to anyone. Just by posting it on your blog, you’re sending it out to as many people as you have befriended.

Now, there are a few things I still need to check and if anyone reading this knows, please share your findings. I know you don’t get pages from your fans, but I’m not sure whether your pages go out to people who are fans that you haven’t befriended. Either way, it’s still a powerful marketing tool, whether you’re blogging for a business or just wanting to move up the ranks in SU. Having the Recent reviews page set as your default SU homepage doesn’t hurt either.

Any questions?

If I could tell them one thing to help encourage people to stumble them, it would be to put a small or medium sized brand at the top of their page and allow people to photoblog it.

These companies have it right:

Think about it…for a small amount of extra bandwidth, their brand is getting shared all across the internet. Don’t you think that’s worth it?
Technorati Tags: StumbleUpon, SU, Revenue blogging, Business, Photoblog

The article was written by Skellie, a guest blogger on the site. She has some good points. One of my favorites is near the beginning of the article: “Every blogger should have a StumbleUpon account. Regardless of which social media service you prefer, StumbleUpon is by far the easiest and least time-consuming to use.”

This tip by her got me to thinking though:

One tip: make sure your username and profile picture are branded in line with your blog. Use your blogging name for your profile, and a photo or logo your readers will be familiar with.

Now, there’s not anything wrong with using your logo for your picture. In fact, although you can change your picture as often as you want, if you are stumbling with the goal of building up your site, and if you have a logo, I’d recommend including your logo in any profile picture you use.

Quite by accident, I discovered how important your profile picture is a while back. My son was 2 when I first started Stumbling, and he fell in love with the Pooh picture and the fact that Pooh and Piglet were hugging. Since he loved the picture so much, I kept it as my profile picture, instead of changing it to something more grown-up.

About a year later, since he was three and wasn’t making me show him the Pooh picture every time he saw me at the computer, I toyed with the idea of changing my picture. In fact, I even mentioned it here and there, and the fuss I got surprised me. The most repeated point? That people saw my picture and knew it was me without having to look at my name. So anyway, I kept Pooh Bear, and I’ll probably be represented by him forever on SU.

I guess the second point from that story is to pick a picture that you like and that you’ll be happy with down the road even if you don’t have a logo. Eventually, even if you only thumb up pages and never post to a forum or participate any other way on SU, people are going to recognize your “face.”

Sooo…what part am I not sure about then? I guess I’ve seen too many stumblers named GrowTomatoPlantsIndoors or stuff like that, who then have a tendency to spam people’s inbox until they get blacklisted as spammers. Now, to be honest, I have seen one or two legitimate businesses who name themselves for their business and thumb up interesting articles related to their business, but I’d say if you use this approach you need to be very careful that every item you thumb up is interesting and that it’s labeled correctly (although the SU program is good at labeling most sites, it does mess up on occasion, which is something you really don’t want if you’re thumbing up your own business site).

What I would recommend if you have a blog you’re trying to get revenue from, and what I suspect that Skellie was trying to say, is to use the same name for your SU site that you use for your blog, and use it with Facebook, MySpace, and any other site that you frequent. I do want to emphasize that I only recommend this if you are wanting people to find your other sites, because as a researcher, I know how easy it is to trace someone’s information on-line just by searching their username and whatever other information they’ve included for public view. Even if you’re wanting visitors to your external sites though, I would recommend being careful what information you put where others can get hold of it. There are way too many programs that can use just a little information and put someone right on your doorstep.

Technorati Tags: StumbleUpon, SU, user name, profile,
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Tim Nash has written a wonderful article that finally solves (or at least sheds some light on) the mystery of Audience Scores and by doing so, he explains how to have the most impact as a stumbler. Part of this my friend and I had figured out, but some of it had me nodding my head and going, “Ah, so THAT’S how it works.”

A point from his post:

It is hard to weight which factor is most important when increasing audience score but the factors as I see them are:

• Number of fans
• Number of thumbs up and down you have given
• Stumble thumb bonus – increase to score based on number of thumbs received on a page.

This model means that the obvious technique to get a “power account” is to find more fans, thumb up loads of pages and start stumbles on pages you expect to be popular – sound familiar its pretty much the same on every social media site.

With the recent popularity of StumbleUpon, one thing I’ve noticed is that a LOT of people don’t seem to “get” how SU works. Stumblers with several pages of sites they’ve commented on won’t have thumbed up their own site…and sometimes they haven’t even thumbed up the pages they’re commenting on. Those thumbs on the SU Toolbar are important. They represent everything you’re interested in…and anything you aren’t. Giving a thumbs up to a good page increases the page’s value in SU’s AI’s eyes. So that page will get sent to more stumblers. As they thumb it up and add their own tags to it, it will be sent to even more, and so on and so forth.

Now, the thing that is death both to your audience score and to whatever site you’re thumbing, is having a page you discover get marked as spam by your visitors.

According to Tim:

Fred has realised stumbleupon can make him money so thumbs up his proxy site it gets a few visitors but 7 people thumb down the site and 2 marked it as spam. Fred audience score plummets (18 but has been marked by spam so temporarily has his score halved) so his score is now 9 poor Fred will have to work hard to regain his score.

He also has a good point about friends, “it is my belief it does penalise accounts that continue to stumble the
same things without being friends or at least one party being a fan.” I think it’s probably the idea of having fans that keeps you from being penalized, particularly since friends on SU are basically just mutual fans, and there doesn’t seem to be a bonus to being fans of a large number of people.

The one thing he mentions that I’m not totally sure about is the use of the “send to” button. I’ve seen some Top Stumblers use it to advantage, although admittedly that was a while back and SU may have changed the way it counts. Regardless, I still think sending a good site to a friend who you know will enjoy it is a great way to build and maintain friendships on SU. I just regret that there is no way to save the comments that get sent with a page recommendation.

Technorati Tags: StumbleUpon, Thumb Up, Stumblers

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