Does using images in StumbleUpon (and other social media tools) help you get more traffic to your site?

This is a question I want answers to. My “gut” says yes, of course images are going to help. But testing will be the only way I can really say for sure. You’re feedback will help too.

One test I recently did was with a new website I created for Utah Tourism and Business Reviews. Here’s the SU Review:

I made this post about Spanish Fork Utah massage the day after I opened up the website and then, by habit, reviewed it and included an image. These are the results I got within an hour:

71 visitors and 108 page views. Now to many, this may not be great traffic at all, but to me, it was awesome since it was all within an hours time. If my goal with the site is to get high numbers of traffic, this is a great step in that direction. Plus it helped me build links for that page which led to a quick cache by Google not long after opening day. I was out of the “sand box” quick and it’s only going to get better.

What have your experiences been with adding images to your social media marekting reviews?

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Here are more of my thoughts on PageRank vs. Cache.

What I’m seeing more and more is that it’s really hard to accurately determine EXACTLY why sites have PageRanks and how important they really are. Example, Christer Edwards starts a blog in December that is basically a compilation of other people’s blogs. It’s a great idea and is something I look at a lot. All of a sudden it has a PR3 after only a few weeks online. Why? It’s hard to say for sure. Maybe it’s because he’s got links to others sites that have high PageRanks. Maybe it’s because alot of us have linked to him. Maybe it’s none of those factores. To me, and I definitely may be wrong, Christer’s website contradicts what Jim Boykin is saying about the “3-6 months prior” idea.

If Link Building and submitting to directories is so importatnt, PageRank must be important too, right!? If PageRank doesn’t have some clout, how do we determine which places are best to build links? How do we determine if a site is “link quality” or not?

I’m definitely open to suggestions and am implementing new ideas all the time. The best thing I’m learning is that there are so many opinions out there about what works and what doesn’t. It seems like the old cliche “Moderation in all things!” fits here too: focusing all your efforts on just one thing, be it PageRank, Cache or whatever else, is not a balanced, most effective attack.  Diversify!

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After making the post about PageRank yesterday, I decided to read a little more in to the value of PageRank versus when you were last cached. Not to my surprise, SEO Blog has a great point: PageRank isn’t quite as important as it used to be…or maybe better said - Cache Date is the New Google Page Rank. As Aaron Wall mentioned:

What Google frequently visits (and spends significant resources to keep updated) is what they consider important.

How do we get cached more often? Revise content, add new content, help Google see that we are providing valuable information all the time. I’ve been watching my blog since I started making posts and it is cached so much more frequently than my older, higher page ranked clogging shoes website. I’m sure that’s primarily because I don’t change the home or sub-pages very often on that site. In contrast, with my blog, the consistency is there: new posts are made almost every day, the content stays true to a general idea or theme, and I make it a point to give credit where credit is due with anchor links to viable sources.

Running a website, or multiple websites, is definitely not a “turn key”, sit back and watch the money role in business. Like anything, it takes hard work, well thought out plans, and action. If we want to increase the frequency that Google caches our site, we better get our butts in gear! Jim Boykin offers a free tool to check the cache date of your web pages.

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