Writing about Career Development, Social Media, Health & Fitness and Travels

After running some tests on my blog, I found that they each generate very interesting results in terms of traffic building.

Stumble Upon

If you’re not using it, I suggest you at least try it. I noticed HUGE spikes in my traffic after submitting my articles to stumble. It was almost an instant spike in traffic. A very noticeable spike that gave me several hundred views. The one downside to this is the traffic lasts only a couple minutes. This means you get a HIGH bounce rate because people are stumbling and continuing their journey. It’s good for a quick spike in traffic, but nothing long term. I also noticed that not a lot of people actually engaged in the website. It was meant for social skimming.

The plus side is you can submit articles fairly quickly.

Reddit

I totally forgot about this news sharing site to be honest. I don’t have a reddit button on my blog. I did submit some articles and noticed that the user ended up staying on the site longer. It’s also a more steady flow of traffic rather than a spike in traffic. With this being said, I highly recommend submitting to this site because it does generate traffic to your site and looks to have a lower bounce rate.

The downside is that you sometimes have to wait 8 minutes between submitting new articles and it seems more limited.

Digg

I haven’t seen much traffic come from this site and I’m not quite sure why. I also noticed that the topics you can submit to are very limited. Perhaps the content gets diluted so it doesn’t get shared.

With this brief summary, I can say I saw a huge spike in traffic on my blog and it blew my analytics. It shows that 99% are new visitors. So with that being said, I suggest you try using these sites to help boost your website traffic even just a little.

I can’t believe it is almost 2012. Of course with the new year, comes reflection and goal setting. I’m so grateful to have met so many inspirational people in my life and have accomplished so much that I’ve always wanted to do. I can’t wait for 2012!

The art of travel is difficult to master. In my short time being back home in the Bay Area, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect. Watching films of people traveling across the world on motorcycles, packing up and taking spontaneous trips abroad and seeing photos on Facebook of friend’s travels have all inspired me to pursue this expensive hobby.

When I tell people I’m moving to France, people are shocked. I don’t blame them. I believe the American dream is to find a career and work at it. That has been the dream for many years. Stability and security is the number one priority. You make money now and make huge strides in your career so that you can enjoy an early retirement and coast. This is most American’s idea of the ideal lifestyle; however, there are some who beg to differ.

I remember picking up the book, The 4-Hour Work Week, and reading about how Tim Ferriss outsources a lot of his work so that he can take mini retirements throughout his life. To be honest, I stopped reading after hearing that.

I could not agree more that you have your whole lifetime to make your own decisions, build your career and make money. Age and death is not something you can escape…nor should you. There comes a time in everyone’s life where your health isn’t so great. Arthritis, short-term memory and high blood pressure are only some of the things you may encounter as you get older. Traveling and spontaneity is something that might be more difficult to enjoy when you have a significant other, a career, kids and a dog.

So with that I felt compelled to write this post for several reasons.

5 Reasons Why You Should Travel NOW Continue Reading →

My dad sent me this and I had to repost it. I’ve never seen some of these locations…but I feel that I HAVE to travel to some of the places now! Time to add to the ‘ole bucket list!

The world’s highest chained carousel, located in Vienna, at a height of 117 meters.

Thor’s Well a/k/a “the gates of the dungeon” on Cape Perpetua, Oregon. At moderate tide and strong surf, flowing water creates a fantastic landscape

Emerald Lake in the crater of an extinct volcano. Tongariro National Park – NewZealand

Restaurant on a cliff on the east coast of Zanzibar. Depending on the tide the restaurant can be reached both on foot and by boat.

Continue Reading →