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.

Ok, you can stop stressing…the worst is over. Lets say you nailed your interview (I’m sure you did!), now what? The next step in the job hunting process is to follow-up in a timely and memorable manner. Keep in mind I’m coming from an agency perspective and this will not always apply. Most of these tips would only apply to a creative position and would not be applicable to say a law firm position.

Here are my 5 tips for the post-interview followup: Continue Reading →

My personal website back in 2002

I was 14 when I started doing freelance graphic design, website design and photography. It all started with designing and coding my first personal website. I remember back in the day we had to use Netzero to get free internet on our 28.8k modem which used our phoneline. Webhosting was quite expensive during the .com boom, so a lot of us had to use AOL, Geocities, Tripod and all those other free webhosts. These hosts allowed us to create a site on on their domain as long as it had ads. It was quite the time to grow up in.

Freelancing gave me many opportunities to gain more experience and it ultimately made me a much better candidate when I was applying for jobs. It also allowed me to maintain a source of revenue on the side. Although I still consider myself an agency guy, freelancing has taught me several valuable lessons. Without further adieu, here are my top 5 reasons why you should start freelancing (or start your own business): Continue Reading →

I always think that it’s important to enjoy where you work and keep your workspace creative and fun. Below are my favorite:

Continue Reading →