I was going to name this post How to Gain Traffic with Mix but that would be super misleading because the truth is, I don’t know. Since Stumble Upon became Mix, I’ve probably lost about 50% of my traffic and it kills me. After working so hard for several years to build this blog, it’s a little more than frustrating that this outlet is no more.
But blogging comes with peaks and valleys so I’m not giving up. Like all things in life, you get out what you put in. I’ve had my Mix site on auto-pilot, only adding my blog posts most of the time. I researched online to find articles about increasing traffic from Mix and guess what? There aren’t any. And I think there aren’t any because no one knows the answer. I’ve looked on Mix for a Q&A and haven’t found anything there either. I reached out to Mix and asked them several questions pertaining to traffic as well as how to move post/articles from one collection to another.
I decided to explore Mix and take advantage of a few things I wasn’t using. I hope that implementing these components might help with traffic. This is an experiment in the making and could produce 0 results. Until today, I was unaware of a few things I left blank so I took care of it/fixed it. Here is what I did in case you want to try it too. After completing the below, I’ll write a post in 30-40 days to see if it was worth it.
Steps I Took to Improve My Mix Site
- In my settings, my blog URL was missing. This must have been added after I filled out all my info because I would not have missed that.
- Mix probably wouldn’t want me to compare them to Pinterest but there are similarities with regards to the structure. While Pinterest has boards, Mix has collections. Around 3 of my collections were marked private. This was incredibly frustrating given that one of the collections had most of my blog posts. Check each of your collections and ensure none of them were accidentally marked private.
- Mix does recommend that you give your collections interesting names rather than the bland, boring ones so here is what I changed mine to:
Pop Culture –> Poppin’ Pop Culture
Humor –> Pee Your Pants Humor
Parenting –> Parenting Like a Rock Star
- You can give each collection a description of 240 characters. I’m wording each description as I would a Pinterest board in case this helps with SEO. I’m also using hashtags but I don’t know if you need to. That was one of my questions for Mix.
- I deleted collections that were created at the recommendation of Mix that only had 1 article. I ended up deleting 4 collections that I knew I would never add to and to clean everything up.
- My header image was blank until today. I created a header via canva.com. They are amazing and the best thing? There is an amazing free plan!
- I will be adding other people’s content to my collections. Like I said, I’ve been on auto pilot and haven’t done this.
- Changing the collection thumbnail to better pictures. Currently you can’t upload a picture. You have to use a picture that is currently on one of the articles/posts within the collection.
Things I Don’t Understand and Emailed Mix About
- If hashtags are a good idea.
- How to delete articles/posts. This I feel is helpful when you’ve decided to delete a post. The last thing you want is for readers to click on your site, only to find an empty page.
- How to move articles/posts from one collection to another. After deleting several collections, the articles/posts moved to a general collection. I want to put those posts in other collections.
- Why some of my blog posts show a thumbnail image and some do not.
I’m not giving up on Mix. I’m going all in and see if it pays off. If it doesn’t then at least I learned my lesson. How has your experience been with Mix? Are you getting traffic? Do you actively mix articles? I would love to hear from you!
Lots to think of here! I don’t get Mix either!
Yeah, it’s all I can do at this point. Normally there’s a wealth of info on the web for stuff like this but there isn’t.
It’s too new!!!
Thanks for this Angela, it’s been very helpful to read your informative post. I have now been in and amended these issues just like you said. My blog URL wasn’t listed; I’ve added a header shot and changed some of my collection names as well as adding a description. I often Mix other bloggers’ posts but haven’t had a single referral to my blog from Mix!! I have looked for info on how to use Mix and like you haven’t been able to find anything. The support crew have been very good at fixing things up and helpful but they need some more documentation out there. I haven’t given up yet but it’s not looking too good!
Thank you Debbie! I do hope these little things help. You know you bring up an excellent point. They really don’t have any documentation so I think I may email them for this. Let’s give it another month or 2. Maybe these will help???
Yes, I’m with you on giving it a bit longer. I just wish I knew if my posts were being seen or read from Mix, as it appears from my stats that they’re not. Any ideas? Maybe we should set up a trial test of some sort between a few of us??
I think that would be an amazing idea! Are you thinking if some of us do the improvements and see if that helps? Also side note, I’m on Google Analytics and I checked, 0 from Mix. That can’t possibly be right, could it? I mean, since June, I should have had at least 1 person, right?
I would have thought more than 1! I’m sure I’ve been on and accessed your blog from Mix as a test. Yes I’d be keen to test it out by doing that.
Ok, let’s keep in touch on this and report our findings in 30-40 days. Does that sound good?
Yep sounds good to me.
I don’t promote my blog in any way haha all of this is like gibberish to me. Well, I do have my posts go automatically to Twitter but that’s it.
Yeah, you can totally skip over this post. I get it! And if Mix doesn’t start producing in 1 to 2 months, I’m done trying.
Lol I still read it 😉 it was interesting to learn. I’ve often thought about trying to monetize my blog but never actually got serious about it. Especially after the summer long break I took HAHA! I used to be getting so many views but that break killed me. Now I’m way down again. Im hoping A to Z will help me bounce up again.
I’ve been reading on Facebook pages that many, many bloggers are experiencing a downturn.
Yeah I think it’s common in the fall because everyone’s lives are starting back up after the summer lol and then it’s the holidays too – not a lot of time to be reading blogs
This is useful, I think Mix needs to be given a chance after it’s come out of Stumble Upon
Oooh thanks for this Hot Mess-chan!
I downloads all my tags from stumble upon…so I have soooo many collections that I need to delete! I have started to notice my posts appear in the “suggested things to mix” but I still don’t see any traffic from mix.
It’ll be interesting to see when/if they fix the notifications so we can actually see when people come to our blogs from mix.
Thank you! It’s what? Day 3 of actively using Mix. Still no traffic. No return email either from their it team so I sent them another email to follow up. Fingers crossed.
I just read this article today. I’m thinking about using mix. Is your traffic better now compared to when you wrote this?
Honestly no. I’m done with Mix. I gave it a good effort but it just didn’t pay off. When it was StumbleUpon, I received SO MUCH TRAFFIC. In the beginning, I thought only the name and web design changed and that I would still receive traffic. Not so. I question why they changed from StumbleUpon to Mix. I also question if it will be laying next to Google+ in the graveyard of social media in the next 1 to 2 years. Good luck and if you do decide to use Mix, please come back and let me know if you had success!