Success Online.IN Success Secrets For Your Online Venture

I recently read a very poor report on a prominent blog, that basically didnt say much about the details on how one can use StumbleUpon to really drive traffic to their website. The writer did claim that he has gotten as many as 300,000 visits per month from his trick of stumbling funny humor photos on the StumbleUpon network - even though humor photos were off topic posts. The article had no real meat in it. As a result, I thought I could share some really good tips and tricks for using StumbleUpon to drive website traffic, and I also invite readers to add in their 2 cents if I have missed anything.

Skip this paragraph if you know what Stumble Upon is - In a nutshell, StumbleUpon is a downloadable application - that you get from their site and install it on your computer. Once installed it shows up as a bar in your browser as a toolbar. While signing up you choose the topics you are interested in .. and the StumbleUpon uses this criteria to show you relevant high quality content that matches this selection. The whole system works like a recommendation engine - where you see sites that others mark as “good content” or “stumble” and you also get to particpate in the process by stumbling sites - by simply clicking on the thumbs up button in the bar when you are on the site or page you want to share. Just head over to StumbleUpon.com to learn more about this great Social Media tool and install it.

Starting off

As a new user, don’t just start off by stumbling sites that belong to you! The system will pick it up as spam, and it will probably not pay attention to your future Stumbles. You need to gain trust and a reputation over a period of time first. The magic formula is to start by submitting around 30 to 40 good sites in your area of interest over a period of around 4 to 5 days. It is understood that initial users are more enthusiastic - so if you have a fresh install of the StumbleUpon bar and you submit around 30 sites in the first few days - it will NOT be picked up as spam. Just don’t submit only your sites.

Frequency of stumbling your own site pages

I suggest you submit your site only after you submit around 20 to 30 sites. This does not mean that you submit a whole slew of links and sites go easy. Do one submission every around 15 or so quality stumbles. This will avoid coming under the radar of their automated syste, or being flagged by the community of users. As a new user you should simply go about doing your regular surfing and Internet activity - but defintely remember to stumble any site that you come across that is worth stumbling. This will slowly build your trust and reputation. Sumbit at max 2 pages of your own site per day and per 15 or so stumbles.

Suggest Topics

StumbleUpon admins and moderators love people who suggest new topics - if they are not already categorized in their system. If you have a topic that you dont find in the system - submit a request for it NOW. This will gain your account a lot of reputation and trust with the system.

Long Term Focus

The long term aim is to drive traffic to specific pages and not just a website. Please keep this in mind. These (your) pages can talk about specific topics within a niche category, and you can keep driving in people who are interested in that niche category to come read the awesome stumbled post. Don’t start off by stumbling these specific pages within the website - as that will put you in suspect for spam. Start, as I said before, by stumbling other good websites in your niche and submit your site URL once after a bunch of submissions. Just build your account, before stumbling your website. When you stumble your own website, you dont have to tell people that it is your site.

Writing Reviews

Write reviews on about 1 of every 5 sites you stumble. This is important, because the Stumble Upon system likes reviewers who take a few minutes off in reviewing sites. Further, the community of users that are nterested in your niche subject will notice you more as your avatar is placed besides your review. They will befriend you and you will thus be able to grow your network of friends on the system - which will help you later on. While writing reviews, make sure to write in first person mode as it is more personalized - example … I wrote this when I had to 

Building A Friends Network on StumbleUpon

As in my earlier article on Getting traffic with Digg, making friends on StumbleUpon is also an important aspect of gaining visibility within the StumbleUpon community. Building a large friends network in your area of interest, will increase the potential visibility of articles that you submit and share with your friends - thus giving new articles and fresh URLs a better boost and scope of getting picked up and passed around more. Remember - Social Media is influential media! You can use various methods to build your friends network. You can invite your own friends to the Stumble Upon system, you can invite other bloggers to the StumbleUpon system - specially if their blog is not stumbled as yet - you can stumble it and they will defintely notice! Stumble Upon also shows you friends who live near you and also who are interested in your topics of interest, that you chose while signing up. Just simply, see this, visit their pages and simply click the Add Friend button. This does not guarantee that they will also add you as a friend.. Which is why, you will need to see sites they have stumbled and write reviews on them - which will bring you up in their radar and if they like what you have written - the chances that they will also connect to you as a friend will increase! StumbleUpon has a great search feature and you can also see pages others in your niche have stumbled and also stumble the same pages and write a review - specially if they have written a review on it. StumbleUpon even has a top users section, and you should try to connect up to the top users - where possible, without hassling them too much. Try to influence the influencers! They are the power sneezers - and if they pick up your site or story URL, word will spread very quickly and at a very large scale!

The StumbleUpon Swap

This is exactly what it sounds like. Its not exactly against the terms of service but is a sneaky method. You stumble someone elses story and in turn ask them to stumble yours. Dont send a message through the stumble message system - just contact them via email or forum outside the StumbleUpon system. Don’t put up a request for a StumbleUpon swap on your blog website, as it will be pretty obvious and you may get reported. Visit forum sites like ConquerYourNiche, NamePros, DigitalPoint, WarriorForum and EarnersForum - and go to their Link Exchange areas to meet other members who would be interested in the swap deal.

The StumbleUpon Exchange Networks

These are automated stumble exchange systems that allow you to quickly exchange stumbles with others who are members without much hard work. It could be blackhat and may be against terms of StumbleUpon. Use at your own risk. Simply sign up and join in and use the quick vote system to vote on other member submitted stumbles and quickly get that many stumbles on your site. I recommend you setup a new account if you are to engage in this possibly blackhat technique and so you could get banned. Some known Stumble Exchanges are - AllCreatives, StumbleExchange, Avuw.

Pay people to Stumble

If you have some extra cash and dont have the time, you can try this out. Visit the forum listed in the StumbleUpon Swap para above, and offer to pay say the first 20 people who stumble your page $1 to $2 per stumble, via Paypal. You can also head over to NamePros and offer to pay 3 to 4 NameBuck$ (their currency) and this can work out to paying a few dimes for each stumble. Also try Stumblematic and Entrecard.

The StumbleUpon Bait

Like the Link Bait system, this simply offers something to the readers of your page if they stumble your page or website in return. For example - Stumble this page and get your free report or Review this page on StumbleUpon and get my free ebook worth $9/-

StumbleUpon Landing Pages

These are pages that show a customized message to all visitors who have come to it, through a link on the StumbleUpon website. One uses the referrer function in PHP to detect this and then display a custom message to the visitors offering them something special and making them feel like they are special. For example - A Special Offer for StumbleUpon Users Only. Read on…

StumbleUpon Videos

Recently launched, these pages are for videos that are stumbled. The videos found here are of generally high quality. If you have a video thats of a viral nature - dont forget to seed in on the StumbleUpon Video pages you may just get that extra boost to reach the tipping point of uncontrolled traffic and hits!

Going Ahead…

The key to marketing on StumbleUpon is not to get “backlinks” (they have a no-follow tag anyway, so you dont get the Google love) … the point is to get picked up and recognized by some highly influential and power users on StumbleUpon. Once that happens you can be assured that your link or site will get picked up by a large number of users on StumbleUpon and the effect of referral traffic coming in from there will last for a long period of time.

As one SEO specialist commented on Webmasterworld forum -

Top Stumblers create a snowball effect that is kind of neat to watch. Once a Stumbler gets ya, then all their freinds start and it becomes viral. And those stumbles appear to have some power in the overall scheme of things. I know, I’ve been Stumbled quite a few times, some of them years ago and they show up “all the time as referrers”, every day as a matter of fact. That’s how busy that community is. A good Stumble will last forever.

A collection of some StumbleUpon Marketing Articles

Once you’ve read the above and want to delve deeper into learnign more tricks and techniques of StumbleUpon, you should read all the articles below to get a variety of perspectives from various experts using StumbleUpon. Read the first batch, and then start experimenting with StumbleUpon. Next, read the other sets of articles if you want to become a power user and plan to make StumbleUpon marketing an important and prominent part of your marketing and traffic gaining efforts.

• Webmaster World Forum thread
• You can’t own the community without understanding them
• 28 Tips To Make You a StumbleUpon Superstar
• ValleyWags says the above 28 steps in 4 concise steps
• How to increase StumbleUpon Campaign conversion rate by 400% in one day
• Stumbleupon, You’ve Stumbled into My Heart
• Writing for StumbleUpon: High Impact Content
• Build Super Links and Traffic With StumbleUpon
• Stumble Upon’s Fantastic Ability to Drive Traffic
• The Why, How and Who of Marketing in StumbleUpon
• StumbleUpon Sponsored Stumbles vs. Google AdWords
• How to Use StumbleUpon for Your Business: The Definitive Guide
• Increasing your StumbleUpon audience
• The StumbleUpon Experiment
• I Wouldn’t Submit That To StumbleUpon

More Articles on StumbleUpon from around the Web 

• Increasing your StumbleUpon Audience
• How to get StumbledUpon
• Advanced StumbleUpon Tactics
• Five Ways to Grow Your StumbleUpon Network
• Increase Your Website Traffic and Make More Money with StumbleUpon
• Building a Large Audience for your StumbleUpon Account
• Comprehensive StumbleUpon Resource
• How to Use StumbleUpon for Business: The Definitive Guide
• Stumble Ads Review
• The Why, How, and Who of Marketing in StumbleUpon
• Off-Beat StumbleUpon Tips
• StumbleUpon, You’ve Stumbled into My Heart
  
• An interview with Garrett Camp, Chief Architect
• How to Increase StumbleUpon Traffic
• Black Hat StumbleUpon Tactics
• I Wouldn’t Submit That to StumbleUpon
• Why Stumble is Superior to Digg
• StumbleUpon Vs. Adsense ($25 experiment)
• Don’t Email Us, Use Our Self Serve Ads
• The StumbleUpon Experiment ($25 experiment)
• Hello, Stumblers!
• Stumbled Upon

Yet Even More Articles (last batch, I promise)

• StumbleVideo adds Wii Support
• The Basics of StumbleUpon: What is StumbleUpon?
• StumbleUpon Defined vs. Digg, Google, MySpace, and more!
• StumbleUpon gets del.icio.us import
• Effects of StumbleUpon vs. Digg
• The New Wave of Personalization
• Advertising with StumbleUpon ($5 experiment)
• Build Super Links and Traffic with StumbleUpon
• Netscape Vs. Digg Vs. StumbleUpon
• Stumble, Have a Nice Trip (Press Article on SU)
• I Got Stumbled! Blog Traffic Up 500%! and Another
• 5 Reasons StumbleUpon is the Coolest Social Site
• My StumbleUpon vs. Digg Experience
• StumbleUpon - Amusing or Worthwhile? Yes
• Traffic Spike from StumbleUpon
• StumbleUpon Traffic is Great for A New Site
• StumbleUpon Visitors not Identified by Analytics
• Stumbling your Way to 17,209 Loyal Fans

This is a lot of knowlesge, but if you read it well and make your points - you can exploit StumbleUpon to get steady traffic that lasts for a very very long time. Keep this in mind and work on your strategy diligently and with determination, and the results will show up steadily!

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