Hippo Web Solutions

Following on from my last post on Social Bookmarking, I’d like to talk today a bit about one of my favourite Social Bookmarking sites – StumbleUpon. Apart from the usual system of content submission and being able to vote items up and down, StumbleUpon has one fairly unique feature: its toolbar, and in particular the Stumble button.

Site discovery

The Stumble button is the one on the left, and it literally allows you to stumble your way through sites that correspond to your interests. In other words it is a discovery tool – I personally have found many interesting sites that I may not have otherwise come across.

Targetted traffic

The other good thing about traffic that comes from StumbleUpon is that it is generally quite targetted, in other words people are only directed to content that they have specified an interest in. This of course means they are more likely to hang around and perhaps even become a loyal reader if they like what they find.

Viral traffic

Viral is a buzz word that crops up all over these days. Basically it evokes an image of the way a virus (biological or digital) replicates – this is normally exponential with respect to time. In the case of web traffic, it’s a Very Good Thing, and definitely something to aim for. Imagine you have a visitor to your site who then tells two of her friends, who each tell two of their friends, who each tell two of their friends, who each tell two of their friends…

Hopefully you get the picture. Well, StumbleUpon has the potential to deliver this sort of traffic. The trick is to generate content that proves a hit with the StumbleUpon community…

Sustained traffic

Various sources I have read observe that the traffic that comes from StumbleUpon generally has a different profile from that of other Social Bookmarking sites. Whereas for example Digg traffic manifests itself in a big spike (lots of visitors in a short space of time) that dissipates just as quickly, StumbleUpon traffic tends to be more sustained, and can often continue days, weeks and months beyond the point where an item first became popular. This, in my opinion, is highly desirable, as it helps build long-term momentum.

TrafficRush course

Now lest I give you the impression that I’m a StumbleUpon expert, I must confess that I’m not. Whilst I’ve used it for awhile now, I’ve yet to tap into the full potential that I’ve been describing in this article. But I’ve recently been working through an excellent course, written by someone who is a StumbleUpon expert: Caroline Middlebrook.

It’s called TrafficRush, and consists of twenty hands-on lessons which take you through pretty much all you need to know to leverage the power of StumbleUpon to draw free traffic to your site. The first ten lessons are free; the second ten (the advanced section) are not, but there is no obligation to buy the advanced lessons, so essentially you have nothing to lose. And working your way through the basic course gives you a good opportunity to evaluate the material risk-free before deciding whether or not it’s worth the price.

Here are some of the topics covered in the course:

• How to create content that gets stumbled
• Mechanics and ethics of StumbleUpon submission
• How to get more thumbs up votes
• The basics of networking on StumbleUpon
• Traffic boosting tips

I’m still working through the first part of the course and haven’t yet decided whether or not I’ll subscribe to the advanced lessons, but so far though I’ve found it very helpful, and I suggest you give it a try too.

Related posts:

1. Increase traffic to your blog with Social Bookmarking
2. Where’s the StumbleUpon buzz on your site?