Sarah Paine

Are you asking your readers to StumbleUpon your blog entries? If not, you may be missing out on some serious traffic. So what exactly is StumbleUpon? It is a social book marking site that allows it’s users to tag sites that they find useful or helpful. There are currently versions for Firefox and Internet Explorer available. What does this have to do with your site traffic? Well let’s just start off by saying that right now StumbleUpon has 4,527,217 users that are hand picking cool sites daily. Four million users is a huge pool to gain access to each time you make a blog entry. So how can you get in on this traffic?

The first thing you will want to do is give your readers an easy way to StumbleUpon your site. Many of the users already have a tool bar in their web browser, an option that is presented to the user upon joining. Despite the fact that most have this option in their tool bar, many may not or may have simply forget that it is there. The best thing you can do is to give them a little reminder at the beginning or ending of your blog entry.

If you are using WordPress then you can install a plugin that will present an option for your reader to submit your entry to StumbleUpon, Technorati, Digg etc. When you install the plug in you will be given the chance to select which sites you would like to display as well as which order to display them in. The best part is that the display it presents on your blog is not an in your face presentation as the icons are fairly transparent. The plug is called Sociable and it is a freebie download that you can install immediately.

If you are running your WordPress blog directly through WordPress then just download the plugin and access your plugin section in your admin area. Once you activate the plugin you will want to head over to the options section of your admin page click on Sociable and select front page of the blog, individual blog posts, and individual WordPress pages to ensure the plugin appears. You will also be given the oportunity to select which pages you would like the reader to be able to tag. Be certain to select StumbleUpon and drag it into the first position. Save your changes and head over to your web page. You should be able to see a similar tool bar to what is presented at the end of this blog entry.

Now if you run your blog through your own host, you will need to download and unzip the Sociable plug in and send it via ftp to your site. Be certain to load it into your wp-content/plugin folder. Once this is complete you can follow the same steps as above. Once the tool bar is presented on your site, do not be afraid to remind readers at the end of your post to click on StumbleUpon. Enjoy the increased traffic!

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