StumbleUpon is one of the greatest, if not the greatest websites for gaining exposure quickly, but in order to make the most of StumbleUpon you need to know how it works! StumbleUpon users install the toolbar and then select categories based on the interests. Once they select categories they can stumble through websites related to those categories and give pages a thumb up or a thumbs down.

The more reviews and thumbs up you get on StumbleUpon the more traffic you are likely to get. So if you get 35+ thumb ups in a short amount of time you can probably expect some great traffic! StumbeUpon also seems to rotate traffic so you may see large spurts of traffic from time to time due to one of your popular posts. If you want an idea of what does well on StumbleUpon, pick your categories and keep a close eye on the first dozen websites or so that pop up. StumbleUpon usually shows the most popular recent posts during the first few dozen stumbles.

WordPress Blogs work especially well on StumbleUpon, because it allows you to publish content quickly that is fresh and easily formatted and although any quality post has a chance of doing well certain types of posts tend to do better which we will explain.

Writing A Great StumbleUpon Post

StumbleUpon users stumble through websites at a very rapid pace looking for interesting and useful content, so you need to capture their attention quickly and then hold it in order to hopefully get a thumbs up! Currently list posts such as, “5 Websites That Could Change Your Life” do extremely well. The title is interesting and because its a top 5 list the natural format of the post is easy to scan quickly and read. These types of posts with numbers in the title also tend to stand out better in the search engines. Another great way to enhance your posts is to add interesting imagery, whether its one picture or a photo for each item on your top list, adding captivating photos will surely enhance your post.

Social Bookmarking Buttons

If you want to make it easier for users to rate your posts on social bookmarking sites you should consider adding social bookmarking buttons at the end of your post with a WordPress plugin such as Sociable. This will allow you to add little icons at the end of your post for all your favorite social bookmarking sites, so if some one enjoys your post they can help you out a but by taking a moment to rate your site.

StumbleUpon Networking

Networking is an important part of StumbeUpon if you want to get your posts off to a great start. You may have a great post, but if you don’t have a large reader base you may find it hard to get the votes needed to get sick traffic! Creating a network of friends can help counter this because you can send interesting links to mutual friends on StumbeUpon. So look for people with common interests and add them as friends. Don’t send links to often or spam people because you could be banned and it will annoy people. Add a few people a day and only promote your best and most interesting posts to your friends list.

StumbleUpon Ads

In addition to your networking  you can generate even more traffic by purchasing views from StumbleUpon. They offers highly targeted traffic for 5 cents a click. If you have a budget, this is not only great for promoting your main URL and other important pages, but its also a great way to jump start a post. Without the proper exposure even the best content could end up doing nothing for your blog. Ads are usually approved rather quickly, but they wont accept just anything so be sure its a non spammy, quality post.

If you aren’t on StumbleUpon yet, you should be creating a profile right now, because your competition is probably benefiting greatly from StumbleUpon already! We can only hope more sites as interesting and useful as StumbleUpon will come a long soon!