Despite my previous post detailing efforts to lower my bounce rate, I didn’t want to abandon Social Traffic completely. Social traffic brings in new visitors and it’s the goal of Turnipofpower.com to review social sites. So sacrifices must be made to keep the tips and tricks flowing.  Today’s guide is a quick study in using StumbleUpon along with some website tips, and an announcement of what I am doing with my old droplist.  StumbleUpon has treated me well, giving  me 80 visitors on a normal day for the 5-10 minutes I spend Stumbling posts.  Other websites should see even better results depending upon the niche. 

First go to the StumbleUpon Homepage and sign up for free.  When finished, download and install the Stumble Toolbar for your browser.  stumble 1There are only 3 buttons to concern yourself with at this point on the toolbar.  Next page, Thumb up, and Thumb down, as shown.   Click the “Next Page” icon and allow the page to load.  Always give a post a thumb up unless you really hate it, in which case use the Thumb down.  If you are asked to sign in, your browser should remember you in the future.  When you are the first to discover a page, you will be asked to write a short review.  Do it!  That’s enough to get you started. 

Remember: You may stumble your own pages.  But!  If you Stumble pages from only one website, StumbleUpon detects this and may temporarily ban you.  Other users will shun or report you. (Stumble Police?) It’s supposed to be social, remember?  So by thumbing up sites from around the web, StumbleUpon gets an idea what content you like and will try to show you similar pages.   My advice is to Stumble no more than one page of your own per day, and make sure you rate plenty of other sites in between.

Advanced Stumbling:  Just one person clicking the “Thumb Up” won’t bring you many visitors.  You need to have others also Stumble you.  Here are some ways to increase your odds of being Stumbled.   

  1. Add social media icons under your post.  This allows those without the toolbar to Stumble your post as well and serves as a passive reminder of how you want your readers to reward you. 
  2. Ask your friends to Stumble your post.  Again, if they only Stumble your posts and nobody else’s, they risk getting banned.  Don’t even think of joining an automated Stumble group that asks for your account info, it will quickly get your account banned.
  3. Build up a network of Stumble Friends and Subscribers like I am doing here.  Those WordPress Plugins that add Social Media Buttons to your posts do not add anything that leads to your Stumble profile page.  Make your own like I did in the “Social Networking” area of my sidebar.

Building up my number of Stumble Friends and Subscribers is a goal of this article.  Ask your current blogging contacts to become a subscriber or friend.  There are some differences between the two.  When you subscribe to a person’s favorites it affects what pages appear when you click the “Stumble button” on the toolbar, Friends do not.  So if you have a friend with opposite tastes than you, make them a friend only.  But for the sake of promoting your blog, make everyone both a friend and subscriber where possible.  Also, friends require approval, but anyone can subscribe to your favorites.

stumble2As an example, let’s take a look at Lyndi’s Stumble Profile.  Tear your eyes away from her smiling portrait for a minute and look to the right of the page.  The first thing to do is click “subscribe to her favorites”.  This will show you more of her favorite sites when you click your Stumble button.  If you kow and like Lyndi, you may also want to add her as a friend.  If she knows you she can manually approve your request.  Finally, click the “Stumble her favorites” button and then choose “websites”.  The normal Stumble Toolbar will change slightly as shown. stumble 3 Now when you press the left-most button you will only see Lyndi’s favorites.  This is only temporary and can be changed at any time.  Another nice way to help Lyndi out would be to click the “Review Her Blog” button.  But enough with this Lyndi person, let’s get to some important Turnip stuff.

During the dark ages of social networking I used to drop cards on people who had subscribed to my site. (wasn’t that 2 weeks ago?)  The websites of all these people were added to a droplist.  Now that I have moved on from that network I don’t want to abandon all my old friends. I needed a plan for my old droplist and here it is. I am going to contact each member on the list and suggest two things.

  1. We subscribe to each other’s Stumble favorites.
  2. People sign up for the CMF Forums.

Here’s why.  By subscribing to and Stumbling each other’s favorites we help promote both our sites.  Rather than knocking yourself out senselessly dropping cards, spend 10 minutes a day getting caught up viewing sites others recommend.  It’s much more efficient than messaging your friends individually to promote sites.

Secondly, the CMF Forums are the best way to network with serious bloggers.  (Some not so serious too).  Need help with html?  Want an opinion on your latest theme changes?  Looking for someone to write a guest post?  This is the place to go.  Once you feel comfortable there, check out the rest of the CMF Network.  A community blog, a free blog directory, a page of every members latest blog post, a chat module, and a soon to be released public ad network.  Even for those who don’t respond to my invitation, I will visit and Stumble every quality site on my droplist one last time.  For those who would like me to subscribe to their own Stumbles, leave a comment on  Get Added To My Stumble Subscribed List post.

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