Posted on by Frank - Follow me on Twitter

Lately after I write a post, there’s been one social network in particular that brings me in a solid amount of traffic for my posts.  I know what you are probably thinking, it’s Twitter.  Nope, it’s definitely not Twitter. It’s StumbleUpon.  I honestly can’t believe I am saying this myself because I have always thought StumbleUpon was a social network that only brought traffic to those with high authority websites.  I viewed it like Digg basically and really didn’t find the use in using it.  However, there’s one major thing that StumbleUpon has done that really has increased the amount of visitors I get a day.

If you haven’t given StumbleUpon a chance yet, I suggest you do.  Your website will benefit from using it.  Interesting enough, well known bloggers have always said that StumbleUpon brings them a lot of traffic and is responsible for the majority of it.  I can say that this is the case for my site as well.  I am now going to get to the point and clue you in on why this social network can bring you a lot of visitors per post.  It’s simple, use their URL shortener http://su.pr and you will see the visitors pile in.  How does this bring in visitors you may be wondering?  Is it like every other URL shortener?  No, it’s not whatsoever!

Here’s what you have to do.  First sign up for a free account on StumbleUpon.  Next, you will need a Twitter account - which I am sure you have already, or at least I hope you do!  Finally, when you go to the website for the StumbleUpon URL shortener, all you will do is post a Twitter update to your new blog post there.  Granted you will drive traffic to your posts through clicks, but there’s an additional perk that made more unique visitors come to my site.  

After you create the update you wish to send to Twitter, an Su.pr URL link will be created automatically to shorten your long URL.  Once the update is completed, you will see below a list of your recent updates.  Take the one you just made for example.  There’s an image icon that says “thumbs up.”  Make sure you click that and provide a review of your own post.  This will allow your blog post to be added to the StumbleUpon database and have the potential of being “stumbled upon”  by members of that social network community.  The more people that give you a “thumbs up” on your post, the better chance you have of bringing in more unique visitors.  Unique visitors are key when driving traffic to your site because they have never been there before and it gives you the opportunity to have them as loyal readers.  

To give you an idea on how this works, I’ll give you an example directly related to how one of the links for my blog posts worked.  I did a post recently titled Is It Really Apple’s Fault?  Even though the link itself only received 6 clicks, I received 72 “stumbles” (it’s noted with a +72).  This basically means that 72 unique visitors saw my blog post through StumbleUpon.  What you should want to be accomplishing at this point is making those unique visitors stay on your site for a decent period of time and decrease your bounce rate (you don’t want your visitors to visit and leave quickly.)  However this is all dependent on how compelling your content is!

In conclusion, this is why StumbleUpon is the social network I recommend to use if you are trying to bring unique visitors to your site. Yesterday, I brought in 103 unique visitors and I didn’t even write a blog post yesterday!  Granted that’s not as many as most people bring in, but my site is young and for me it’s a step up.   You can’t go wrong with StumbleUpon.  This is coming from someone who use to think StumbleUpon was a waste of time.  It’s really interesting how one simple feature can change your mind completely.  

Further reading: 

10 Tips For Interacting With Social Networks And Technology

The Difference Between Business And Online Social Networks

Where’s The Value In Social Bookmarking? 

Is FriendFeed A Blossoming Social Network?

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