Dive into StumbleUpon

When it comes to writing online, a hub, blog, article or just a general information page the question of how to get traffic always comes up. The most common and in most ways simply method to gain traffic is to write your peace containing high value keywords and optimise your work for search engine optimisation. But there are other ways, often used and always giving valid traffic. Don't expect thousands of views overnight unless you already know a group within this website, but over time and the more time you spend working on your pages within the community you will notice a great deal of traffic coming over.

Stumbleupon.com is a great web service and community. It is much like Pinterest and Squidoo which you can find out more about during the rest of my Dive in series.

So really, if you have any articles on Hubpages in any of the above categories you can stick them on Stumbleupon and begin gaining easy traffic from their users. I referred to Stumbleupon in one of my earlier articles about poetry and how to gain easy traffic to an otherwise hard to find type of writing when it comes to search engines. But this site is for far more than just a writers front page. You will find many users posting pages that are completely unrelated to writing.

So what is Stumbleupon?

Well there are many sites like Stumbleupon but the only difference between others and the real Stumbleupon is simple, the community. Although not a “front page” site. You will find the users are much nicer and willing to comment constructively than you will on the likes of Reddit for example. Stumbleupon is all about discovery. The website is designed to help people find things close to their interests. For example if you have selected while signing up your interests as “Internet, videos and Music” each time you click Stumble you will be taken to a random page in those areas. It is all about random findings. Think of them like a middle man. They make the date, you just have to turn up. Introducing you to high quality articles, websites, videos, images and more. Often that are low ranked or hard to find on Google and other search engines like Bing and Yahoo. Which is what makes it perfect for new Hubpage users. Who's work may not be written with search engines in mind or those engines have not had time to pick up and rank their work yet.

Just like Hubpages, blogs and YouTube. Stumbleupon has a feedback system which allows you to tell them what you think about each page as you stumble through. Such as the to be expected thumbs up and down options which are the same as Hubpages voting up and down. You can choose to follow users who's pages you like and comment on their work as you go through. The same is said for other users and your work. One of the great things about this service is you don't actually have to be followed for them to see your work, as soon as they have stumbled on your page, for example a recipe you put in the cooking section that counts as a view which is traffic to your work even without them actually taking an interest in the article. So you can end up getting many views even if it is just people passing through.

I found after posting all my poetry up as links to Hubpages, overnight I was getting a much higher volume of views on those pages than I otherwise would of if I had left it up to hope and Google. So the results are there, but just like writing articles to get great results it can take time.

So how do you sign up?

Well it may be obvious to some but I am going to do a quick step by step guide on how to sign up and dive into the community, so you can start getting views within the hour with some luck!

First:

You will need to create an account with them, you can find them at Stumbleupon.com or you can type “Stumble upon” into a search engine and it will usually be the top option on the list. Once you have that you will see a screen much like the one in the picture below. Once of the great things about the website is you can either sign in and create an account with your email address or you can simply sign in using Facebook. I went with the email option, but whichever one you use the result is the same.

Second:

Once you have created your account you will be met with screen as pictured below. This is where you pick your interests. Allowing the website to understand more about you and what you like, then when and if you start using the website for more than advertising your Hubpages articles and click the stumble button yourself you will find that only pages reflecting your interests are shown. Picking them as you sign up is advised.

So once you have picked those, the next screen will be a quick tutorial of the layout and features you will find within the community. It will prompt you to “Click Stumble!” Do this and it will just show you how the website works.

Next you need to visit your profile or “home page” for the sake of an example while signing up I chose History and Health as my interests. To do this click on the home button, as shown below which I have marked within a green square.

The home button is in the right top corner of the dark control bar that runs along the top of the screen, shrunk down here.

Putting your first page up!

Now it's time to start getting some pages together and open your work to this new form of traffic. This is not only for Hubpages though, but works well with it. Use it to increase blog traffic, YouTube videos and just about every type of web form there is.

So once you have clicked on profile from the home page, you will see a user page with all the usual social features like profile pictures, comments, followers and that sort of thing. What you are looking for is down the bottom left of the page, last under all of the other options. Which is pictured below.

Now as you can see your profile is empty all for a few bits and bobs. Unless you have been playing around with it that is! You need to click on “Add a new page” which can be found in the bottom left of the panel, marked in green in the image above. Once you have that, you will be able to add your Hubpages article on the next screen. This is the same for whatever type of page you want to add from video to blog topic.

On this page, you will select the options and past the link for your work. In this example I will be using my Hubpages article on how video game addiction can lead to murder.

• First panel, Add the URL/Domain/Address of your article

• Second panel, this is a simple yes or no. If it contains a subject only for adults tick no

• Third panel, Select the area your entry will be sent, for mine I chose video games.

• Fourth panel, tags or “keywords” this is optional but will help your exposure should you add some

• Final panel, if you want to again as this is option add a comment about your work

Choose the language, the default for American users is English.

Once you are happy with it click “add this page” and you will see the following, if it has been accepted. Simply click “your likes” marked in green below. This will take you back to your profile.

Final information:

You have now submitted your first article to the Stumbleupon network. You will be able to see it as below on your profile, now all you have to do is repeat the steps above again for as many articles as you wish to add to your profile. If you can see it there, others will be able to.

That is the first page done, click on it and you will see how others will view your work as you are stumbled upon. It will look like the below, your normal Hubpages work but through the Stumbleupon interface.

But there are some things to remember while being a apart of their community. Even if just using it for traffic.

• First off, like many other websites in the same area such as Reddit and Pinterest. Spamming will get you nowhere, literally in Stumbleupon's case as if you post too many links to the same URL/website you will find yourself not being able to post to there any more until you prove you are a actual user and not just a spammer. Some simply ways to avoid this and allow you to post to your content as much as you like is simply to become part of the community. I am not saying go and spend all day on their website, but follow others, like other peoples work, link to other Hubpage users work, or different unrelated websites all together. Once you have done this a few times you will find you are able to post to your own articles once again. The same goes for posting too many times to any URL.

• Second, although it is a great way to get traffic to not take it personally if you get hundreds of views and few comments. Many of the users are not Hubpage users and may not have an account in order to take an interest in the community site of your article. Instead you will find feedback and comments on Stumbleupon itself.

• Finally, remember that quality is key. Don't rush out a 400 word, no picture article just for the sake of putting it up on Stumbleupon as yes in the first few days it will get views but when the users realise there is nothing to offer they will begin to vote it down eventually no one who is looking will find your work as it has been voted too low to be stumbled upon.

All images contained within this article are from http://www.stumbleupon.com

- Screenshots taken by R9139 for the purpose of this tutorial.