Using StumbleUpon to Find Great Web Content

Using StumbleUpon to Find Great Web Content
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StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon is a popular social bookmarking website which allows you to highlight specific websites and web pages that you enjoyed. You can install the StumbleUpon tool into your web browser and when you find a page you like click the thumbs up icon to add it. You can tag each page you add and write a short review and you can also give a thumbs down to pages you don’t like. The idea is that over time StumbleUpon will build a picture of the kind of web pages that you enjoy and so when you hit the Stumble button on your browser it will return a page that you are likely to want to see. StumbleUpon can also be a terrific source of viral traffic and so it is an invaluable tool in promoting your own content.

Background

The company was founded by a group of friends in Canada and proved to be an instant hit which led to investment and a move to San Francisco. As StumbleUpon continued to grow, pulling in millions of users, it attracted the interest of eBay and they acquired the company in 2007 for a massive $75 million. The service is very easy to use and with so many people engaged in voting on content it provides a useful guide to websites that are worth checking out in specific categories. The service links to websites and individual pieces of content such as articles and videos, the more popular something is the more often it will be returned to users looking for content in that category and so it is capable of sending high volume targeted traffic to websites.

Signing up for StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon is a completely free service and the sign up process is easy. The best way to use it is to install the toolbar for your internet browser and the official toolbar is available for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Mozilla. Once installed you surf to websites that you enjoy and click the thumbs up to add them. If they are already in the system you can just vote and adding a review is optional, if the resource is being added for the first time a pop up box will prompt you to add a brief description, review and relevant tags to help others find it. You can also choose specific topics which interest you in general and the tags you want to search for can be refined for individual sessions. The more information you add the better StumbleUpon gets at suggesting content you will like and hitting the Stumble button on the toolbar will throw up a random page which fits your profile. If you give a page the thumbs down it won’t be suggested again.

Adding Friends

Within StumbleUpon you also have a homepage and like most social networking sites you can add friends or follow specific users. After setting up your own profile, with a picture and information, other users can have a look and see your suggestions. If for example you surf a few sites and notice that another user has similar tastes then you may want to investigate their suggestions and choose to follow them. Popular users on StumbleUpon who frequently add great content can end up with loads of subscribers who are interested in the links they add. You can also send messages to other users and review their discoveries and favourite websites. You can browse or search for other users with various parameters including interests, location, age, gender and even relationship status, though I’m not sure if anyone ever found love through StumbleUpon.

Promoting your Website on StumbleUpon

If a web page proves popular with users it can receive multiple reviews and thumbs up votes which will tag it as a good resource. Other users Stumbling for new pages in the relevant category are more likely to be shown popular pages. This means that StumbleUpon has the potential to send your website a massive influx of traffic. Generally a newly added resource that proves popular will see a huge spike in traffic which will drop off gradually but if one of your pages is popular in StumbleUpon it will continue to send you traffic for a very long time. There is no trick to attracting users, most people using StumbleUpon will click through a variety of pages quickly and so if you want to draw people in you need an attractive website and quality content. The more users add your website the more links you have from StumbleUpon and the more likely it is other people will find your site.

Traffic Value

As for the value of StumbleUpon traffic this is difficult to estimate, in general Stumble users will spend a short amount of time on the pages they surf but if they like your content you can expect repeat visits. It is also worth pointing out that most Stumble users are heavy internet surfers and so their click through rates for things like Adsense tend to be very low, they are savvy about advertising and will tend to Stumble onto the next site rather than click through an advert.

Get Stumbling

One of the good things about StumbleUpon compared to a site like Digg is that it is not focussed on new articles or news, you can submit any piece of content and if it is good people will give it a thumbs up. If you are keen on promoting your content in StumbleUpon it is worth adding a Stumble button to your web pages to make it easier for users to add. StumbleUpon is also a great service if you feel like idly surfing and it will often throw up interesting and unique content that you may not have otherwise found so get Stumbling today!