You may have heard about StumbleUpon, but have yet to make the move to sign up or you may already be an active stumbler who “stumbles” on a regular basis. One thing that I am learning about StumbleUpon is that there doesn’t seem to be much of a middle ground: if you signed up you are likely actively engaged with this social network, perhaps to the point of spending several hours each day stumbling. No, I don’t put hours into stumbling (all at once) but I do invest time almost on a daily basis to stumble. The benefits to me are two-fold: I stumbleupon.jpgget increased traffic to my submitted pages and I also discover sites that I probably wouldn’t have easily found otherwise.

What Is StumbleUpon?

So, exactly what is StumbleUpon? I’ll use the company’s explanation to describe it: “Channel surf the internet with the StumbleUpon toolbar to find great websites, videos, photos and more based on your interests. StumbleUpon learns what you like and makes better recommendations.” You get to meet up with other like-minded web searchers, learn what is of interest to them, and find the pages that they have discovered. You can give a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” to pages you come across and leave a review. Or, you can simply click on to the next page that pops up.

I carefully select which pages from my sites that I want to have included with StumbleUpon. Although it is good when someone else selects the page, you can still benefit from a surge in traffic if you add your own pages. Some people have said that there is a limit to the number of pages you can personally add for sites you control; if there is I haven’t discovered that as of yet.

Adding Pages Carefully, Thoughtfully

I also add pages I find when not stumbling, provided what I find “adds value” to StumbleUpon. This involves me writing a brief review and adding the appropriate category tags (be careful here) to assign the page to the right category. Although human editors can change a page especially if miscategorized, I take great care to make certain that the right category is selected at each time and any additional tags added are appropriate. I will also flag pages that are grossly miscategorized to let StumbleUpon editors make the change on their end.

What Dosh Dosh Said

Dosh Dosh wrote a piece several months ago which helped me to get a better handle on the whole StumbleUpon phenomenon. Titled, “A Comprehensive Guide to StumbleUpon: How to Build Massive Traffic to Your Website,” his guide is worthy of reading and bookmarking for future reference. Recently, Maki (the author behind Dosh Dosh) followed up with, “Five Ways to Grow Your StumbleUpon Network: An Ode to Altruistic Stumbling, ” to point out how helping others can benefit you immensely. With the article you are now reading I hope to achieve his first point — Stumble Upon evangelist — while continuing to build upon the other four ways mentioned, steps I have been actively practicing since signing up in February 2007.

Surges in Web Traffic

Traffic surges can vary from site to site, but I can usually tell when I am being stumbled if I am looking at my MyBlogLog statistics and notice a surge in traffic from one hour to the next. When I submit a page that I control, typically I will receive a note in the form of a pingback that “your page is now in the StumbleUpon network.” Soon thereafter traffic to the applicable blog or web page will suddenly pick up with an initial burst of 100 fresh visitors being the norm, with follow up visits to these pages taking place down the line.

My Recommendation - Join!

I have recommended Stumble Upon to some of my clients who have been dishing out big bucks for various pay-per-click schemes. Advertisers can include their page in the Stumble Upon network, set up demographic parameters, and view statistics through a panel offered by StumbleUpon. In addition, checking Google Analytics will show the spikes in traffic, verifying where the traffic came from, pages viewed, and action taken if any. Although the quality of traffic is typically not as good as what PPC offers, at five cents per click Stumble Upon is worth considering for at least a portion of any company’s advertising initiative.

StumbleUpon is free, but you can also sign up as a sponsor and pay $20 annually to get some extras as outlined by Stumble Upon:

# Pages We Both Like feature to see what you have in common with other stumblers
# Unlimited stumbling within favorites of your friends
# See People We Both Like when visiting other stumblers
# Ability to Create New Groups (see the Group Directory)
# Have copies of all your messages emailed to you (both sent & received messages)
# Longer message history on your inbox and contact tabs
# Ability to Turn off Sponsored Stumbles

A Rapidly Growing Social Network

With 2.4 million members, Stumble Upon is growing at a rapid pace, doubling in size during the past year. It has also caught the attention of investors including eBay who has been reported by TechCrunch as the likely buyer of the network.

In all, StumbleUpon can be a nice part of your social networking effort. Along with MyBlogLog and BUMPzee, this trifecta in the social networking race has benefited me the most. StumbleUpon is my personal favorite, so go ahead and give this horse a try if you haven’t done so yet.

Oh, before I forget, you can “friend” me on StumbleUpon too — please visit this page to locate my profile.