Increase the chances of your posts being stumbled
I’ve known about StumbleUpon for a long time but I never used it on a regular basis. Last month I noticed that StumbleUpon is actually sending me a lot of my daily traffic but it was only when my best friend recommended it that I began to realise how useful it is (my friend has nothing to do with web development or blogging, he recommended it as he uses it to find games and clips etc).
After stumbling across one of my own posts I asked myself the question I’m sure a lot of bloggers out there have asked, namely ‘Should I be stumbling my own posts?‘.
Are you allowed to stumble your own posts?
According to this page,
No. StumbleUpon recommends pages based on correlation and user clustering, rather than average ratings, so people rating their own sites as ‘I like it!’ cannot spam the database. Anyone attempting to circumvent or abuse this system is in violation of our terms of service, and is subject to prosecution.
This is the kind of policy you would expect StumbleUpon to have. Afterall, if everyone was stumbling their own websites day in day out, the quality of this service would decrease. Clearly you cannot stumble every one of your posts but I suspect that stumbling one of your articles every other week will be fine and will not get you banned.
Increase the chances of your posts being stumbled
Whilst you cannot actively stumble your own posts, you can encourage your visitors to stumble your posts for you by placing a stumble upon voting link in all your posts. You can find more information about how to do this here.
I’ve added one of these links to every Blogging Tips post to see if traffic from StumbleUpon increases. This link is already included in the fantastic Share This plugin I use but since StumbleUpon seems to be the only networking site which is sending me traffic I think having a dedicated ‘Stumble’ link will prove worthwhile. Time will tell no doubt! 
The funny thing is, I’ve never been a fan of Digg. The basic concept of StumbleUpon is very similar to Digg ie. you give a page the thumbs up or thumbs down, however I feel that they have come up with a better system. Certainly, integrating StumbleUpon with your browser is one of the reasons why I think it’s a much better system. For example, if I wanna do a random search for blogging articles all I do is type in ‘Blogging’ in my toolbar and the stumble button will bring me post after post of blogging related pages.
I encourage all you non-stumbler’s to download StumbleUpon and try it out. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. 
Ramkarthik | July 23rd, 2007 at 5:46 am #
Kevin, great find. But I tried to add it to my blogspot blog and I couldn’t. They have a tutorial on how to do it. But I can’t do it right. One suggestion from me Kevin. Have the comment option on top of all the above options like Share this, Stumble etc. It would be easy for readers to find your comment link.
Thanks.
GoddessCarlie | July 23rd, 2007 at 6:24 am #
I also have a separate link for StumbleUpon as if I get a post stumbled it often sends a lot of traffic. I’ve had much more luck with it than Digg or anything. Plus, stumbling can be some fun!
Kevin | July 23rd, 2007 at 7:35 am #
Ram - What exactly was causing problems with the link. Post some details in the forums and I’ll do my best to help. Can you clarify what you mean about the comment link
GodessCharlie - I don’t believe I’ve ever had traffic from digg but I was getting traffic from stumbleupon without even trying.
Ramkarthik | July 23rd, 2007 at 8:49 am #
Kevin, I will make a thread in the forum about having stumble icon in my blog. Coming to what I said about comments:
The comment option in between all the other options like Share This, Subscribe and others. It is in the same line with other options. So we have to search for the comment option. If you have it in a separate line, it would be easy to find it and hence will be easy to comment.
Kevin | July 23rd, 2007 at 8:56 am #
Oh I get what you mean now. I’ve moved the comment link to the start of that line, do you think thats better? I don’t want to have too many lines at the bottom of the posts so I’d prefer to keep everything in the one line
cmanlong | July 23rd, 2007 at 9:15 am #
you know I have read similar posts where folks are talking about traffic from stumbleupon. I have yet to see any real traffic from it. I know that in the long run stumble traffic will be far more sustainable than digg which tends to be more of a spike with a large drop. I have had the stumble buttons on my posts now for about a month.
I seem to be getting more traffic from digg and reddit than any other social bookmark type site. I have noticed that if I can get an article with 2 reddit points it gets more traffic than an article with 3 or 4 diggs.
B. Durant | July 23rd, 2007 at 9:26 am #
I get quite a bit of traffic from Stumble. One thing I’ve done is instead of using the button I’ve started putting a text only link at the end of each post. I felt the button was too… clunky?
I also make it a habit of stumbling blog postings I make comments on (such as this one), because I figure if I can take the time to comment on an article then it must be worth the time of promoting by stumbling it.
Ramkarthik | July 23rd, 2007 at 9:36 am #
Now it is fine Kevin. Also I have posted the thread in the forum.
Sly | July 23rd, 2007 at 11:07 am #
StumbleUpon is a GREAT way to get more traffic. But like you said, other internet users need to Stumble them first which is a very important step to the process.
Jennifer | July 23rd, 2007 at 11:12 am #
Check out my posts StumbleUpon link on the individual pages at the top left.
I don’t get stumbled that much, but I love the links…they fit in so nicely and subtle.
I use stumble frequently though. They have a great program in there. It is always on with my browser.
Matthew | July 23rd, 2007 at 12:03 pm #
stumbled =D
More Merchant | July 31st, 2007 at 12:28 pm #
I have tried about Stumble for a few weeks now. Not my favorite thing but do give a thumbs up from time to time!