Blogging Tips

First I’d like to say hello Blogging Tips readers! My name is Julie Vazquez and I’ll be posting here every Tuesday. For this first post, I would like to tell you about using StumbleUpon to promote your blog post.  This series will be broken down in two parts.  The first part is the StumbleUpon basics, and the second part, to come next Tuesday, will be all about the blog promotion part.

StumbleUpon can be a very effective way to get traffic to your blog.  It’s easy to use and the results are almost instant.  The traffic is already targeted, as users set their interest ahead of time within their profiles determining what type of websites they want to see.  If your blog post falls into their interest category, then your site will be seen by them when they are Stumbling.

In Part One of this series I would like to get you familiar with StumbleUpon and walk you through the steps of setting up an account, and installing the StumbleUpon toolbar.

Signing up for StumbleUpon is fairly simple.  Just go to StumbleUpon.com and register for a new account. Once your sign up is complete you will be prompted to download the StumbleUpon toolbar. The toolbar is a very important component of promoting your blog using StumbleUpon, so don’t skip this step.

I really like to personalize my social networking profiles and I suggest you do this as well.  Login to your account and add a picture, fill out your bio, and customize your profile page with preset themes.  Come on!  Make it fit your personality and have fun with this.

In the same area where you edit your profile you will also see an area to manage your interest.  This is the place I told you about earlier in regards to targeted traffic for your blog.  Make sure to go through this area carefully and choose all the things that you want to see while you are Stumbling.  You can also choose the type of content that you want to see, websites, videos, blogs, or photos.  This will help you better understand what others are looking for when you are using StumbleUpon to promote your blog.

The next step to get you familiarized with StumbleUpon is to start Stumbling!  Just go up to your toolbar that you installed on your browser and click the Stumble! button.  This will show you websites that fit into your interest that you chose earlier while setting up your profile.  While you are Stumbling you will also get a chance to rate the sites you find.  Just click the thumbs up or the thumbs down button to rate the site. The rating system is an important part of promoting your blog.  The more thumbs up you get, the more times your blog will show up when someone is Stumbling.  The sites with the higher ratings will get in the Stumble rotation more often, getting the most exposure.

So take some time making your profile personable and fun, and get comfortable with Stumbling and rating websites.  While you are at it, make sure to look around StumbleUpon at other users profiles.  When you see profiles with the same interest as you, make sure to add them as your friends.  This network of friends will be the major part of promoting your blog using StumbleUpon.

Next week I’ll fill you in on my tricks and tips of how to promote your blog on StumbleUpon and increase your traffic almost overnight.