Total Followers 132,503
StumbleUpon is really beautiful website where you can find regularly top content in areas you’re interested in, share interesting content and finally drive very good traffic to your own website. Actually I must say, I’ve built this website completely on social networks and StumbleUpon plays really important role too in this whole process. This time I wanted to explain some basic principles how to use SU better in daily basis and I spent some time to find many useful WordPress plugins, Stumbleupon addons, tools, several big unofficial guides to SU, Greasemonkey scripts to help you automate and make your stumbling time even more enjoyable and customizable.
Before I start, you can view my StumbleUpon profile as well, to see I am not just talking nonsense, I really spend time to build relationship, find more good friends and finally be active myself and help my friends as good as I can! I strongly encourage to look through this article, look for guidelines you are interested in and I am sure you’ll find something you didn’t know too!
- Meet people like you
I did this proactive activities for some time, because I was struggling with too less contacts and friends, who could help get more stumbles, because really – more stumbles you can get in short period of time, more traffic it will deliver. Right..it’s not so easy but in short, that’s all that matters.
I’ll now explain how to find similar friends, just go to your friends section and on the right sidebar under your friends you’ll see section – with title “Meet people like you” (see the screenshot below). In my case address is http://dainix.stumbleupon.com/friends/. Now just spend time to establish relationship, I suggest you to send message explaining what’s you are up to before and only then friend request. In that way you’ll be something more than just some unknown fellow in their friend request page.
If you’re really serious about finding very focused people to your niche, also use this “”Browse stumblers” feature:
You’ll find it on your public profile – http://dainix.stumbleupon.com/public/ in my case and there you really can search by interests, gender, find people from your country and more.
- Check what kind of people are stumbling your website
If they like your content already, why not establish good relationship with them? To dig even deeper, check also who is stumbling related sites in the same niche, for example I am checking other design blog article review pages to find new friends.
- Buy sponsorship
I tried this one just know and sponsorship is really rewarding. Thing is – you pay 10$ (minimal donation price) and become a sponsor for a year. Before you start complaining why to that, I’ll explain my reasons. The first thing you get is that small sponsorship badge on your profile (you can see it on my profile too), which means that you’re respected SU user and second the most valuable one – your account shows on StumbleUpon Sponsors page and it actually delivers ~3-5 friends every day. I find it really rewarding because I don’t have to do proactive friend searching any more.
- Don’t spam to your friends with numerous non-related content webpages every day. This is obvious I think, nobody loves spammers;
- Try to respond to your friends shares and establish personal relationship, people will help much more gladly people they know.
- This is time consuming task if you have many friends, but if you spare time and write reviews (testimonials) to your friends, you’ll be more likely noticed – remember before you ask others something to do, be first to take action! People love friendly and helpful friends!
- Spend time to create good profile – fill About me page, customize theme so it looks more eye candy – let people know what you really are!
- When adding new friend, write him a short message explaining why do you want to be friends with him and introduce yourself building personal contact in that way.
If you use StumbleUpon in daily basis, you should know several months ago SU added Share This feature to easily share websites between your friends automatically. I just love this feature because it let’s me more focus on stumbling articles, not spending like an hour to share it between my friends manually.
This feature is a little bit hidden so I’ll explain it too. The first thing to do is stumble and review article you want to share. Then just go to your profile, in my case it is dainix.stumbleupon.com. You’ll find reviewed article on Reviews section, now all you must do is mouse hover to the image and Share button will reveal.
Click to it and you’ll get Share this feature pop-up on right side of profile. And one more thing – I strongly recommend you to enter that optional personal message, because usually it’s the best way to get personal relationships with friends. Now just check all friends and send your new discovery – and you’re done!
This is common question how to play with StumbleUpon good enough to get traffic from it. And it’s really easy – as soon as you got 10-20 friends to Stumble your website quickly you’ll get like ~500-1000 new visits almost immediately! StumbleUpon is great for new blogs, it was main traffic for my website in early month and even now it always take 3-4th place in top traffic sources.
- Get many active friends
More friends you’ve got – better traffic it will deliver. In short that’s so true, more stumbles you can get in short period of time, better your new article will do.
- Create your IM friend list
This is very powerful tool not only for StumbleUpon but for other social networks. I use Gtalk (it’s very popular between Digg users) for my all business contacts and there I can contact with my friends rapidly and contact only ones are online – I strongly recommend you start using IM if you’re serious about bringing traffic and social networking. If you’re just starting, here you can dowload Gtalk and feel free to add me as your friend too (Gtalk user-name: dainis@1stwebdesigner.com) , I already benefit from such networking!
- Good Design
Really people on StumbleUpon are more to look not to read, well designed logo and website is very crucial to leave good first impression and people will much more likely stumble website in that case and may even remember your website.
- Don’t use many ads
If the first thing new visitors see will be many ads, you’ll really turn them away, of course you need to monetize your site, but don’t do it too much.
And finally be always active and helpful because these kind of people are rare, your friends are your success!
Add a button to your site to make it easy for your visitors to submit your content to StumbleUpon. Simply copy and paste the code into your site and start receiving free exposure on StumbleUpon.
This page modifies text so that it will not be parsed by stumbleupon.com as HTML/PHP formatting. It also fixes URLs so that they will not be changed to SU review links. It is designed for web developers to be able to post visible HTML/PHP code for tutorials or problem solving.
Great tool if you’re searching for new groups, but you enjoy how SU offers you random links – here you get random StumbleUpon groups! Just refresh that page to get a new random group.
This tool let’s you to create a custom music player for your StumbleUpon blog. After registering, you can add MP3 links, customize your player and then embed it into your blog page.
WP_StumbleDigest is a Plugin to create daily posts on the things you stumble across on the web. Using you StumbleUpon Account.
Stumble! for WordPress extends WordPress to support a “random article” feature, similar to StumbleUpon’s StumbleThru and Wikipedia’s (Mediawiki’s) random article feature. Not really SU related plugin, but interesting plugin with that kind of feature – should work good for blogs!
Wonderful plugin which shows the popularity of ALL your links and gives you can active StumbleUpon bookmark button.
StumbleUpon Favorites is a widget based on the default RSS widget that was developed to allow the sharing of bookmarks with blog visitors. This plugin makes it much easier to use and customize the list grabbed from your own StumbleUpon account. Also there are several features you can change on the panel, which is not supported by default RSS
Allows viewing and embedding of flash widgets on StumbleUpon Pages.
The visitor icon script has optional dynamic updates. If you have dynamic updates enabled and your visitor page open, any new visitors will be added to the top of your visitor list. Any changes to friend/subscriber status are also dynamically updated.
Additional visitor count displays the number of visitors added to your visitor list since you opened the page.
Dynamic update switch allows you to enable or disable the dynamic update functionality. Visitor icons will still be enabled.
This script adds functionality enabling you to set and display an online status on your public profile page, similar to MSN. It does not affect your normal SU online status indicator, this script is meant to provide an additional indicator, with more options. You can set your status on your favorites page, which will stay that way until you change it to something else (so don’t forget to set to offline when you go to bed).
A WYSIWYG Editor for Stumbleupon.com, works on blog, forum, contact, and site review pages
Basic HTML/CSS editor for SU. Preview blog posts and edit CSS styles by clicking on any element.
Very small script that solves the problem of low-contrast, over-styled and plain unreadable su blogs. It collapses all custom backgrounds, sets bg color to white and font color to black.
This script adds an option to generate an extended “what’s new” page, with the following:
It generates this page by visiting the first page of up to 20 people you subscribe to, and checking for new posts. It remembers approximately the last 1800 posts it has shown you and doesn’t show anything over 24 hours old, so you should always get only what is actually new. Retrieving the first page does register as a visit, so the script keeps track of the last 60 people it has taken posts from and refrains from visiting again for at least another 3 refreshes of the page.
This is a simple script which replaces the normal page control on SU pages with a drop-down box, and buttons. Currently works on the following pages:
This script replaces StumbleUpon tag clouds with ordered lists.
Read this unofficial StumbleUpon FAQ to get many more and different questions answered than in official SU FAQ.
StumbleUpon Wiki is a place where groups of stumblers work together to describe and evaluate the best of the web.
I’ll be happy to hear about your experience with StumbleUpon and maybe you know more StumbleUpon tools I didn’t list here?
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Dainis Graveris is 23 years old blogger and designer, founder of 1stWebDesigner, now more silently managing everything behind the scenes. He usually hangs out in Twitter tweeting design related links and chatting with people. If you have any questions or feedback that's the best place to start! Cheers!
Wednesday, April 11th, 2012 18:23
this seems very interesting. i saw a similar implementation somewhere though…
Tuesday, February 7th, 2012 11:08
Thanks a lot. My site got some serious traffic from SU. I did not even think it was possible. Your article answered a lot of my questions as well as gave me some great ideas.
Thanks a lot.
Wednesday, December 7th, 2011 11:57
World of warcraft, fantastic blog layout! The way in which long have you happen to be blogging meant for? everyone make blogging glance painless. The entire glance to your site is certainly wonderful, let alone any content!
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011 08:49
God! You totally dug into SU to get each and everything about it. Man! This is really a good article.
Sunday, September 4th, 2011 14:24
This article is chock full of helpful advice. I look forward to sharing the love one day when I am a more advanced stumbled upon user. Thanks again for taking the time to include such useful content. Also, kudo’s on the success of your blog. The traffic and the content are outstanding.
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011 08:51
I am on stumbleupon but i cannot get access at all to this website. As soon as i click on the website its starts to load but nothing appears on the screen. It doesnt finish loading. Any way i could view my favourites?
Monday, May 2nd, 2011 17:57
This is very complete information about Stumbleupon. Found it very useful. Thanks for sharing
Friday, November 27th, 2009 09:33
Although this post from 1stWebdesigner was pre-new version… it still has a lot of great things of interest to anyone who has been “stumble-ized” !! I have tried other web browsing applications but StumbleUpon has been my favorite since I stumbled acrossed it about a year ago !! Yes, I am still working on trying to “customize” my pages… all over again… and trying to learn even more about blogging and everything else involved with it !! This blog has been a great help in my search for knowledge and inspiration !! I recommend “1stWebdesigner” to everyone with similar interests and desires for creating their own 1st blogs !! I also want to thank Dainis Graveris for creating this post and 1stWebdesigner… hope I got that right !! PS. “what is commentluv” !!
Friday, October 16th, 2009 10:54
That was a very good post. I am a big fan of SU and in an idea to write about why I like it. This post must be surely linked if I write the post.
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 19:12
that’s a very informative and helpful post. I have been using SU for sometime now, but i didnt have that much luck with it. so i was looking for some tips to increase friends on SU. This post was a great help. thanks.
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 14:01
i am using digg a lot but not getting enough traffic looks like i should change to stumbleupon and try it.
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 09:16
Man, thanks for sharing; stumbled and connected with you on the network.
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 08:33
Nice post friend, StumbleUpon is a great source of generating traffic in quick time. Thanks for listing useful plug ins and tools
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 04:44
This is so cool.. but i can’t find stumbleupon badges.. i thing that stumbleupon badges is only for the partners alone.. could u please tell me is there any trick to embed stumbleupon badges in our website like one in digg and reddit. ??
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 04:22
Great tutorials for Stumblers :)
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 04:09
A very comprehensive guide to Stumbleupon. Found a lot of useful stuffs here. Thanks dainix!
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 00:31
This is an incredibly helpful post.
I wasn’t aware it was appropriate to stumble your own blog article.
Thank you for writing it and to Kristi of Kikolani, for sending it to me.
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 20:29
Wowwww man this is a great explanation about Stumble Upon. incredible great post
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 20:21
Man this post is awesome. Thanks for writing this, great help.
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 00:07
@Bariski thanks, I really hope it helps!
@Luis Lopez I am now really exploring this social network, so tried my best to explain all my foundations..okay..well not all, but most of it :)
@Thomas thanks, man!
@cheth Great, nice to hear :) Thanks!
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 23:58
now I know what to show if someone asks me about stumbleupon! Nice article :)
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cheth
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 23:58
now I know what to show if someone asks me about stumbleupon! Nice article :)
Phaoloo
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 04:22
Great tutorials for Stumblers :)
vinoth
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 04:44
This is so cool.. but i can’t find stumbleupon badges.. i thing that stumbleupon badges is only for the partners alone.. could u please tell me is there any trick to embed stumbleupon badges in our website like one in digg and reddit. ??
Yogesh
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 08:33
Nice post friend, StumbleUpon is a great source of generating traffic in quick time. Thanks for listing useful plug ins and tools
Dicky
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 04:09
A very comprehensive guide to Stumbleupon. Found a lot of useful stuffs here. Thanks dainix!
BunnygotBlog
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 00:31
This is an incredibly helpful post.
I wasn’t aware it was appropriate to stumble your own blog article.
Thank you for writing it and to Kristi of Kikolani, for sending it to me.
Dainis Graveris
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 00:07
@Bariski thanks, I really hope it helps!
@Luis Lopez I am now really exploring this social network, so tried my best to explain all my foundations..okay..well not all, but most of it :)
@Thomas thanks, man!
@cheth Great, nice to hear :) Thanks!
Bariski
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 20:21
Man this post is awesome. Thanks for writing this, great help.
Luis Lopez
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 20:29
Wowwww man this is a great explanation about Stumble Upon. incredible great post
Thomas
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 22:51
Thanks great article very useful
Tamal Anwar
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 09:16
Man, thanks for sharing; stumbled and connected with you on the network.
gautam hans
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 14:01
i am using digg a lot but not getting enough traffic looks like i should change to stumbleupon and try it.
Mrinal
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011 08:49
God! You totally dug into SU to get each and everything about it. Man! This is really a good article.
Malina
Wednesday, December 7th, 2011 11:57
World of warcraft, fantastic blog layout! The way in which long have you happen to be blogging meant for? everyone make blogging glance painless. The entire glance to your site is certainly wonderful, let alone any content!
Brad
Tuesday, February 7th, 2012 11:08
Thanks a lot. My site got some serious traffic from SU. I did not even think it was possible. Your article answered a lot of my questions as well as gave me some great ideas.
Thanks a lot.
click to call
Wednesday, April 11th, 2012 18:23
this seems very interesting. i saw a similar implementation somewhere though…
Darren
Sunday, September 4th, 2011 14:24
This article is chock full of helpful advice. I look forward to sharing the love one day when I am a more advanced stumbled upon user. Thanks again for taking the time to include such useful content. Also, kudo’s on the success of your blog. The traffic and the content are outstanding.
question?
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011 08:51
I am on stumbleupon but i cannot get access at all to this website. As soon as i click on the website its starts to load but nothing appears on the screen. It doesnt finish loading. Any way i could view my favourites?
Irtiza
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 19:12
that’s a very informative and helpful post. I have been using SU for sometime now, but i didnt have that much luck with it. so i was looking for some tips to increase friends on SU. This post was a great help. thanks.
Senthil Ramesh
Friday, October 16th, 2009 10:54
That was a very good post. I am a big fan of SU and in an idea to write about why I like it. This post must be surely linked if I write the post.
Hermitbiker
Friday, November 27th, 2009 09:33
Although this post from 1stWebdesigner was pre-new version… it still has a lot of great things of interest to anyone who has been “stumble-ized” !! I have tried other web browsing applications but StumbleUpon has been my favorite since I stumbled acrossed it about a year ago !! Yes, I am still working on trying to “customize” my pages… all over again… and trying to learn even more about blogging and everything else involved with it !! This blog has been a great help in my search for knowledge and inspiration !! I recommend “1stWebdesigner” to everyone with similar interests and desires for creating their own 1st blogs !! I also want to thank Dainis Graveris for creating this post and 1stWebdesigner… hope I got that right !! PS. “what is commentluv” !!
Danny
Monday, May 2nd, 2011 17:57
This is very complete information about Stumbleupon. Found it very useful. Thanks for sharing