How StumbleUpon Drives More Traffic to Your Blog

One of my clients has been urging me to join StumbleUpon. According to him, it has been one of the best tools he’s found for driving traffic to his website-and he recently started a blog that has gotten more traffic as well. With his high recommendation, I decided to check up on what StumbleUpon is and how it works. One of the first things I realized was that it had enormous potential in generating brand exposure through the internet, as well as traffic. So here are some of the things I discovered.

What is Stumble Upon?

Stumble Upon is a social website which allows its users a new way to experience the Internet. The way it works is that members compile a list of favorites, which are articles from websites, blog posts and anything else you can find on the internet. This makes it much easier for other members to find helpful, informative, entertaining or thought-provoking things to read. Unlike Google or other search engines, you don’t have to type in keywords or searches, you simply click on one of the categories on StumbleUpon’s homepage, and you can find all sorts of good stuff. Once you become a member, you can than start to compile your own list of favorites, which you do by voting thumbs up or thumbs down.

How Does StumbleUpon Drive Traffic to my Website or Blog?

Because StumbleUpon has millions of members, you get a lot more exposure. Now this point is important, you don’t want to stumble your own stuff, that’s a big no-no on this website. But you can, however, stumble articles of friends you have on other social networking sites or the ones you start to add on StumbleUpon. When they see that you’ve been adding their stuff, they will want to check out your website or blog and, if your content is good, do the same for you. I say this in every post, but remember this is about networking. You are building relationships that can help you learn and grow, so adding other’s stuff is a good thing. But don’t stumble an article just because you know somebody, you want to make sure it’s quality content. Providing other StumbleUpon member quality articles gives you more credibility.

Now the way you will get more traffic from StumbleUpon is by getting as many members to add your blog posts as one of their favorites. It’s kind of like that old shampoo commercial; I told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on…get it; the more people who have submitted your website or the articles on it as a favorite, the more people who see your content and click to your site for more.

What Kind of Blog Posts Should I Be Adding to my Favorites?

This is entirely up to you, but I would advice that you stick to your niche or topic. Let’s take my boss who owns a website development company as an example. He stumbles articles on web design, technology, business and web traffic. You see how these all fit together? That isn’t to say you can’t add favorites to your StumbleUpon account that are completely off topic, it’s just that your best bet for driving traffic to your blog is to get other’s in that field to link to you or add them to their favorites. This will get your StumbleUpon page more visits, because they are interested in reading the same stuff you do.

These are just a few of the things I’ve learned about how StumbleUpon drives traffic to your blog. I have only started my research process on this, so I will add more detailed info as I get it. What about you? What piece of advice do you have to share about how sites on the internet like StumbleUpon can help build traffic?

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Internet Marketing Through Twitter

Twitter is all the rage, but it is fairly new so many people aren’t sure how best to utilize this form of social media for maximum internet marketing opportunities. In a nutshell, twitter is a platform for website owners or bloggers to befriend each other and keep up with what’s going on with them. This is basically the technological way to network, and has become a must in the business world.

The way it works is you follow people you are interested in hearing from or about, and who you think are best to market your product or business to. But, keep in mind that this is social media; key word being social, so you don’t want to just dump all your latest blog posts on them, you want to interact with them. You are only allotted 140 spaces so your “tweets,” which is what your messages are called, are limited. This has been a major plus for many users, as they don’t have to read through a bunch of drivel. On twitter, you have to get to the point and fast. You can also reply to tweets others on twitter are posting, or send them a direct message that only they will see. This is how you build up the networking relationships that are vital in internet marketing.

In fact, there’s been a great deal of articles on how Twitter can be used for marketing purposes and I think most of them can be condensed to the simple aim of tracking and directing attention. Twitter allows you to monitor how influencers think or feel, and hopefully you get feedback through blog comments as well. Twitter isn’t the only form of social media, but it is the hottest one going right now. So, what are the biggest benefits to using twitter?

Personal Branding. This is what I mean by getting attention and directing it. Social media is one of the best ways to get your brand into the public arena, and it’s free! If you want to get a new blog or website noticed, this is really the fastest route to take.

 

Driving traffic to your site. Twitter can be used to get traffic to your websites, blogs or the sites of friends. Not only will new followers check out your site to find out more about you, they will also begin to respond to your tweets by clicking on the links you provide to them. One note here; make sure that the content you are tweeting about is useful in some way. Nothing will annoy the twitter community more than what’s called “link dumping,” or thinking automated responses are great ways to market your blog. But, if you or somebody you know has a blog post that you feel will inform, entertain or cause people to think, by all means share it with your followers.

 

Managing Your Business. Because you only see the tweets of those you are following, and vice versa, companies can use twitter as a business platform. Sign your employees up, and you can send out messages to them through this system easier and faster than even through emails.

 

Keep in touch with clients and customers. There’s a system called the Twitter Feed, which allows you to send tweets directly to those who sign up for your feed. This is a great way to utilize your client data base and market your company to people that are already interested in you.

 

There are many more benefits to twitter, but you really have to go on and found out for yourself. If you have a website or blog, if you want free and powerful avenues to utilize internet marketing and if you have a business you want to promote, social media has become the best way to go about it. How about you? How do you use twitter? Have I left any important information out? Please leave your comments, suggestions or questions and let’s learn together

 

Tips for Creating a Successful Blog

Blogging has been around for a while, but a lot of people still think of it as something people do to spout off random thoughts. Surf around the internet a bit, and you will see how wrong that thought is. Just about every business I know has either added a blog as a companion to their website, or they are in the process of doing it. But, many of them don’t know how to go about starting it, or helping it grow.

First we’ll start off with what a blog is; according to ProBlogger, one of the best sources for blogging there is, “- a blog is a type of website that is usually arranged in chronological order from the most recent ‘post’ (or entry) at the top of the main page to the older entries towards the bottom.” These entries can be found on the internet by doing a google search for the topic or company, or you can find them through social media. There are just as many types of blogs as there are people blogging. There are blogs that talk about people’s daily lives, blogs that focus on politics, The Huffington Post being one of the most popular in the niche, and blogs that provide businesses the opportunity to tell the public more about their services and/or products. You can see, it really runs the gamut. While there are more and more people starting blogs on a daily baisis, it can be hard to understand how to begin.

Pick a Good Blogging Platform

By this I mean, sign up for WordPress.com, Blogger, Typepad or any of the many other platforms that are out there. These websites give you access to easy-to-use templates that allow you to write your posts, insert pictures, audio and video, insert the relevant keywords that help you get picked up by search engines like Google and monitor your visitor comments; and that’s just to name a few. They are all really easy and fun to use. If you are starting a blog for a business, you may want to hire a ghost writer that already has experience in blogging. This will save you time and, in the long run, money. If the ghost writer knows what they are doing, they can get your blog noticed more quickly by search engines and the public.

Come Up With a Clear Focus for Your Blog

This is realy important. You want to make sure your blog sticks to a main topic. That isn’t to say that you can’t branch off into relate topics. For example; my business is internet marketing, and my blog has categories that fit into the large scope of my topic. So, let’s say your business creates websites; you could have categories on your blog like Reviews of New Computer Technology, Different Reasons You Need to Upgrade Your Website or Content Management for Your Website. You see how these are all related to website development, but broad enough to give you enough material to write about? A good way of trying to figure out what categories to write about is to ask your clients, check out related blogs or asking others in your industry what their thoughts are.

How Often Should You Blog

There are two schools of thought on this. Some feel it is best to update your blog daily, while others believe this just inundates the reader and is too much. Personally, I think three posts a week is good. First of all, three posts give your readers enough new information to want to check back on a regular basis, and more importantly, the search engines scour the internet several times a week looking for new information on websites, so posting three times a week ensures you’ll have new stuff for them to find each time.

These are just a few tips to help you get started. I’ll be writing more indepth articles on blogging, in the coming year. Please let me know, if I’ve left any important tips out, or if you have information to share with the readers. Your comments are vital to everybody who visits.

What is Social Media

What is social media? If you are somebody who blogs a lot, loves reading blogs or has a website, you probably already know the answer to this question. But, as I’ve recently discovered, there are many businesses that are in the dark when it comes to this phenomenon. In fact, several friends of mine have told me that the high-powered companies they work  for are beginning to ak what a “tweet” is.

That, however, is about to change. In a New York Times article Vindu Goel said, “the venerable Wall Street Journal will activate a revamped version of its Web site, WSJ.com, early Tuesday morning,” and  “one aspect of the redesign is radical, and if it’s successful, it could provide lessons for other news organizations trying to build deeper connections with their readers: New community features will allow WSJ.com’s million or so paid online subscribers to comment on every story, pose their own discussion questions, e-mail one another and set up profiles that will allow others to see what they’re doing on the site.” That, my friends, is social media. But it isn’t just news outlets that are starting to take notice, businesses of all kinds are jumping aboard, especially any business that has a website or blog.

Search Engine Watch defines social media as “a category of wesites that is based on user participation and user-generated content. They include social networking sites like LinkedIn or Facebook, social bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us, social news sites like Digg or Reddit, and other sites that are centered on user interaction.” So in case you haven’t noticed, Facebook aint just for kids anymore, it’s serious business. In fact, anybody that has a website or blog that promotes their product and/or services is missing out on free marketing opportunities, if they aren’t engaged in social media forums.

Besides the social media sites mentioned above, there is also twitter and stumbleupon . The basic idea is the same for all of them, sharing information and promoting your business website or blog, but they work in slightly different ways. I will go into more detail about each one in upcoming posts. For now the important thing is to learn what you can about social media and figure out how to utilize it to your advantage.

This article has just skimmed the surface, so if  i’ve left any important information out, or you have insight to share, please leave a comment and tell me what you have to say.

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Why Your Business Needs Internet Marketing

Internet marketing sounds like a new term to many people, but it has actually been around almost as long as the internet itself. Any business that has a website is probably already familiar with this. For those of you that don’t know what this type of marketing is or why it is so vital, especially in today’s economy, pull up a chair and read on.

What is Internet Marketing

There are many aspects to this type of marketing strategy; to begin with anything you do online that has your company’s name attached to it is internet marketing. Whether you are simply sending out an email with your business website address in the signature, commenting on interesting posts you are reading online or signing up for some type of service that asks for your URL, you are marketing your business. Computers today and the software that goes into them are so sophisticated that they can track these website addresses and that in turn gives your website’s information to the search engines. Ok, that part might be a bit more technical than you are interested in, but the point is these are all tactics used by marketers to get your company’s name out there.  But there is much more that goes into it.

When you hire a professional to market your business for you one of the first things they will probably do, and if they don’t you should question who you hired, is set up accounts at the social media sites lite twitter and bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon. Again, these are tools on the internet that help build your brand identity. With social media the goal is to build up relationships. This is really no different than the concept of joining your local Chamber of Commerce only on a much wider scale. The same conversations you would have at a networking event are the ones you should be having on these social media sites. You want to engage in conversation, not hit people over the head with your product; some people call this “schmoozing.”

Why Internet Marketing Is So Important

Here’s the deal, there are billions of people floating around the World Wide Web, and if you aren’t taking advantage of the access you have to them, you are missing out on one of the best marketing platforms out there. I’m not saying you should ignore traditional marketing for your business, after all it is tried and true. However, internet marketing has the ability to help leveling the playing field between you and the big guns out there. People on twitter are just as likely to listen to what you have to say as they are to Wal-Mart. On top of that, many of these marketing avenues are free, so why wouldn’t you at least try them? Creating a website is just the first step, making the most of your website by using it to market your business has really become a must. I’ve mentioned a few of the ways you can market your company and business through the internet, please feel free to leave me your thoughts and suggestions on avenues for marketing I may have left off.