Chatsquatch

When you start a new web site, the first thing you want is more traffic. More traffic = more page impressions = more popularity = more advertising money! It’s no surprise that the most questions I receive about starting a web site have to do with gaining more traffic.

The first and most important thing I can tell you is to have dynamite articles. Sure, you might get a popular article on Digg or maybe you even pay for advertising, but what is going to keep that short bust of internet wanderers coming back? Most people on the internet have a short attention span. In fact, I am sure most of you just skimmed this post, didn’t you? You have caught their attention, now show them something that will make them want to return.

The next, and by far, most valuable tool we used to increase page hits would be StumbleUpon. In fact, 65% of our traffic comes from StumbleUpon! It is a great way to get your web site seen by thousands of people with very little effort.

First, you will need to sign up for a StumbleUpon account. If you do not have one, the most you can do is stumble other people’s pages. This is alright, but does not really unleash the full potential of the product. Click here to get a FREE StumbleUpon account. Then you will need to download and install the StumbleUpon toolbar. It is available here for both Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. Sorry Opera, Safari, etc., you will have to find third-party plugins.

Once the toolbar is installed and you have signed into your account, you can begin stumbling for sites. You can randomly stumble, which is a lot of fun. Just click the and a random page will appear. This is fun to do on a lazy afternoon and can lead to some pretty cool sites on the net. I love to sit in my recliner with a bottle of beer and a laptop and just StumbleUpon sites.

If you like the site, you can give it a thumbs up. If you don’t like the site, you can give it a thumbs down. That way you have a better chance of “stumbling upon” a good site when you click the Stumble! button.

For the more advanced uses of StumbleUpon, you can change channels (tags) before you stumble. This allows you to narrow down the randomness of the stumble. Plus, you can

• Stumble by search phrase
• Specify videos or photos only
• News articles
• Wiki entries
• Stumble within certain websites like MySpace or Blogspot
• Stumble other StumbleUpon user pages
• and more!

I use StumbleUpon to get my site noticed and also to get inspiration. Sometimes I get Blogger’s Block and I need some motivational articles to get me going again. I stumble a few dozen sites and write down the key words that attracted me to give the article a thumbs up.

Thanks and enjoy a good Stumble!