StumbleUpon has become the best social site by far for driving free traffic to a web page. It’s potential far exceeds any other network including Digg or Netscape/Propellor. By tagging a web page at StumbleUpon you can expect some traffic, one or more good SEO backlinks, fast indexing of the web page by all the major search engines, and probably a few people bookmarking your page. Too what degree all of that happens depends on the quality of your page and luck.

For the most part, StumbleUpon traffic is not targeted. That’s OK because all you did was make one or two clicks on a toolbar button to submit it and the raw traffic potential is incredible. People have reported 2000+ unique visitors in less than a day when they have really hit the jackpot.

The luck factor has a lot to do with how many other stumblers give it the thumbs up. So it is directly tied to the quality of your page. If it starts getting thumbed up a lot, it gets shown more and can result in a snowball effect. There are some things you can do to help this viral process; most notably put some humor on the page, even if it’s just a funny image.

You also can help the process by joining a Stumble exchange. This is just what it sounds like, you tag other people’s pages in exchange for them tagging yours. However, if your page still doesn’t have what it takes to take off virally that won’t really help all that much. Think of it as getting out the gate a little faster, but you still need to make a good run.

The way to get targeted traffic from StumbleUpon is to develop your profile and recruit fans. This takes work and time. But if you stick to tagging sites that you genuinely have an interest in, when your fan base gets big enough it will be a source of targeted traffic.

Personally I don’t have the time to invest in becoming a top Digger or a StumbleUpon Whale, or to spend at a Stumble exchange tagging other web pages. I am too busy building more of my own web pages. I just make sure that StumbleUpon is the first place on my list that I tag when I post a new web page. Works for me, and once in a while I hit the traffic jackpot anyway.

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