views http://www.webupon.com/tags/views New posts about views How to Use Stumbleupon Exchange http://www.webupon.com/Social-Networks/How-to-Use-StumbleUpon-Exchange.295465 None of this will make sense to anyone who is not familiar with the Internet site known as "StumbleUpon". So to begin I think I should introduce you to StumbleUpon.
StumbleUpon is a wonderful little addition used by surfers, bloggers, and well over six million people. These people use it to find new websites, for entertainment, or share those they have found, or made.

The key to getting your website seen by other users is to have it "Rated" with a "Thumbs up". Of course you can give your site a Thumbs Up, yourself, but the more upwardly pointing thumbs, the better. More positive thumbs, means more people will see your site. Sites given positive ratings are also more likely to be seen by the fans of the person who rated the site.

Users of StumbleUpon can attract and invite fans to view everything they give positive ratings to, but sometimes this is not enough to catapult a site into becoming hugely popular. It takes a series of Thumbs Up, and ideally a few Reviews too. Reviews are generally one line comments.

So what happens is people want to get more guaranteed Thumbs Up, and they turn to systems like "StumbleUpon Exhchange".

You sign up, and they give you a base number of "Points" to start you off. This allows you to submit some of your links. The base number changes according to promotions, but is generally 5 points. It takes 3 points to submit a site. So, unless you join during a promotion that is what you will get.

Now things may get a bit tricky.

As soon as somebody stumbles your site, you lose a point. As such when you have zero points, nobody from Suexchange, as it is called, can stumble your site. However the person who stumbled your site, does not get their point right away. You have to sign in and award it to them, which is done easily. You get a message, click on it, and it asks you to verify the stumble. Click the green link they send to see what the person is claiming. At which time you can check to see if they really did stumble the site as claimed, and if so, you click the green "+ Point" Button, and not only do they get a point, but you also get your point back.
Now, in turn you can get more points by claiming stumbles too. There is a long long list of sites available for stumbling. As you do not know which users are still active its best to pick from the most recent submissions, this being any in the top five pages.

When you claim a stumble, click the title of a page you are interested in. This opens up a "Claim" page, now click the title again, and the site will open in a new window, you can stumble it and then also write a message on the "Claim" page. The message can be simple, like "Stumbled" or you can write something more if you wish. It's that easy, the submitter will give you the point when they are on-line.

Another tactic which I find works well is to stumble the links of people who are on-line, because you know they are active. There is a "Users On Line" green button and you can click the "User Profile" to see their links. You can also message people, but it is considered bad manners to say "I Stumbled yours, now Stumble mine". You can suggest it, or offer it, but some people may not want the content of your link reflected in their SU blog, so do not expect it.

There is a Chat room as well, but I find it of limited use, maybe because I have dial up, I am not sure. I do not always find people on line, but myself if I sign in, I stay signed in for a while, and suggest you do the same. It is a good idea to check your messages regularly so you can award points to other users right away, and catch any messages.
You can submit any link, it does not have to be your own. However respect for the community is expected. In other words, don't submit something that is not appropriate for all ages, or is illegal. There is no limit to how many sites you can claim stumbles on in a day. Only the number of points you have limits the number of submissions you can make. So stumble more and you get more points.

The biggest flaw I have found, other than the awkward chat room, is that if a user claims a stumble and did not stumble the site, you have lost a point and must click "+ Point" to get it back, or contact admin, but I have also heard that sometimes people stumble sites and for some reason it is "invisible" you have to check their SU Profile to see if they really did stumble or not. You can always just assume they did and give the point. Another flaw is you might stumble something and never be awarded the point, if that person has become inactive. Still this is no big concern as it didn't cost you anything to stumble their site, and having more sites on your blog is a great way to get more fans.

You can find StumbleUpon Exhchange here.

You can get extra points by inviting friends to join, but to be fair I did not include my profile here for that purpose. If you sign up, I do not get any points.

HINTS: DO NOT Sign off with ZERO Points, if you do, nobody can stumble your links, until you get points. DO NOT Submit too many sites at once. Spread them out, this increases a variety of people seeing them.]]> Mon, 13 Oct 2008 04:22:14 PST How to Generate a Horde of Website Traffic From Youtube http://www.webupon.com/Marketing/How-to-Generate-a-Horde-of-Website-Traffic-From-Youtube.139861 n my past few articles, I have shared some general tips on how to generate traffic for your website, whether it's for business or personal use. In this particular article, we will specifically explore some ways on how to generate traffic by using one of the most frequently visited sites in the world - Youtube.

The good thing about video is that it incorporates sounds and visuals in one platform, which gives you a splendid advantage to access different parts of your viewers' brain. Video advertising is also free in most cases. But before you upload one thousand videos on Youtube, with the hope of getting more website traffic, consider these tips first:

Tip # 1:

Make Sure The Quality Of The Video Is Satisfactory - many people overlook this. Out of their excitement, they instantly record a one or two minute video of themselves talking in front of the camera, believing that it's enough to generate traffic. To be an effective video advertiser, though, you might want to consider buying a digicam with good quality and high resolution. Sound clarity should also be taken into consideration.

Tip # 2:

Don't forget to include "watermarks". Watermarks are website links that you flash on the video screen itself (like a subtitle). When you are editing your video, make sure you include a caption at the bottom part of the screen, displaying your website address link you are trying to promote. You may want to display your web link on the Youtube video description panel itself

Tip # 3:

Make your video as viral as possible. A viral video is something that's so informative, funny, weird, interesting, shocking..etc..so much that it's popularity spreads like wildfire all over the internet! People are linking back to it, and they are displaying it in their blog. They also share it to their friends via email. IF you know what people want, then you are in a position to create a video that will be viewed by more people, and will bring more traffic to your main website in the long run.

Tip # 4:

Mind Your headlines - Your video headline is as important as the video itself! Whether the viewer will open your video or not depends on how well you word your headline. In other words, it needs to be appealing, and appalling. This is self explanatory. Let me add, though, DON'T post misleading headlines. Other people include Barack Obama or Britney Spears on their headlines although their videos are not relevant to it. Viewers find that annoying and it will NOT result in increased web traffic.

Tip # 5:

Take advantage of Youtube's social networking aspect. You can add friends, share videos, post comments on other people's profiles, exchange favorites and ratings, share web links..etc. Needless to say, expanding your online connections will also generate highly targeted traffic to your site. Guaranteed! To learn more about the art of traffic generation from social networking sites, also view my article, "Generating Website Traffic Through Social Networking Sites 2".

]]> Mon, 16 Jun 2008 09:34:48 PST Quick How-to on The Best Social Bookmarking Sites http://www.webupon.com/Blogging/Quick-How-to-on-The-Best-Social-Bookmarking-Sites.127207 Recently I have embarked on extensive research into which bookmarking sites are the best to go for and what methods to use with them.

How did I do this you may ask? On a free blog site (that does not publicise your blogs for you) I put up 20 blogs of similar length and in a similar subject field. I then entered these blogs into different social bookmarking sites and monitored the results. This is far from the perfect experiment but the results were such that I was able to draw up some clear winners out of around 20 bookmarking sites.

Shoutwire

Out of the 20 sites I tested shoutwire came 4th. Not only is it good for getting traffic but it's easy to sign up to, easy to submit new things to and easy to receive comments on making it a very handy site to have as a favourite. One tip to bear in mind with shoutwire is that it doesn't let you choose specific tags so try and be as accurate as possible with categorisation

Digg

Digg came a close third and was equally as easy to use as shoutwire. Not only this but digg does allow you to customise tags so there is a much broader use of tagging available. Definitely one worth favouriting

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon at first didn't appeal to me as it forced me to download a toolbar which generally I am against. However I found that by hiding my toolbar whenever not using stumble upon it actually speeds up the process of favouriting your sites as there is no need to log in or type URL's. However this is another site that does not allow custom tags, possibly why it is in second place

Del.icio.us

This site won not only on page views but on practicality as well. It has the ease of use of stumble upon combined with custom tags leading to a very high page view count for very little hassle. Every blogger should have this toolbar installed even if it's hidden most of the time.

Now it is important to bear in mind that these results were only found for 1 category of blog however I am confident that the results can be generally replicated for many different categories, why not give it a try!

]]> Tue, 20 May 2008 07:06:47 PST Three Simple Ways to Increase Website/Blog Traffic http://www.webupon.com/Blogging/Three-Simple-Ways-to-Increase-WebsiteBlog-Traffic.124133

  • Make sure you're on the basic search engines

    This website will submit you URL to over 20 major search engines. This should instantly increase traffic as people search for info that they can find on your site! Also the more content there is on your site when you do this the better. The more content there is the more will be found and registered within the search engine databases

  • Update, constantly

    If you constantly update your site you will get visitors that ill then feel inclined to check back in future, they may check back once a day, or more! This is a great way to get some long term recurring revenue from ads! After all one person looking at your site gets you one view a month, but one person that comes back twice a day gets you 60 views a month. If you apply this to the big picture, that's a huge amount of views just by making regular updates.

  • Make your website easy to navigate

    Search engines use things called spiders to find sites, if your links are a mess or some pages are really hard to get to then the spiders will only find some of your site, this can be a major problem for traffic! Also with an easy to navigate website people will be more inclined to look around, if you have all of your visitors looking at loads of pages you get a lot more traffic overall!
    • ]]>     Wed, 14 May 2008 06:44:49 PST     How to Write an Article That is Read by Thousands http://www.webupon.com/Money-Making/How-to-Write-an-Article-That-is-Read-by-Thousands.85898 Have you ever wondered how to write e-articles online and generate thousands of views and therefore possibly make lots of easy cash? Millions of people online are making money this way. This guide teaches you how to write articles to the best of your ability in only a few simple steps.

    Choose an interesting topic that people want to read about

    The fist thing you need to do is find a topic that people are interested in. These topics may include anything from video games to dating to business or even trivia facts. This is possibly the most important step in creating your article. Ensure that you have a healthy knowledge of the topic you are going to write about or at least research it thoroughly before you begin writing. Knowledge is key to writing good articles.

    Compile a catchy, yet concise title

    Millions of articles are viewed everyday on the internet ad yours will be no different. No matter what you write about, it is almost guaranteed that at lest 5 people will read your article. The way to get more than that, and actually gain more views than other people with your same topic, is to invent a title that is concise, yet it is eye catching. The title should relate exactly what the topic is about but also be interesting enough so that people will view yours over the other one. Think about certain key words you would search for when searching for your topic over the internet. Some of these should be included in the title.

    Tell your readers what to expect

    The introduction to your article will be the first thing your readers view and will of course, determine whether they continue reading or move along to another article. The purpose of the introduction is to capture their attention and by writing desciptively exactly what your article will contain and what they can expect to read. Rhetorical questions tend to capture the reader's attention a little more than plain sentences. To finish the introduction, use an interesting closing statement like, “Just follow these steps and your soup will be the best in the neighbourhood!”.

    Avoid unnecessary writing

    First of all, avoid ranting about unnecessary stuff that is off of your topic will just turn the reader off and make them click that all foreboding “Back” button. This is exactly the opposite of what you want. Make sure that your writing includes what your topic says and only that.

    Use a format that flows

    Readers of online articles tend to want to just get what they came for and be able to find it easily. This can be helped by just splitting up your article into different headings, making it easy for readers to jus skim through your article and find what they need.

    Using shorter, more concise paragraphs also helps in this area since by just reading a few lines of your paragraph, readers will know exactly what you are talking about. Remember, no matter how many hours of research you put into your article, if it does not flow or is too troubling to read, readers will simply move on to another.

    Avoid writing overly long articles, unless it cannot be avoided

    No one likes to open an article and see that it is 10 pages long. Articles like these usually include lots of off topic paragraphs and this usually wastes a lot of the reader's valuable time. Keep things simple and sweet and just put yourself in the reader's shoes.

    Another way to cut down on article length and yet still gain more readers is by using less complex words. Using words suited for the target audience is key to gaining lots of views. If, for example, you are writing a children's article on Santa Claus, use small, fairytale-like adjectives since they need to be understood by children. If, however you are writing an article on the physics of rocket science, it is acceptable to use high standard words since the majority of persons reading your article will be of a higher educational status than the average reader. Writing articles for the everyday reader, however, should never go to any of these two extremes. Going to a thesaurus for every word you write will simply turn away the reader. Remember, your article will be read by many people from all different backrounds and educational levels.

    Promote your content

    The promotion of your content is the final thing that would help in it generating lots of views. Social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Reddit help a lot in getting your content out there and into the eyes of viewers. Readers can't read your stuff if they don't know it exists!

    You can also even e-mail links to some of your friends or people who have similar interests as to the topic you wrote about.

    Finally, you can upload your links to your blogs/online forums you use like myspace or facebook.

    The more you do this (promote your content) the more views they generate. Remember, use catchy subtitles when uploading your content. “Guide to making good soup” will of course be less appealing than “Ever wanted to make the most delicious soup in the neighbourhood? Here's how.”

    Follow these simple steps and it is guaranteed that your article will be one of he best and most viewed articles on the internet!

    ]]>     Wed, 20 Feb 2008 06:46:59 PST     50 Easy Ways to Create Traffic to Your Site or Blog http://www.webupon.com/Blogging/50-Easy-Ways-to-Create-Traffic-to-Your-Site-or-Blog.77314
  • Use lists.
  • Be topical... write posts that need to be read right now.
  • Learn enough to become the expert in your field.
  • Break news.
  • Be timeless... write posts that will be readable in a year.
  • Be among the first with a great blog on your topic, then encourage others to blog on the same topic.
  • Share your expertise generously so people recognize it and depend on you.
  • Announce news.
  • Write short, pithy posts.
  • Encourage your readers to help you manipulate the Technorati top blog list.
  • Don't write about your cat, your boyfriend or your kids.
  • Write long, definitive posts.
  • Write about your kids.
  • Be snarky. Write nearly libelous things about fellow bloggers, daring them to respond (with links back to you) on their blog.
  • Be sycophantic. Share linklove and expect some back.
  • Include polls, meters and other eye candy.
  • Tag your posts. Use del.icio.us.
  • Coin a term or two.
  • Do email interviews with the well-known.
  • Answer your email.
  • Use photos. Salacious ones are best.
  • Be anonymous.
  • Encourage your readers to Digg your posts. (and to use Furl and Reddit). Do it with every post.
  • Post your photos on Flickr.
  • Encourage your readers to subscribe by RSS.
  • Start at the beginning and take your readers through a months-long education.
  • Include comments so your blog becomes a virtual water cooler that feeds itself.
  • Assume that every day is the beginning, because you always have new readers.
  • Highlight your best posts on your Squidoo lens.
  • Point to useful but little-known resources.
  • Write about stuff that appeals to the majority of current blog readers--like gadgets and web 2.0.
  • Write about Google.
  • Have relevant ads that are even better than your content.
  • Don't include comments, people will cross post their responses.
  • Write posts that each include dozens of trackbacks to dozens of blog posts so that people will notice you.
  • Run no ads.
  • Keep tweaking your template to make it include every conceivable bell or whistle.
  • Write about blogging.
  • Digest the good ideas of other people, all day, every day.
  • Invent a whole new kind of art or interaction.
  • Post on weekdays, because there are more readers.
  • Write about a never-ending parade of different topics so you don't bore your readers.
  • Post on weekends, because there are fewer new posts.
  • Don't interrupt your writing with a lot of links.
  • Dress your blog (fonts and design) as well as you would dress yourself for a meeting with a stranger.
  • Edit yourself. Ruthlessly.
  • Don't promote yourself and your business or your books or your projects at the expense of the reader's attention.
  • Be patient.
  • Give credit to those that inspired, it makes your writing more useful.
  • Write stuff that people want to read and share.
    • ]]>     Sat, 26 Jan 2008 09:25:07 PST     How to Effectively Increase Traffic Through Stumbleupon http://www.webupon.com/Social-Bookmarking/How-to-Effectively-Increase-Traffic-Through-Stumbleupon.70187 What is StumbleUpon?

    StumbleUpon is a combination of a social network site and a search engine. It has a giant community totaling over four million members all sharing and discovering the best sites on the internet. When you sign up you must add the StumbleUpon toolbar to your browser. The toolbar has many options, but the basic three you'll need to know are the Stumble, thumbs up, and thumbs done buttons. When you click on the Stumble button it will bring you to a category you selected as an interest. There are many different things you can select as an interest. Anything from sports, your favorite hobbies, or religious topics that once selected will bring you sites submitted into these categories. Once you are on a page you found through Stumbling you can read the material, browse the site, or click on to the next one. If you would like to give the website a rating you can give it a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” accordingly. If you gave it a good review StumbleUpon will give you more sites similar to it more often, and the website will be marked as a better site under that particular interest therefore increasing the traffic that is sent to the site through the Stumble option.

    Okay, so I know how to use StumbleUpon to view others sites, but how do I get people to get to a site I would like to submit? In order to get your site added to StumbleUpon you have to go to the page you would like to submit. Then simply click on the “thumbs up” button, and if it has yet to be added to StumbleUpon a screen will pop up asking for a review of the site, a title, tags, and a topic. You will learn the importance of these later on. Once all this information is filled in it is submitted into the StumbleUpon database and will start to receive the “beginning traffic”.

    My website says I got between 200 and 300 views through the StumbleUpon site in only one day! Well as great as it may seem to you, this is not good because this is most likely the end of the traffic you'll receive to this page. There are many ways to improve upon this but that will take a little bit of work. First of all you will generally receive around that many views just by submitting it to StumbleUpon. You can only raise this by receiving the “thumbs up” votes on your page. (You can check these by looking at the review of your page.) By receiving only a few “thumbs ups” you will have successfully gotten more traffic. The more positive votes, the more traffic you will receive. My tips for increasing the positive reviews greatly depend upon the type of content you are submitting. If it is a list of items your best bet would be to put the best picture or item in the list as the first thing they see. Why? Well if your article looks boring they may not even take their mouse pointer off the Stumble button. A catchy yet to the point title is also important. Make your title interesting. There is a great difference between “10 Uses of Duct Tape”, “10 Amazing Things Made of Duct Tape”, and “10 Amazing Things You Can Make Using Duct Tape”. Which one catches your attention the most? If you said number two, I agree. As it is an opinion question you may think different, but my opinion is the second one. It catches my attention in a way the first one couldn't, and it's more to the point than the third one.

    So you're saying that the reason I'm not getting a lot of traffic is completely the fault of my article or content? Not exactly, I'm just saying that those are important things for a Stumbler to see on your page because they can be gone as quickly as they came. Then what else might I be doing wrong? Well as I mentioned before, the information you enter when first submitting the page is very important. The most important is the topic in which you enter it. Although you may think that by entering an article about football, in the topic of sports will give you a bigger base of fans you may not do as good as if you enter it in the topic of football. Why? Well the more positive votes you receive the more traffic you will get. So what point would there be in entering it into the sports one? It will receive views from people that enjoy totally different sports and will give it a negative review thus hurting the traffic brought to this article.

    I think I have good articles, but they just don't seem to get started very well. Do you have any ideas? As I stated before StumbleUpon is a social networking site. So far all you have learned about StumbleUpon is how to add content. While that was a huge part of it, you won't get very far without the social aspect of StumbleUpon. The more positive votes you receive the more views so what a better way to get your articles past that first hump where you have to receive some thumbs up quickly. Your friends will usually help you out by giving you a thumbs up and a positive review. By receiving just five friends thumbs up votes you can successfully increase your traffic to a level that if it is any good, should take care of itself. I've found articles to succeed greatly after I get the first few thumbs up votes. Remember without friends you have potentially three hundred or less Stumblers to receive these crucial thumbs up votes. The key to success is friendship.

    None of my friends in real life use StumbleUpon. I'm having troubles finding a friend on StumbleUpon. How do I get them? Good question. I can say that probably 95% of the people that read this far into the article are a writer, have you own blog, or are a webmaster, or hope to become of the following. With that being said I think it would be fair to say you are in fact creating the content they are Stumbling onto. There are two ways I use to effectively start a successful friendship on StumbleUpon. The first is thing is that I'm sure you have content you've submitted before, but if not start off by submitting a few of your articles. Anybody who gives you a thumbs up, if you get them, you go to their profile and add them as a friend.

    After you do this, you send them a message saying you wrote the article they enjoyed, and then maybe ask them a question like how could I improve my content. Unless you want to be blunt and flat out ask them to be your friend, you have to simply keep in touch with them until they do. This means ending each reply with a question so they will for sure have something to say in a reply. Anybody who becomes your fan, add them as your friend and make it a mutual friendship. You must message your friends so they get to know you a bit better as they are more likely to help you out then versus the only contact between you and them is sending them links. Lastly add anybody who adds you. They like your work, or are fishing for friends. Either way, you've added another friend who can potentially help you bring traffic to your site. Keeping my advice in mind, what do you think I'd do if you became my fan? You will then have a friend right there to help you with your questions about StumbleUpon. Take it or leave it.

    I've got some friends, I've got the good content, and I am successfully submitting content into appropriate areas, am I ready to go? Basically, yes. There isn't much more that I know of to it than that. As you use it more and more you will learn small tricks that may help you in the long run, as well as increase your friendships. Naturally the long you are on the site, the more friends you'll make which in turn means more potential thumbs up votes. Keep in mind the term friend. Don't abuse them by spamming them with link after link, day after day. I wouldn't want to be your friend. You don't need to tell them to give you a thumbs up vote, they are your friend they'll be light hearted on the article, and usually will give you that thumbs up. A good rule of common courtesy would be to maybe ask them to visit one or two of your sites per every ten messages you send them. You'll get to know them, and your friendship won't be based on thumbs up votes. Also don't forget to check out content they discovered.

    I am running an experiment to see the potential traffic StumbleUpon can bring you. I will post results, but so far the help of the StumbleUpon community hasn't been as successful as I'd hoped. Only seven have helped out. Please check out the experiment and maybe help out. The StumbleUpon Experiment 2.0. Spread the word about successfully using StumbleUpon by giving this a thumbs up and making a new friend. As a side note to all viewers please do not submit this site to StumbleUpon. If the screen comes up to submit it, cancel out and come back later to give it your thumbs up.

    ]]>     Tue, 01 Jan 2008 08:24:14 PST     The Stumbleupon Experiment 2.0 http://www.webupon.com/Social-Bookmarking/The-Stumbleupon-Experiment-20.68329 StumbleUpon is one of the greatest websites for social bookmarking on the internet. Next to Google, I would say it is the best search engine I've yet to discover. By simply submitting an article you can potentially receive thousands of views a day consistently if the article is Stumbled and liked enough. StumbleUpon is used to create both traffic and revenue for your personal websites, along with the people who use it to share news, or find sites according to their interests. Its use of the StumbleUpon toolbar has revolutionized the search engine and continues to attract bloggers, webmasters, and internet surfers due to it's effectiveness in providing what they want whether it be views or fun.

    My goal is to observe the patterns of StumbleUpon and to see exactly how many views an article can get at different stages of popularity. The preferred stages to provide the follow up articles on the results would be after the amount of thumbs up reach one hundred thumbs up, two hundred, three hundred and so on. However this can only happen with your help. In return for your help I will give you a thumbs up vote on up to two sites of your choice along with adding you to my friends, as I only Stumble the pages my friend's thumbs up. Simply give a thumbs up and in the comments on this page, or the stumble upon review put your StumbleUpon user name and the site(s) you would like the thumbs up on.

    Lastly you will receive the knowledge provided in the follow up articles that may help you achieve a front page article and gain many new visitors that are interested in your website giving you a more likely chance to have a returning visitor. If you want to get 10,000 views on your blog my graphs will show you approximately how many Stumbles you will need to reach that mark. You could find that you need one hundred and fifty Stumbles to receive 10,000 views so you would know you need natural thumbs up votes or to add that many friends and message them for a Stumble.

    The StumbleUpon experiment 2.0 is a retrial of a test a fellow writer for Webupon ran about five months ago and failed to come through with a follow up on it. As I have no way of obtaining the records of the experiment I'd like to try again with promise of a follow up to be posted both on the StumbleUpon review of this page, and as a comment. When to expect the follow up? I will publish the first follow up once a total of one hundred thumbs up have been achieved. If after a week this has not happened yet I will post a follow up on the results. I will continue to give results for as long as my view counter stays at a steady pace of views worth reporting. I read the criticism of the last experiment and regretfully I am purely a publisher not a webmaster so I cannot remove the ads, however they do not affect the experiment.

    ]]>     Sun, 23 Dec 2007 04:44:23 PST