I have been a member of StumbleUpon for quite a few years now. I think I might have joined when it first started and joined not for a way to receive traffic, but a way to find interesting sites, articles, pictures and videos online.

For years I have used the SU toolbar and find all sorts of webpages and posts that happen to be  huge part of my bookmarks. Out of all the webpages that I have bookmarked from SU, most of them happen to be recipes that I do plan on making someday. I have all found some really tool stuff to help me with web design, blogging, and other techy stuff I like.

1. To start receiving traffic from StumbleUpon, you should definitely start using it if you don’t already. I have the toolbar installed and browse different webpages throughout the day when I have some free time, but using it is not required to seek the benefits, just a bonus.
2. Get your posts discovered and in the CORRECT CATEGORY. For your posts to do well on SU, I recommend that you don’t discover your own posts, but make sure they are discovered by another SU member that knows what they are doing. Have the other user discover your post in the correct category (SU category list I use), add the appropriate tags and write a short review. If possible, have them share your post via the SU toolbar share feature. If you are wondering where you are going to find someone to do this, there are lots of blogger Facebook groups that help each other with this.
3. Use the su.pr URL shortening service to promote your posts. With su.pr you can create a message that will allow you to send out a tweet (and shorten it) that can also be send to your Facebook profile. What is neat about this service as it also lets you expose your content that you are publishing to the StumbleUpon community. Even better is the cool stats you can see after you have hit the post button. You can see how many clicks your post has received in real time, see what posts are popular from the last 24 hours, week and month as well as find out the best time to SCHEDULE your posts. Yes you can schedule tweets and posts to your Facebook for the day you are posting.

I have created this post to give other bloggers some ideas on how they can benefit. Right now is a slow month for me with SU traffic and I have already received over 12K extra visits to my site from SU and the month isn’t even over yet. I am not a pro at using the service, but I have learned over the past year how to get a decent amount of FREE traffic from StumbleUpon.

If you want to receive traffic from SU you are going to get more out of it, if you put time into it. I am actively browsing websites each day, even if it is only 5 or 10. I am sharing posts via the SU toolbar with others that I am following. I am removing those that I follow that are no longer active so I don’t have to waste time sharing posts with them they won’t see. I am also discovering other posts for SU members and including reviews and sharing their posts to help the community.

Have any extra tips on getting traffic from StumbleUpon, feel free to leave a comment and share!