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Submitting your own stuff to social bookmarking/news sites yourself is like a big no-no to almost everyone (well except for noobs and spammers). They think its selfish and people will hate (aka bury, vote down, etc) on them. Well that maybe true, but I don’t necessarily agree with that and here’s why.

Lets say you write a really good post about advanced SEO. You don’t submit it to sites like Digg, Reddit, SU, etc. You just sit back and relax. Now a total noob comes along and submits it. Uh oh! You’re fucked!

Its not always about the traffic. Sometimes you really wanna share something with the world, but too bad, the noob ruined it for you. Wondering why I’m saying that “the noob” ruined it? First of all, the guy is noob! He doesn’t know how to use the site properly, doesn’t do a good job with the title, doesn’t add a good description and he doesn’t care about promoting it (aka sharing with friends). He just submits it and fucks off.

So, do you get my point? BTW, I was talking about quality content (you knew that, right?). I didn’t mean that its okay for you to submit every single one of your blog posts (for example). I mean the things that make you say to yourself “man this is some good shit”. I’m talking about your masterpieces.

One more tip! Rather than submitting everything yourself, why don’t you ask a friend to do it? That way people won’t hate on you. But, again keep it to small number of quality content because sometimes you just need to let it go and give people the chance to decide if its worth promoting.

From time to time, my brain stops working and I can’t think of what to blog about. Its not exactly writer’s block. I try to think of something unique to write about. Well I was thinking (for a change) and I realized something important. Its about social bookmarking sites and how obsessed I was with it.

I tried so hard to get on Digg’s front page, but I failed. I don’t know what’s wrong. I tried my best. I guess Digg hates me or something. I got around 250 diggs on a few submissions too. Its not like I got the basics wrong or something. I’m just not lucky enough.

I submitted my second last post to Digg and someone else made a submission about the same topic. It was about all the CAPTCHAs on Digg. Well the other guy was a power digger and his submission made it to the front. Mine didn’t, of course. I was really pissed off.

Now just a few minutes ago I was thinking of trying to game Digg. No more being a nice guy. Thinking of gaming Digg, SU, etc and grabing some traffic that way. But, then I asked myself what the fuck am I doing? Why am I so fucking hooked on traffic from social bookmarking sites? It was completely messed up.

I forgot that I can get traffic from search engines, backlinks, etc. There are other ways to promote my blog. I can comment on other blogs, talk about it in forums, promote it on micro-blogging sites like Plurk, etc, etc. I was obsessed. Obsessed with the traffic from social bookmarking sites. It was like everything to me. It was as if my blog’s success depended on that traffic. But, the good thing is that I snapped out of it.

I’m hoping that I could help a few people snap out of this obsession. Open your eyes and think about it. Don’t go crazy for the traffic from social bookmarking sites. If you don’t go popular there then its not the end of the world. Build a great site, have quality content, and be optimistic.

Before you get me wrong, let me tell you that I’m not saying that you should stop using social bookmarking sites or anything. Think of the traffic from social bookmarking sites as a gift. Don’t fight for the gift. You’ll get it if you’ve done a good job.

Why am I saying that StumbleUpon’s (SU) traffic is better than Digg’s? Am I joking? Of course not. Let me explain this to you today.

Okay before you start thinking that I’m high or something. Let me tell you that I’m not trying to convince you to use SU more often than Digg. Digg is great. Use them both. But, these 2 bookmarking sites are really different. I’m taking about the traffic patterns.

Over at Digg, once you hit the (holy) front page you’ll get the biggest traffic wave ever. And when you’re on the first page on upcoming with the most diggs, you get a pretty good amount of visitors too. Overall you get a decent traffic from Digg on average. But, this traffic wave only lasts a few hours. You get off the front page, remember?

What about SU? Well at SU, the traffic wave is a bit smaller than Digg’s, but you get that with a lot less effort and time. My post about Twitter vs Plurk got 17 reviews and I got about 300 visitors from SU. And the visitors from SU came at the same time (causing my VPS to crash). That day I got about 500 visitors from SU, in total.

The best thing is the traffic from SU is long-term. I’m still getting a bunch of people from SU to my Twitter vs Plurk post. SU traffic lasts a few months. Yes that’s right, a few months. The traffic might get smaller as the weeks pass, but still, I would rather have a (semi) big traffic wave at first and then smaller ones later.

So, should you concentrate more on SU? Well it’s up to you. I would say you try to get on Digg’s front page and also get a buch of stumbles and reviews. More traffic that way, huh? First a server crash then a bunch of little traffic over the weeks.

Okay what about you? Are going to stick to SU or Digg? Or use both? Which one would you concentrate more on?

StumbleUpon (SU) is one of the coolest social bookmarking sites. You can really get some traffic out of this site. Today I’ll give you some tips that would help you get the most out of it. And I’ve specifically written this guide for blogs. But, you could use this guide for your forum too.

Stumbling other sites

I’m assuming that you have an account and have the toolbar installed. If not then go do that first. Okay don’t just start stumbling your own blog. Lets make it look legit and save your ass from getting banned by SU. So, go to some of your favourite sites and click on the “I like” button on your toolbar aka stumbling it.

Do that on about 2-6 sites. And make sure that you write a review on at least 2 sites. Make sure that the review is nice and not just some dumb shit.

Time to stumble your blog

Yeah now lets work on your blog. First pick a post (preferably a recent one) that you think is superb and would be useful to people. Bookmark that. Write a nice little review and try not to look spammy. Okay good. Don’t stumble all the posts. Just pick the best ones.

Adding friends

Add a few random people as your friend. And if you know people that use SU and has been a member for a long time then you just won the lottery. Add them right away. Ask them to stumble your blog and write a nice review.

Stumbling Networks

There are sites which are dedicated to stumble exchanges. Like people there will stumble you and in return you’ll stumble them. Smart bastards, huh? One of the sites that does that is StumbleXchange. And another one is BlogCatalog. You’ll find groups like this on BlogCatalog that exchange stumbles. You could give them a try. It’ll be worth it.

So that’s it for now. Have fun stumbling! And feel free to subscribe to my feed for more stuff like this. Or you can subscribe via email.