Stumbleupon can be an important aspect to gaining your blog a wider distribution and a new audience. It is important for you to make “stumbling” easy and accessible to your readers and make it visible as a constant reminder. You will find that stumble traffic also carries more weight than similar sites such as Digg.com.

What is StumbleUpon?

StumbleUpon is a type of social network built around sharing web sites of various interests with people who have similar interests. It is also a way for you to find various web sites that you might not normally traffic. Upon initial activation of your account you are given an exhaustive list of subjects to pick from which will become the basis of your stumblin’. Once you install your firefox stumble bar it’s time to get stumblin’! Upon clicking your stumble button it will process through your list of interests and show you a web site based on other stumbleupon users recommendations with the same interests.

Extracting Importance

You probably were able to extra the importance of what stumbleupon can do for your blog. If people who use stumbleupon like your blog then people with interest in your blogs topic will be referred to your site. Stumbleupon can create a constant stream of visitors if your blog is recommended enough, and if you are able to hit a topic in the midst of its popularity than you will see a huge influx of visitors.

Making it Available

StumbleUpon can be a big traffic bringer, and I consider a big factor in driving traffic towards your blog. With that being the case, StumbleUpon should occupy an important region in your web site. You have probably noticed the big StumbleUpon logo in my sidebar. That isn’t there on accident. I am hoping people like you (hint) will click it and recommend my site! You also may have noticed I have another StumbleUpon button below my post. Keeping the button visible and available will help contribute to gaining more recommendations and in turn increasing your visibility to StumbleUpon users.

There are many ways to add StumbleUpon to your web site. Here’s a list of Wordpress plugins that will do the work for you:

• StumbleUpon Wordpress
• I Love Social Bookmarking
• Bookmarkify
• Social Dropdown

I also like the AddThis button. You can use it whether you have Wordpress or not.

Starting a blog is easy, however, making money with a blog is not. The direction of this post will be towards the latter. You can still use this information as a stepping stone to start a non-monetary driven blog.

Buy a Domain

I don’t recommend starting off with a blogspot, wordpress.com, or a blogger style blog. These blogs are harder to brand, and once they become large become difficult to transfer over to a real domain. Buying a domain is easy, cheap, and establishes a legitimacy for your site.

One of the things you will want to avoid when choosing a domain is the urge to purchase a domain that matches the keywords in your niche. Doing this is shortsided. You want a brand that will transcend your initial niche, and by limiting it to a certain term will make this very hard to accomplish.

A domain name should cost you no more than 10$.

Hosting

Hosting is something people tend to worry about. Going with a host like dreamhost is a great first move that can get you the bare minimum hosting for a reasonable price. When you start off you aren’t going to need anything extravagant just get the bottom of the barrel plan and upgrade if need be.

The Right Blogging Software

My personal preference is Wordpress.

Wordpress is easy to install, easy to use, and scales well with an ever increasing blog space.

If you are a coder or an experienced blogger looking to create a community based site then you might want to consider Drupal. However, Wordpress also has an answer for this calling with WordpressMU.

Wordpress is going to fulfill all of your needs right off the bat. Wordpress has a ton of plugins for everything you can imagine that install with a few clicks. They have a wide range of support for any problems you might have, and they have a theming community that can cut any kind of design costs. Using Wordpress is a win, win situation with little drawbacks.

Finding the Time

This will be the key to your blog. A lot of people start blogs as a way to gain money on the side. This is possible, but it takes a commitment. The bloggers making a lot of money are putting an IMMENSE amount of time into their site. These people are working eight plus hours a day on their blog. If you just want to make some change on the site then plan on spending a couple hours a night on your site. Writing daily or every other day is imparative to keeping your site new and fresh. One of the main reasons people come back to blogs so often is for consistent updates.

There is a way around this.

If you have a lump of time available to you then you can write five or six posts and schedule them to be posted throughout the week. This will prevent you from having to work throughout the work week on your blog.

It is important to realize that your blog will be only as good as the amount of time you put in it. However, creating a successful blog based on a niche that you enjoy can be one of the most beneficial experiences of your life.

Twitter has exploded in popularity and with that comes an immense amount of usability for people in the blogosphere. The implementation of twitter in your blog will help you increase your personal touch with readers, increase your visibility, and bring forth a newer medium to gain traffic. If you want a successful blog you need to take a hard look at using twitter.

1. Increasing your relationship with readers.

Twitter gives you a personal medium to interact with users. The ability to twitter effectively from your phone makes it an easy thing to check on and keep in touch with. You can involve yourself in other peoples conversations and have others involve themselves in yours. The ability to gain real time feedback about ideas or questions you may have is invaluable. Users will also be able to read about your personal life, which helps them relate to you in a positive manner.

2. Increasing your visibility.

You can use twitter as a way to connect to the leading people in your field. Striking up conversations and helping others out lends you credibility and will help you make friendships that can increase the visibility of your blog. Gaining favor from people within your niche will translate into more links from their blog and increase your traffic.

3. Gaining Traffic

Using easy to implement plugins to your blog will allow you to use your twitter as a make shift RSS Feed. People who use twitter tend to check it a little compulsively making it a great spot for you to remind readers about posts that they may be interested in. Twitter is becoming a lot of sites number one referrer in terms of traffic. The numbers don’t lie. If you aren’t using twitter you are leaving a lot of traffic on the table.

4. Staying in the Know

Twitter is the newest way to stay on top of news and trends. Using twitter’s plethora of user made applications will keep you on top of news and events. Instead of relying on news sources you can actually view how events are playing out in real time. Twitter outscoops the media. People within these events are twittering and keeping you up to date with the latest news.

Using twitter is not only useful, but it’s just plain fun. You can keep in touch with multiple friends and stay involved in peoples lives without losing touch. Twitter is the present and future of social media so take advantage of it now!