Ok, Moms, Dads, business people, anyone reading this. Get on the StumbleUpon bandwagon! StumbleUpon is a social networking / bookmarking site that increases traffic to your website, blog, product pages, eBay store, anything with a URL. It is free, easy, and you don't have to be social if you don't want to. But, if you aren't using it, you are missing one of the easiest, most inexpensive ways to drive traffic to your website.

If you aren’t familiar with it, just go to the site at StumbleUpon.com, and download the toolbar. This takes about 30 seconds. All of your internet windows will close and then you will get an internet window with the toolbar at the top. You will see the SU icon, and a blue thumbs up, and a blue thumbs down. You will now see this toolbar on every URL that you visit.

Once you get that, stumble a few of your own pages, or stumble sites you like or visit frequently.

**WARNING. DO NOT STUMBLE ONLY YOUR OWN STUFF, IN A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME. IF YOU DON'T MIX OTHER SITES IN, YOUR IP ADDRESS WILL BE BLOCKED OUT AND YOU CAN'T STUMBLE YOUR SITES ANYMORE. (I learned this the hard way!)**

The first time a page (yours or anyone else's) is stumbled, click the thumbs up icon on the SU toolbar. A box will pop up with the link in it and you will enter info about the site, in your own words. Choose the best category for the target market you are trying to reach, such as family, fashion, children, education, travel – whatever fits best. The idea is to get your pages in front of an audience that will be interested in what you have to say.

After you enter everything, hit “SUBMIT THIS SITE.” You will get another box that says “RATING SUBMITTED.” That is the important part – make sure you get the confirmation box.

Need proof that this works? I write for an online auction blog called Power Seller King. Over 1/3 of my traffic comes from StumbleUpon, because I am religious about stumbling my posts, and ask visitors and friends to stumble them also. Below is a copy of recent daily stats from Power Seller King – you can see the huge amount of traffic that StumbleUpon sends.

Get the toolbar, and try it. And don't forget to stumble this post if you found it helpful – or if you found this post on StumbleUpon and you're just addicted!