On Friday I mentioned another quick Web 2.0 traffic technique that sends a lot of surfers to a webpage if you’ve carefully selected your tags. (Tags can be site-specific and aren’t necessarily the keywords you might have defined for your website’s meta tags. It is always smart to surf a site first, then select the tags for your post based on popularity and page rank. – Most people miss this and end up with generic results.)

Today we’re using Web 2.0’s Traffic Sweetie StumbleUpon…

You need two things to use it – an account (free) and a browser toolbar (installations for all browsers – very fast). Now I know you hate those darn browser add-ons cluttering up your viewing page but you can hide/show them at will with a right mouse click – and the web 2.0 traffic boost you’ll get from StumbleUpon is more than worth the two minute inconvenience.

Never Stumbled before?

You might have to wait a few weeks to start seeing the traffic flow then. On the other hand if you’re a regular, ranked, and trusted StumbleUpon user you can start seeing results within the week for any page you give a thumbs up to. (Thumbs up or down are two of the three small buttons the StumbleUpon toolbar adds to your browser.)

The steps involved? Define the best, most popular, well ranked, tags for your page. Surf over to the page you want traffic to. Click your thumb’s up button. Write a sentence or two about the page, choose a category for the addition, add your tags, click a radio button for adult content specification, and submit.

Revel in the traffic.

Yes, it’s that easy!

Laura Childs

p.s. Here’s something I do from time to time to keep traffic flowing in the Stumbler community and to stay on top of my niche markets.

If I have to sit in the airport (waiting on a flight) or in front of the televsion (keeping my family company) or any other activity that requires only 5% of my attention and bores the tears out of me, I’ll power up the laptop and ‘Stumble’ sites that are related to my market or keywords.

You’ll often find some very interesting pages and websites and personalities…

I’m a little off my game today because my lens is growing in rank, traffic and positioning even though I’m focusing all my effort on my subscriber’s lenses.

This is, in large part, the after-effect of my promotion efforts earlier this month. Knowing that I needed strong placement on Squidoo in order to help my own small team, I promoted my own lens first. Once my subscribers had their lenses done I changed my attention, efforts and time.

Alright then, this next Web 2.0 traffic technique was very easy since I simply followed the directions given me by one of my newest associates Luke Parker. Luke teaches this technique (and others) to his group and keeps them up on current Web 2.0 traffic generators in his Surefire Success forum.

And because it is proprietary I can’t tell you all the secrets, but it involved writing one article (mine was 750 words and nothing more than a beefed up version of my notes on Valor) then using the power behind his traffic tag team (a fun and talented bunch of entrepreneurs by the way).

All tolled I spent about 1 1/2 hours at this aspect of Web 2.0 traffic and the work caused a ripple effect that is keeping consistent traffic to my page – and consequently in the top results.

Again, remember that being #1, 2 or 3 is not my ultimate objective (as I am a prize contributor and not a contestant).

On Monday I’ll show you how a 2 minute task I performed last week is about to send even more traffic to my group’s lenses…this is not an instant website traffic generator as in my past experience it takes a few weeks to really start seeing the effect.

Although I’m keen to see Joe and Anna (not sure why TrudyVan isn’t listed as a participant) win Tiffany’s Squidoo challenge (because I have a unique interest in these participants) I’ve been doing a little bit extra to help get their lenses to the top.

I’m thrilled to see my efforts working this quickly even though I have spent little more than a few clicks and 20 minutes on each. (See Tiffany’s post today showing who’s on top here.)

As you’ll see, I’m slipping in my own rank – but remember that I’m not a participant – my job was simply to help get the ball rolling…then get the traffic flowing for my subscribers.

I’m not entirely convinced that one of my Web 2.0 traffic techniques is even in full swing yet so I’ll report on that aspect in a few days time, on a later blog comment to this post.

Let’s get to the traffic I started…

1) Link to your new lens within Squidoo.

a) Already have an existing lens with good placement or Google Page Rank? Roll your new lens (select LensRoll from your existing lens) onto that page. Of course this works best if the topic is somewhat related but it’s not an absolute necessity.

b) Find related lenses with Guestbooks and leave informative or friendly comments – your comment links to your profile, which in turn links to your lens.

2) Promote Activity within Your Lens

a) Get ratings! Ask your lens visitors to rate your lens (5 yellow stars at the top of every lens) or if you have a list (legitimate subscribers or a mailing list of friends and family), and your lens is for a good cause (such as a missing child), write and ask everyone to visit your lens and rate it.

b) Updating your len’s content (add a little/edit a little every few days) will also help your Lens Rank (not to mention search engine positioning).

c) Add a guestbook to your lens so new content flows daily into your lens.

Those are the basics. If you’re looking for ‘more’ Web 2.0 traffic techniques on and from Squidoo see this guide – opens in a new window).

Linking and active participation – on Squidoo. That’s all I did for my three subscribers and participants in the challenge. Further efforts existed outside of Squidoo which I’ll be sharing in a day or two’s time so stay tuned!

You can subscribe to this stream by RSS here (http://www.stampedesecret.com/web20/learn-web-20-traffic-strategies/feed) or by email updates through the Subscribe to Further Comments checkbox below.

Yours for traffic (especially the Web 2.0 variety!),

Laura Childs

If Tiffany’s accepted your Squidoo lens, I’m on your team!

Laura

Thanks for your kind words (“indeed very nice”) about the lens. Tiffany has mine listed among the others on her update so it seems accepted. I noticed Roger Loh also had a general lens w/out a specific child. But the fact is, this has taken on a bit more life than being part of a contest. So that component is of little importance to me.

And as far as your help (“..I’ll likely be generating more effort there.”) please do what you feel led to do.

Thanks.
–Joe

Both are indeed very nice Squidoo lenses but neither are about a specific missing child (as such I’m not sure Tiffany will accept them into the challenge – please check with her).

I will help you get some traffic to your lens (web 2.0 style), but please understand that if a comment comes in that focuses on a specific child I’ll likely be generating more effort there.

At any rate, whether your lens fits the bill for the contest or not, your efforts will help to make more people aware of the growing, and disturbing, trend.

Laura