Ever since StumbleUpon was developed by Geoff Smith (and Garret Camp) back in the early 2000s, it’s been going strong as one of the leading website ranking and discovery engines. Part of what makes a site like this so ridiculously successful is the fact that it is super easy to use as well as understand. However, there are several things that you can do to make your experience much better.

1. Be active. StumbleUpon (just like Twitter) is all about the user’s experience. Therefore, only make friends with people on SU who seem as though they log in quite frequently in order to check out websites. You’ll get more value out of being friends with someone who is active versus someone who hasn’t logged in in months.
2. Be picky. Watch out for (and flag) those who seem to send you nothing but spammy content or who seem as if they are only self promoting. While you may occasionally want to give your own website a little link love, stumbling your own stuff is looked down upon and will likely get you banned from the site (You’ve been warned!). On a similar thread, just because you are friends with someone on SU, this doesn’t give them free license to send you things that you will automatically ‘thumb up’. Only give a ‘thumbs up’ to the content that you feel adds value or which you think others might get something out of.
3. Submit reviews. Submitting reviews of the sites that you stumble is part of what makes SU so valuable. After all, this is the place to go to in order to see what others think about a web site. And while you don’t have to write a review for EVERY  SU page, including a couple will surely lend more credibility to you as a user, not to mention make your profile more appealing to others who are looking for quality SU friends.

…Internet traffic, that is.

When you own a business, you naturally want things to succeed. This is why many small (and larger) business owners have turned towards the Internet in recent years. Like so many of us, they realize that most people spend a considerable amount of time on the Internet. Why, the Internet is everywhere you go! From coffee shoppes to cell phones that have Internet access as a feature, it seems as if we simply cannot escape it, and invariably, we become addicted to “surfing”.

Keeping all of this in mind, business owners are becoming more and more Internet savvy and are counting their lucky stars after they’ve realized how much money can be saved by turning to various forms of online marketing to help drive traffic to their business’ website. The following are five simple examples of this.

5 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Site

1. Blogging-Blogging is a more relaxed, fun and personal way to get in touch with your target market. It puts you into direct contact with the consumer, allowing for feedback, advice and other information through insightful often well-thought out blog posts that vary between 150-350 words typically. Blogging can also help with search engine traffic because it helps to add content to your already established website.
2. Link Exchanges- A link exchange is a great way to keep in touch with other people within your niche market. Not only this, but the more link exchange relationships that you form, the more your business gets seen by other people on other sites, which can increase your popularity.
3. RSS Directory Submissions- RSS directory submissions are great because they allow you to submit your RSS feed to a select network of people within your industry. This helps you to reel in a more focused group of visitors to your site who are actually interested in what you have to say/sell/offer.
4. Social Networking- Social media and social networking are ALL THE CRAZE because they are super effective when used properly. It’s no longer about your kid creating a Myspace page so that he or she can chat it up with friends and gossip. Rather, social networking (from a business perspective) is about creating a profile for your business on a few social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter and then keeping these profiles strictly for business-related items. You’d be amazed at how many business owners have experienced success from the creation of Facebook Fan pages and large numbers of Twitter followers. Try it out!
5. Pay-Per-Click (PPC)- For a nominal fee (depending on the company’s objectives), business owners can pay to display their website’s name along with a brief description when a person types a term that is relevant to that particular business into a search engine. PPC is typically a great (and fairly quick) way of getting advertising results. However, for it to be effective, you should have a clear understanding of what the main keywords in your industry are as well as how much is in the budget for PPC. For this reason, it is usually a good idea to find someone who specializes in PPC and is certified to help you out.

Have you recently stepped onto a new life path or been drawn to what you feel is your calling? Have you taken on an entrepreneurial venture or made a transition from corporate employment to self-employment? If you answered yes to any of these, you might be experiencing a condition that is hardly ever discussed and usually completely misunderstood. It’s something I have discovered in coaching, especially with clients in the process of changing from working for someone else to working for themselves. This mysterious ‘something’ is an unexpected resistance to putting yourself out there, to really stepping fully into your new role and letting the world know you are completely capable and ready for business.

Observing resistance
How do you know if you are affected by the resistance factor? It basically exists if the level of motivation you would expect is not present. As a recent client said, “ I had no problem blowing the doors off my sales objective when I worked for someone else, but now that I’m selling my own product, going for what I really want, I have challenges staying as motivated.”. Now this doesn’t mean that he is on the wrong path. What it does mean is that he hadn’t realized how he had hidden out from truly putting himself out there in the past behind the shield of the other company that was not his own.

It seems that nothing brings up long-ignored life issues like going out on your own in business. Any unresolved issues are forced up to your consciousness to be worked out, resulting in feelings like, ‘maybe I’m not in the right field, maybe I’m not supposed to be doing this’…Of course it does not occur at the same level for everyone, and the solution is unique for each person.

Remember, this is not a fake-it-til-you-make-it method. It is the art of recreating yourself into your next role, a process I designed that takes you through the following four steps:

1. Creating a new role
Define your new direction. For example, say to yourself, “ I am taking full responsibility for my life; I am here and of value; who I am can make a difference”. Step into who you are meant to be instead of who you think you are. Remember only a prince or princess can dream of a castle.

2. Stepping into and living out of the role
This is a chance to develop a fortitude you may not have developed in your former work life. If other people speak more powerfully or enthusiastically about your business than you are able to do, that’s a sign that you have work to do to get to the level of speaking powerfully about the gifts you have to offer. There will be both an element of fear and excitement present, as well as some anxiety as you move to the next level.
3. Collecting evidence of progress in the role
Keep an accomplishment journal to record your successes. Record customer testimonials to apply in your promotional materials and to re-read when you need a boost!

4. Designing the environment to call you forward in the role
Get clarity on what motivates you and have a system to help you remember it. Realize how unstructured time many affect you, and create a new time structure that will keep you in action, with sufficient down time for effectiveness. Set up support that keeps you on track with who you say you are and what you are up to.

Building your own mentor
A client attempting to start a fashion accessory business was facing negative family members who told her she was foolish to go for what she wanted. I saw that support wasn’t going to come from her immediate environment, so I worked with her to create an imaginary mentor, created from a combination of super heroes and Oprah, to advise her in difficult times. Her turning point came when she stood up to her overbearing older sister, telling her, “This is who I am now, and if you want to keep talking to me, you have to accept that.” After that she started standing up for other things that were important—like herself—and built up her business one satisfied customer at a time.

Generating motivation
Another client who had previously done well with a large real estate group was not doing as well in the new agency he had started with a desire to offer greater customer service. We worked to build a mission for him and his partner and tightened up his work schedule. Since he was going to his office but wasn’t being productive there, I had him show up at his favorite coffee shop first thing in the morning for work. But his best motivation came from envisioning sitting down with his grown kids in the future, giving them advice on exploring their own business by telling them how he worked through his fears. Just one year later I gave a presentation to his team of employees in their new expanded office space.

Leaning into progress
People who have made progress on this describe moving from a state of mentally leaning back and occasionally moving forward to an experience that feels like steadily leaning forward into what they have to sell or offer, while realizing that if they don’t get it out there, either someone else will or the value that they have to offer people will be lost. They move from a state of diffused focus to clear focus, from disharmony to harmony.

What are you doing to lean into your goals? To create a sense of urgency?

When you put yourself out there, you will see the adventure as exhilaration.

So deeply engaged that you’re energized, you’ll feel confident that you’re absolutely in the right place.

Reprinted from Women’s Edge Magazine
by Martin Brossman - www.ProNetworkingOnLine.com
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