Written by Garry Conn on May 30th, 2008

Yesterday I wrote a pretty lengthy article that explained what I think the future will hold for Google and SEO. Today I want to discuss with you how you can build, shape and mold an online identity or digital fingerprint that you can use to help successfully promote your make money online blog.

In this article I will guide you along with with what I did using StumbleUpon.com; however, the advice, tips, tricks and strategy can be used for most all networks. This article can be used as a blueprint or guide so that you can successfully create your own digital fingerprint to use for the niche blog that you have created for making money online.

At the bottom of this article, learn how you can easily score a free $50 dollar GarryConn.com article advertisement!

What Is StumbleUpon.com?

As quoted from the StumbleUpon.com about us page, “StumbleUpon helps you discover and share great websites. As you click Stumble!, we deliver high-quality pages matched to your personal preferences. These pages have been explicitly recommended by your friends or one of 5,213,995 other websurfers with interests similar to you. Rating these sites you like () automatically shares them with like-minded people – and helps you discover great sites your friends recommend.”

StumbleUpon.com is very simple to use. After you register for a free account, you’ll be instructed to download a special web browser toolbar which will give you the StumbleUpon tools needed to participate and contribute in their network.

How To Sign Up For StumbleUpon.com

Signing up for StumbleUpon.com is very easy. Simply visit www.stumbleupon.com and click join.

You will be prompted to fill out an online registration form. Simply fill out the form and then click Join and Download Now. On the next page you’ll be prompted to download the StumbleUpon toolbar for your appropriate web browser.

After you install the toolbar you may be asked to restart your web browser. Go ahead and do so. After you reload your web browser, look at the top near the left and you will see your new StumbleUpon toolbar added. From there, simply click Sign-in.

Creating Your New Digital fingerprint

From this point on, I’ll show you how to take your first step towards creating your brand new digital fingerprint that you’ll assign and use towards publicly representing yourself and your niche blog that you have created for making money online.

In this article, I am going to walk you through what I did with my newest niche blog, Debt Consolidation Book, which is being used in a competition against John Cow to see who can sell their blog for the highest amount of money.

Creating Your StumbleUpon.com Profile

Creating a profile on StumbleUpon.com is a very important step in shaping and molding your digital fingerprint on the Internet. Creating a profile on StumbleUpon is very easy, but you need to be careful with the public picture that you paint for yourself.

It all starts with your introduction about yourself that will be seen by everyone within the StumbleUpon.com community. You should write about a 150 to 200 word statement that explains your purpose for joining StumbleUpon.com, about your niche blog and what your goal is for joining.

You will want to include your website address in the form and check the boxes that most accurately explain your purpose for joining. Additionally you will want to upload an avatar which will become a significant part of your niche blog branding. Proceed to complete the profile form as best as you can. Answer as many of the questions as possible.

Adding Your StumbleUpon Interests

The next vital section that you need to update is your interests page. This is a very important part towards shaping and molding your digital fingerprint. You will see a categorized menu on the left side of the page. Each category breaks down into sub categories. Select as many topics that pertain to your niche blog topic.

For me, my niche blog is Debt Consolidation Book. This is a blog that aims to help people learn more about debt consolidation, managing their money, education about credit cards and tips on how to get out of credit card debt. So on my Debt Consolidation Book StumbleUpon interests page, I have chosen the following interests: Banking, Business, Financial Planning and Investing.

What happens next is magical. As you begin to use StumbleUpon and submit various pages that interest you according to the topic interest you have chosen, a section on your public profile page will appear explaining to people what you are interested in with a direct link to this topic categories.

Your StumbleUpon Interests In Action

If you click on one of the links such as in my case, financial-planning, a new page will load up that connects you with people as well as content that is totally related to your topic of interest. On this page, you can thumbs up the content listed on this page and review the people on the page and even add them as a friend.

Your StumbleUpon Interests Exposure

The people you add as a friend will receive an email notification of your request. from there they will review your profile on StumbleUpon and add you as a mutual friend. Depending how how much time you invest into finding friends and content related to your niche, you may find that your digital fingerprint starting to grow very quickly.

In the above screen shot, you’ll see that in only after one hour of creating my account in StumbleUpon my name is featured on the top of the financial-planning page for other members to see and check me out. I was able to land this page successfully after investing a little less than one hour using Google BlogSearch to find pages to add into StumbleUpon that was related to my own niche blog and digital fingerprint.

Making Friends in StumbleUpon

Making friends in StumbleUpon.com is very important towards enhancing your digital fingerprint as well as gaining more exposure to the content that you submit into StumbleUpon. Additionally, the more friends that you have in StumbleUpon.com the more of a chance that a friend will stumble content that you publish on your own niche blog. If that happens, you better buckle in because you’ll go for a huge roller coaster right and score a ton of traffic to your blog.

Keep in mind, it is never a good idea to submit your own content into StumbleUpon. Allow your friends the opportunity of being rewarded with the discovery. StumbleUpon users increase their own branding and reputation when they discover new pages that haven’t already been added by other members. Cheating your friends from this reward doesn’t sit very well with people in the community, so be sure to let your friends take the reward of stumbling your pages and don’t do it yourself.

Finding friends is very easy and making friends is even easier. As explained above, you can find friends by searching for them by your topic of interest. Simply click on their icons and view their profile page to determine if they share common interests with you. Their profile page is much like yours own where they have invested time into writing an introduction statement and have chosen their interests. You will want to only add people who share the same interests as you and also show a trend of submitting and voting on pages that are similar to the pages you publish on your own blog.

This is screen shot of my public home page. You can quickly see that my interests are about banking, business, credit card debt, credit cards, debt and debt consolidation. Additionally, you can quickly see the most recent pages on the Internet that I have either submitted or simply voted on. On this page, you can quickly get a snapshot in determining if I share common interests with you. The same goes for you. When you visit the pages of people in StumbleUpon.com, look at their tag cloud to see what topics interest them the most. Take a glance at the pages that they have submitted or voted on. Very quickly you’ll be able to determine if this is a person that you’d like to make friends with. As I said earlier, it is very important to make friends with only people who share common interests that are related to your own and the digital fingerprinting of your online identity.

Why Use StumbleUpon For Your Digital Fingerprint

You should use StumbleUpon.com for helping create, shape and mold your digital fingerprint simply for the fact that it works. In just a few hours of time you will have successfully planted the seed of your digital fingerprint and believe me folks, if you invest about one hour per day towards growing this seed, it will not only sprout but it will grow into a power house identity in no time. The key to remember is staying on topic related to your niche blog and the digital fingerprint you are creating.

Your StumbleUpon Reputation

The last and one of the most important parts about StumbleUpon.com is your online reputation within the community. Other members within the StumbleUpon network have the ability to add a review on your StumbleUpon.com home page. The more positive and encouraging reviews you get, then more your online reputation and digital fingerprint are enhanced.

At this time, I would love for you to visit my Debt Consolidation Book Stumble Upon profile page and add me as a friend, give me a thumbs up and add a review for my new profile. If you enjoyed reading this post and feel that I have given you some really helpful advice, tips and tricks in using StumbleUpon.com, please visit my profile page and offer me a review.

Win A Free $50 Dollar Advertisement On My Blog!

As a special incentive towards encouraging you to towards adding me as a friend, giving me a thumb rating and adding a review, I have a new advertisement service being offered on www.garryconn.com. As seen in the above screen shot, I have been inserting very customized and styled advertisements in my posts.

I am giving away TEN FREE IN ARTICLE ADVERTISEMENTS WORTH $50 DOLLARS EACH.

Whoever does the following listed above and drops me a comment on this post, I will provide your name will be entered into the contest for a chance to win this service absolutely for free on my blog. This advertisement service will eventually be provided at a charge of $50 dollars. However, you have an excellent chance of getting it free by simply adding me a friend, giving me a thumbs up and adding a review on my new Debt Consolidation Book StumbleUpon.com page.

Remember, TEN PEOPLE WILL WIN! The odds are totally in your favor. I am writing off $500 dollars of free advertising on my blog. Simply drop me a comment letting me know that you have done the above and your entry will be added into the contest. HURRY!!! and act fast, this contest ends on June 3rd, 2008.

Instructions:

1.) Visit my new Debt Consolidation Book StumbleUpon profile page to add me as a friend and give me a review.

2.) Visit my Debt Consolidation Home Page at:

http://www.debtconsolidationbook.com/

to give me a thumbs up rating in your StumbleUpon toolbar.

3.) Drop me a comment and let me know and you’re entered in for a free $50 dollar advertisement on my blog.

All Contests Have A Bonus!!!

As an added bonus, if you would like to have a double entry into this contest, simply download a copy of this article and publish it on your blog. The article has been put into a zip file. Simply extract the zip file copy the HTML code of the article and past it and publish it on your blog. If you’d like to add an intro paragraph, please do. Don’t forget to drop me a comment and let me know if you have a single entry or a DOUBLE entry into this contest.

Thanks Garry for helping me recognize a tool that I overlooked in the past.

Gord