• 06/6/19
• imagine

Social bookmarking is a technique that relies on the authority of social media sites by creating links from them to a new website. In this way, some of the authority flows to the new sites and they begin ranking as well.

Since 1996, a good number of online bookmark management services have come up, one of which is Delicious, founded in 2003. Others include Google Bookmarks, Newsvine, Reddit, Technorati, StumbleUpon, Digg, Ask, and Yahoo MyWeb. Traffic from social bookmarking services can deliver thousands of visitors to your website within a relatively short period.

Social bookmarking services are essentially sites that allow members to bookmark page links, categorise them, and provide comments. The bookmarks are made available to the rest of the community giving them an opportunity to comment on the bookmarked pages as well.

Social Bookmarking is More Than the Traffic Spike

Inasmuch as social bookmarking is seen as a temporal measure, the spike in traffic can be sustained going forward if you give site visitors a reason to come back. Initially, the focus is on a specific article, but later visitors end up viewing slightly more pages as they make repeat visits to dig around a little more.

The new visitors also bring on other benefits such as:

• Revenue boost
• Increased newsletter and feed subscription
• More contacts

Through the increased social bookmarking traffic, you can quickly and easily build recognition for your website and become established in your niche.

How to Attract Social Bookmarks

For you to increase the number of social bookmarking spikes on your site, there are some best practices you can follow through without necessarily reinventing the wheel.

Developing Great Content

Content is an old chestnut, but truly something you should prioritise and focus on. Content represents areas of interest that catch a bookmarker’s attention. For instance, ecommerce websites need a lot of informational content which is not salesy for their readers. Think of industry news, reviews, and tutorials. If you combine relevant content with search engine optimisation, chances of your article being bookmarked can increase significantly.

Social Bookmarking Buttons

This is extremely important as it makes it very easy for members to bookmark you. Create links that simplify the process of adding your page to a bookmark list. One of the greatest challenges in social bookmarking that you will have to counter with good judgment is the proliferation in the number of social bookmarking services. There are social bookmarking generators you can use one of which is AddThis. The team at AddThis can help you keep the list of bookmarking options correspond to current trends and provide you with loads of statistics. The beauty of it all is that it is free!

As a good practice, place your icons at the beginning of an article and at the end. Whatever you do, ensure they are noticeable.

Becoming a Contributor

If you join a few bookmarking sites where you add your own bookmarks, it can help you a great deal in pushing traffic to your site. What you shouldn’t do is to populate those sites with your content. The bookmarking community is very sensitive, and they may see this as spamming which means your contribution will be ignored. Let this be a long-term strategy and not a short sprint to traffic spikes.

Therefore, social bookmarking is here to stay and a tactic that you should add to your marketing arsenal. However, instead of spending so much time in it, adopt a balanced approach where you season it with great content and solid search engine optimisation.