How to do Social Bookmarking– Basic Tips and Advice
Although bookmarking is not a new process, is has recently become one of the most successful methods employed in search engine optimization. Through social bookmarking, you are able to generate traffic for pages that might not have been noticeable without a bookmark. Advertising your site by letting people know of its existence through the use of social bookmarks is a great way to get quality backlinks and more web traffic. Not having to rely on your ranking in search engines result page is a great aspect of using social bookmarking.
Entering the world of bookmarking
By social bookmarking you publicly share bookmarks online. When wanting to share a bookmark or a link, you tag it, add keyword descriptions toit and then save it to a public website.Most popular social bookmarking sites determine the popularity of links by analyzing their save patterns, and then determine which bookmarks to display to which users according to their interests. The most important details of social bookmarking are tags. They are based on keywords and are assigned to bookmarks according to their category and domain of interest. That makes them easier to find and rank, based on their relevant to the persons who are searching for them.
Top social bookmarking sites include StumbleUpon.com, Diigoand Reddit.com.
A few social bookmarking tips
• Headlines are very important, and can make the difference between bringing a great article to public attention and having it go unnoticed. Since the headline is the first thing users will see when clicking on your article, you should make it as attractive as possible in order to get their attention and increase the chances of making it to the front page
• Having a relevant description of your content is also very important. If you want to draw and keep the attention of visitors, you should try to make it as catchy and provocative as possible, without going over the edge and lying or stating false facts. Try to be clear, brief and concise, and stay within the limit of 160 characters, as most users won’t bother to read longer descriptions. If you don’t manage to get their attention within that limit, it means you’re doing something wrong
• First paragraphs are critical when trying to impress readers. After successfully attracting them with your provocative headings and descriptions, you wouldn’t want them to leave because of an uninspired first paragraph
• You’ve probably heard of the expression “Content is King”. You should try to post only original, high quality material. Giving useful tips or advice that help visitors is another way to go at it. Sometimes, even providing good entertainment and giving them a good laugh can make them recommend your site, and come again for more
• Try to make your site easy to bookmark by putting a bookmarking button at the end of an article, so that users enjoying the content are able to easily share it with others
• The time of submission is a very important aspect of social bookmarking. Most social websites offer a 24 hour window to get to the front page and stay there. So posting when most users are sleeping means you’re just wasting your time, when they get up, they won’t be able to spot your article on the 12th page. As a general rule, posting before 10 am is not very effective, as the most intense traffic is around 3 pm. Posting during workdays can generate more traffic, the downside is that you have to fight a lot more competition
• Submitting to the right category can have a great impact on the results. Posting in the wrong categories might make your articles go unnoticed
• Having a top profile can help a great deal. Older, more respected users with a lot of posted material have higher chances of getting their articles noticed and appreciated. Also, building a top profile implies that you post links to important material on other sites
• Cooperating with other bookmarkers is another key to success. Having a lot of friends to support your articles in the first few hours after you submit them will increase the chances of getting more votes and on to the front page
• Since the majority of users are from English speaking countries, posting on leading social bookmarkingwebsites in English only is recommended. Posting material in different languages should be done on other non-English sites. If submitting an article in a foreign language is really needed, a translation to accompany it is advised.
Although people are the ones who make the social websites run, search engine must also be considered when social bookmarking. With the help of social bookmarking, you can make your website easy to be found by web spiders that crawl through social bookmarking sites on a regular basis, thus increasing your page ranking and with it your website traffic.
