Social Bookmarking - Traffic Generator Or Time Waster?

Social bookmarking: You've heard a lot about it... and maybe you've even tried it yourself a time or two. But either way, you've come to the conclusion that it's a waste of time.

And yet you keep hearing the gurus brag about how much traffic they get from these sites. They talk about getting hundreds or even thousands of visitors in a very short amount of time. They warn you that social bookmarking sites and other social media sites are the future - and if you don't start using these sites now, you'll be left behind.

Is that true?

To be blunt: Yes.

And that's why I want you to know how to use social bookmarking sites. These sites are easy to use, you get instant traffic and the traffic is targeted and warm to your messages.

Here's how to do it:

1) Join the Top Social Bookmarking Sites

Run a search for "social bookmarking" sites in Google, and you'll uncover plenty of sites. You'll need to focus on two types of sites: 1) the main sites (listed below) at get the most traffic and 2) those sites that are tightly focused on your niche.

Here are some the best social bookmarking sites (that you should join ASAP):

Del.icio.us

Digg.com

StumbleUpon.com

Reddit.com

Del.irio.us

2) Participate, Network, Contribute, Network

You can't just join these sites, bookmark your own pages and expect a rush of traffic.

Think of it this way: If a stranger came up to you on the street and said "visit this site," would you? Maybe. Maybe not. But you certainly wouldn't feel compelled to do so.

Now what if your friend emails you and says, "check out this site." Would you? Probably! And that's because you know this person and trust his judgment.

Likewise, that's why social bookmarking sites are so powerful. Namely, bookmarked pages have a better chance of being seen by thousands of eager visitors IF some of the well respected members of the community rate them as good sites first.

That means you need to network and become friends with the influential members who are in your niche. And that means you must also become one of these respected members by first voting and commenting thoughtfully on other people's content.

3) Submit "Buzz Worthy" Content

Once you've networked with influential members on these sites and built up your own reputation, it's time to start submitting some of your own content.

But here's the catch - you can't trot out some dusty old content that can be found in a thousand other places online. It needs to be fresh, engaging and "edgy." In short, it needs to be worth sharing.

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Social Bookmarking Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

If you are looking for ways to get attention online, and if you are looking to make sure that you are providing your browsers with the information that they need, you will find that one way to show people that you really know what you are doing is through social bookmarking. Social bookmarking, at the most basic level, is a way to save links to various different internet sites in one place and to let make them available to other people. You will also find that social bookmarking is a great way to really touch base with other people and get yourself some favorable attention. However, there are many traps that many people new to social bookmarking fall into. Make sure that you are aware of them, and how to avoid them!

Bad Labeling

It is a mistake to believe that you can simply take your personal bookmark list and paste it up online. People use social bookmarking as an alternative towards using an imprecise search engine, and chances are, they are looking for bookmarking lists that will give them results on a good topic. They are not going to be as interested in what you have to say if you have links to World War II tanks, medieval folk songs, snake care and Japanese language, so make sure that you sort and label your book mark lists very well.

Improper Spelling

When it comes to making sure that you can get the right kind of people looking at your bookmarks, remember that first they have to find you! If you have misspellings on your keywords, you will find that it will be much harder for them to locate you on a simple search. Take some time to spell check everything that you put up, and remember that you should always use the proper spelling for any given topic.

Not Using Subcategories

When you are looking to make sure that you are getting the most out of your bookmarking, remember that you should use subcategories. This helps people narrow down the search and find you a lot easier. For instance, say that you see a tag for "dogs." You can further refine your search down to things like "grooming" or "husky" or "raw diet" or anything else that will help them identify your listings as useful to them.

Not Identifying Spammers

In social bookmarking, as with many things online, you will find that spammers ruin things for a lot of people. Spammers will bookmark their sites over and over again, largely to improve their linkbuilding, and they will drive searchers away in droves! Whenever you see someone spamming, see about reporting it to the moderators or the site maintainers. It can keep your site from being overrun and you will find that it essentially improves your neighborhood.

Take some time to think about what you can do to make sure that your social bookmarking gives you the results that you are looking for and that it remains a viable tool for the people you are looking to service.

Andrew Green is part of the team behind A-Z Proxies, an attempt to list from A to Z all web proxies. Andy has been actively working in the web proxy field since 2005 and has built up a wealth of knowledge on the subject.

Managing Tags in Social Bookmarking

Now that you understand the importance of social bookmarking in internet marketing, there is something you need to consider and should not be taken for granted. If you do social bookmarking, I'm sure tags are not new to you. Managing your tags is important for it plays an important role too in web surfing. Tags are keywords or terms assigned to your page that help describe and allow it to be found in search engines by browsing or searching. By tagging your page using keywords, you are making that page searchable by keywords as well. So you need to be careful in tagging your bookmarked websites and pages.

When you research in the internet, you type a keyword(s) on the search field of a particular search engine site. Then the result pages are presented to you ranked by that site based on your typed keywords. Now, why is it important to assign appropriate tags to your site or pages? What is the implication of making that site or page searchable by keywords? If you are the Internet user, why do you enter keywords in the search bar of any site? It's because you need an information and you want to be led to the pages that can provide you with the specific information that you need. And because you placed an appropriate tag to your pages, the more potential customers will likely visit your site. Tagging can create a targeted traffic to your site.

Tags also provide a useful way of organizing, retrieving and discovering information. Putting a correct tag makes your page easier to find.When your readers are looking for a certain topic, it will be easy for them to find that topic It will be easy for them to navigate your contents. You are not only making it easier for others to find your contents but also you increase your exposure and popularity online.You also allow your content to be classified, indexed and accessed by many more individuals, search engines and maybe some content aggregators. So choose unique but relevant keywords for your pages or websites

When you properly manage your tags, it can lead the right people into your site. Right people are those people who search for information that they need, those who needs information from your site. So, when you do social bookmarking do not take tagging for granted.

Gwyn Estember is an employee of DotComSecrets which teaches various internet marketing strategies to internet business owners.

Managing Tags in Social Bookmarking

Now that you understand the importance of social bookmarking in internet marketing, there is something you need to consider and should not be taken for granted. If you do social bookmarking, I'm sure tags are not new to you. Managing your tags is important for it plays an important role too in web surfing. Tags are keywords or terms assigned to your page that help describe and allow it to be found in search engines by browsing or searching. By tagging your page using keywords, you are making that page searchable by keywords as well. So you need to be careful in tagging your bookmarked websites and pages.

When you research in the internet, you type a keyword(s) on the search field of a particular search engine site. Then the result pages are presented to you ranked by that site based on your typed keywords. Now, why is it important to assign appropriate tags to your site or pages? What is the implication of making that site or page searchable by keywords? If you are the Internet user, why do you enter keywords in the search bar of any site? It's because you need an information and you want to be led to the pages that can provide you with the specific information that you need. And because you placed an appropriate tag to your pages, the more potential customers will likely visit your site. Tagging can create a targeted traffic to your site.

Tags also provide a useful way of organizing, retrieving and discovering information. Putting a correct tag makes your page easier to find.When your readers are looking for a certain topic, it will be easy for them to find that topic It will be easy for them to navigate your contents. You are not only making it easier for others to find your contents but also you increase your exposure and popularity online.You also allow your content to be classified, indexed and accessed by many more individuals, search engines and maybe some content aggregators. So choose unique but relevant keywords for your pages or websites

When you properly manage your tags, it can lead the right people into your site. Right people are those people who search for information that they need, those who needs information from your site. So, when you do social bookmarking do not take tagging for granted.

Gwyn Estember is an employee of DotComSecrets which teaches various internet marketing strategies to internet business owners.

Drive Massive Traffic To Your Site Using The Power of Social Bookmarking

One of the best ways to succeed in your internet marketing business is to use social bookmarking. I have accounts on Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Classmates,Tagged and ZenZuu. This strategy will be of great help in terms of getting targeted audience, generating more traffic to your website and achieving higher ranking in search engines. When you achieve these, you can be sure to earn more profits.

Social bookmarking is free to use and enables web users to save links to their favorite web pages that they want to visit again and share with other people. Additionally, they can vote, comment and discuss about the sites or blogs and then submit the site and get feed backs from other users. If the users like your site, there's a chance they will visit it again to obtain information and other updates.

New features have actually been added to these types of sites. These include ratings, comments on bookmarks, the ability to import and export bookmarks from browsers, emailing bookmarks, web annotation as well as groups or other social network features. Although these bookmarks are public, they can be saved privately and shared only with specific groups of people or networks. People with access to these bookmarks can view them in various ways - by category or tags, chronologically or through a search engine.

Social bookmarking provides several benefits to promote your business. Firstly, web users can easily upload and save their preferred websites for other users to view. This alone is an effective way to improve your site's traffic. Users are always clicking on banners out of curiosity. I wouldn't be into Internet Marketing today if I hadn't clicked on an add promoting MLM.

Users can also organize their bookmarks with informal tags instead of using the traditional system of folders. Tag refers to a keyword that describes a particular site and category. By using the appropriate bookmarking tags, search engines will be able to look for your content especially when a user searches for information within your category.

What you can do then is to bookmark your own site and get a suitable tag. Once you obtain the right tag on the social bookmarking site, other people will know about your site and will visit it eventually. So this only means that when you have the proper tag, you drive more traffic to your site.

Another big advantage is for your site to be visited by search engines and indexed. A new website has a chance of being visited by search engine robots within a day of submission to social bookmarking sites. Learning the basics of SEO Optimization is important in driving traffic to your site.

Personal branding is a great benefit as well. In other words, by using social bookmarking sites, you are given the ability to develop your own page on their site. With this page, you can list all your web pages, post links to your websites and publish content on any field of interest. This then allows you to establish yourself as an authority in your own niche.

Many people have been spending money just to ensure a high page rank in search engine results but with social bookmarking, there's no need for that as it provides a one-way link to promote your site to other web users at no cost at all. This should, however, be coupled with credibility and a good reputation so that people will learn to trust you and your business. People ultimately do not buy into your product because it solely benefits them. They largely buy into it because of you.

Hervin Balfour is an online home based business entrepreneur whose drive is inspiring and empowering others to live a life of total financial independence using the internet as a tool for generating wealth and unlimited prosperity. He's the owner of http://www.BalfourWealth.com a resource zone for Internet Marketers and the Team Leader/Founder of the Balfour Wealth Marketing Group.

Important Things to Do in Online Bookmarking

Social bookmarking sites are one of the most visited sites of internet marketers. You can better promote your web pages through online bookmarking and get the edge you want against your competitors. Aside from increasing web site popularity, online bookmarking can also help you get better search engine rankings and increase traffic to your site as well. Since search engine rankings rely greatly on the quality and the "keywordiness" of your articles, you have to make sure that your site's contents have the appropriate words to make it land a better search engine ranking. Online bookmarking has become a regular habit of web site owners and has somehow become a necessity for every internet marketer.

If you are not into online bookmarking yet, perhaps it's high time that you grab this opportunity of promoting your web site for free. In order to fully experience the great benefits of online bookmarking, you need to abide with the rules. It is important that you know the rules since there are certain setbacks in case you commit serious mistakes in bookmarking. If you are too oblivious to the rules, you might commit spamming without you knowing it. The first major thing that you have to do is to sign up in the most popular social bookmarking sites such as Digg.com.

Prioritize the giants in bookmarkings since this is the best way to get your site popularized. Smaller online bookmarking sites usually pick up stories from the list of top stories listed by these bookmarking giants. Thus, it is most practical that you spend more time in submitting your web pages to sites like Digg so that you are assured of getting the best possible exposure. You can get enormous back links for your pages once you have gotten into online bookmarking especially when you actively comment on other people's posts. However, you need to be careful in choosing the type of posts that you comment on.

Choose those posts that are most likely to be admired by other people, too. Don't comment on mediocre posts because it can be an utter waste of your time. Rather comment on those posts that you know would get good reviews from people in the same frame of mind as you. Meeting these people online and adding them to your list of friends will help boost your social marketing efforts. Being active in these social sites will make you more visible to other members and eventually improve the number of people being directed to your web site. Landing on the top stories of Digg can both have a good side and a downside.

The good side is, it can rapidly boost traffic to your site. However, there is no assurance that you will be able to keep your spot on the top. You can lose it just as fast as you have gained it. Thus, you need to devise strategies on how you will be able to keep yourself on top and make people come back to your site. You can make visitors opt-in for your newsletters so that you can remain in constant communication with them. Learn how to anticipate things when you do social marketing so that you won't miss any opportunity when it's your turn to hit the high marks in these bookmarkings sites.

The author of this article Menno Spijkstra is an Internet Marketing specialist who has been successful with several affiliate programs for many years. Menno finally decided to share his knowledge and experience through his website http://www.AffiliateDistrict.com. You can sign up for his free newsletter and join his coaching program.

Getting the Most Out of Bookmarking Submissions

Social bookmarking websites let users submit and vote on stories they find interesting. The most popular links will make it to the top of the front page, and are likely to get a lot of exposure in terms of click through, link popularity, and link reach as many other webmasters are likely to frequent these bookmarking sites and even publish their own stories linking back to the original hit.

Some online marketers think that if they simply drop enough links into the bookmarking websites, they'll eventually have something that benefits their brand. While a few links may get picked up by search engines, they're more likely to just ignore the submissions that aren't well-received by the bookmarking community.

Keep these things in mind to maximize a social bookmarking campaign:

Community Culture - What types of stories typically make it to the front page of the social bookmarking sites that you want to work with? Is there a bias toward politics or technology or humor? Every online community has its own culture, and if you want to make an impression with the audience of a bookmarking website you'll need to identify with them on their terms.

Fresh Content - New information that cannot be found elsewhere is more likely to become popular with a social bookmarking websites' user base. Since the algorithm of the site automatically updates as the next big story breaks, social bookmarking users are particularly interested in the new stories that haven't been told yet.

Participation - Users build a profile by commenting and voting on other peoples' stories, too. Not only do these comments build up links to the user's profile, they indicate to other members that you are participating beyond what gives you an immediate and personal benefit. It can also help to submit interesting links that aren't related to a website you're promoting - it can only help in terms of credibility and testing out what will be popular.

These steps won't guarantee a successful social bookmarking marketing campaign - but they will definitely help you get the most out of your efforts and move forward in the right direction. Like many things in life, you will only get back in proportion to what you have given.

John McDonald is an independent author and website publisher. He's active with social bookmarking as a contributor and as the administrator of an education bookmarking and webmaster bookmarking website.