Building Traffic With Social Bookmarking

Early in the days of Internet browsing, someone got the bright idea of keeping placeholders, or bookmarks for web sites we’ve visited and enjoyed. It was a great way to keep track of things. Before long, someone else got the brilliant idea there should be a way to share these bookmarks with our friends.

Suddenly, a world of social bookmarking came into existence. But how can you, the internet marketer, tap into this social network? Is there a way social bookmarking can build traffic for your site? This article will discuss a few methods of putting social bookmarking to work for you, bringing new visitors to your site.

Since any web page can be bookmarked, any web page can be shared with friends. This is the premise behind using social bookmarking as a marketing technique. As you may have guessed, the idea is to get people who visit your site to bookmark and share it. Of course your visitors could simply email a link to their friends, but they might not think of that option on their own. It is not only your job then to remind them of this option, but to make it as easy as possible for them to do so.

Fortunately, since the entire blog community has a long and rich history of sharing links, with millions of "check this out" type posts, there have been several tools to help you make it easy for your visitors to share a link to your site. For example, if you happen to build your site on the WordPress blog platform you can find half a dozen excellent programs which provide a "share this" link with every post you make.

Not only will most of these plug-ins allow your visitors to email a link to a friend, they can add your site to the major social bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us (http://www.del.icio.us), Digg (http://www.digg.com), Technorati (http://www.technorati.com), and StumbleUpon (http://www.stumbleupon.com).

At these social bookmarking sites your visitors can also post reviews and say just what they like about your site, thereby attracting others who find the information.

Now, who is to say that you can’t post your own articles, blog posts and web pages to these social bookmarking sites yourself? If you post your entries, you expose it to thousands of visitors at the social bookmarking sites who might be interested in what you have to offer.

If you have an exceptionally interesting post, and place it on a social bookmarking site, you open the door to a viral marketing effect and free exposure you probably could have never otherwise afforded.

Article source: ContentLog.com

Top Ten Social Bookmarking Sites

Sharing favorite webpages has become popular recently. Social bookmarking sites allow visitors to let everyone else know where they found important or just plain interesting information. With the popularity spreading we are seeing more sites offering social bookmarking. Listed below you’ll find information on ten of the popular bookmarking sites.

blinklist.com–This site allows you to bookmark sites with the click of a button on your toolbar. You can keep your lists private or share them with the world.

del.icio.us– One of the first social bookmarking sites to spark the world’s attention is still a favorite.

digg.com– Digg has several categories for the 8.7 million visitors it gets monthly to browse through to find the information and statistics they need quickly. Digg also allows its members to post to their blog through this site when a visitor wants to leave a link to a webpage or article on their blog.

fark.com– With categories such as sports, politics, music, and business on the main page, this site allows users to browse others bookmarked sites by topic to help you easily find what you are looking for.

ma.gnolia.com– The ease of use makes this smaller site attractive. Ma.gnolia.com allows the user to become familiar with the whole social bookmarking process making it a great site to start with if you are new to social bookmarking.

mybloglog.com– Combining social bookmarking and blogging into a social networking package makes this site a great place to promote your pages while finding other sites that may interest you.

reddit.com– users can view what’s new or what’s hot at the moment as well as see the weekly stats on this social bookmarking site.

stumbleupon.com– A relatively new site that combines myspace and social bookmarking where users can make multiple pages on any topic.

tailrank.com– Blogs often contain a lot of valuable information. This site helps to find the hot buzz online by keeping track of what is being said between blogs. Users search through topics such as politics, technology, video and entertainment or even randomly if they prefer to find out what is going on online.

technorati.com– Technorati allows its million and a half visitors share their blog posts, photos, favorite videos and other favorite sites every month.

Each social bookmarking site is unique, all are geared toward different audiences. For a website owner to get the most out of social bookmarking you can use a combination of several different sites. Start by putting your blog on one site, Technorati for instance. You can then start a webpage or two on Stumbleupon with themes that match your blog. Listing your pages as favorites on Digg after you have set them up will drive traffic to your site.

Bookmarking your own site gives users of these sites easy access to your webpages. Keep an eye on sites like tailrank.com to see what other users are talking about, use that information for inspiration for your own blog. This will keep your site fresh and in line with what others are looking for online.

If you use these sites together you can introduce your site to people who have similar interests while helping your site to increase traffic as well as linking you to possible future partners in other projects that can help you to increase your traffic and revenue online. Read the rules of each site and make sure you stay within the guidelines and use these tools to help your site grow.

Article source: ContentLog.com