My social bookmarking guide

[zerk]

Alrighty, seeing as I am taking part in this contest, I figure I will add some BULK and decent articles for discussion. The following post is an article from my blog for social bookmarking. This is all original content by me that I am reposting here with my permission as the blog is well... less than active.

Enjoy:

Social Networking and Social Bookmarking are two of the main ways to promote websites that this Blog focuses on, and up until now, we have not created an entry or page as to what these two methods are! So we are going to change that now.

Social Networking

What is Social Networking?
Social networking is a process. Chances are, that unless you are a complete idiot, you have heard of sites such as myspace.com or Facebook. I will save the formalities and not link to them. THAT is social networking. In terms of SEO and internet marketing, it may be just those sites or it may be much more. Part of what social networking is involves building relationships. Myspace and facebook allow chances like this to happen.

Social networking involves using these websites features as way to promote. Posting a bulletin, creating a group, creating a profile with a link in it and gaining friends, etc. All are valid social networking practices. Do be careful when creating these groups and bulletins though, sometimes,they may violate the websites Terms of Service and get you banned. Best way to avoid this is to read the TOS and gauge what other members of the community wouldsay if you do a certain method.

Mistakes of Social Networking users
When people refer to social networking submission services, sometimes they simply refer to submitting the link of the website to profiles or group forums as posts. While that may be helpful, the best way to utilize social networking to your best advantage is to do what the name says… network. Use sites like facebook and myspace to build relationships and perhaps even affiliates.

For example, I could go onto Myspace.com and join a internet marketing group. I will make a post explaining what my site is and that we are looking for affiliates. UserA see my posts and makes a comment saying he is interested. We talk and we agree to check up on eachothers sites and post updates about what is happening on the other site every so often.
Network, build friends, affiliate - that is what social networking is all about. Don’t think of it as just a way to spam your link and get users to clik it. Make friends, not enemies while networking.

So it is myspace.com and facebook.com, that’s it?
Absolutely not. These are the sites many refer to when they say social networking. However, as I’ve stated twice now, social networking is all about making connections. These sites are social networking tools, but they do not necesarrily elude to the best way to social network. It’s connected, meet people. For bloggers, work on getting affiliates. Get people to subscribe to your feed. For forum owners, get lnk exchanges with users by joining several other websites. Don’t simply spam, but rather truly become a member and get involved in that communiy as well. Jump into the discussions and offer your input or your services when they are appropriate and pertain to the discussion.

Social Bookmarking

What is Social Bookmarking?
Slighly more complicated than social networking is social bookmarking. This process it is okay if you havn’t heard of and I won’t call you an idiot if you don’t know what it is. While the idea itself isn’t all that new, the level of growth in recent months is amazing. Users are starting to catch onto the fact of what a powerful SEO and page rank increasing tool that social bookmarking can be.

Now to be specific as to what it is. If you have heard of sites like Digg.com or StumbleUpon.com, you have heard of a social bookmarking site. Some sites are different than others, but the majority allow you to submit articles or links to articles on their website. This allows users to vote or rate on the article submitted. Others, like Stumble, allow pages to be ‘randomly’ selected. The more positive reviews you get, the higher you chances of being ‘randomly selected’ by other users is.

How are Social Bookmarking Sites useful?
Now how the hell is that useful?? Well, with each article created there are two things happening. First, a link is created… Let me repeat that, a link is created. That is good for the Search Engines. It can increase items like Page Rank and help your website is rankings. Secondly, a link is created. What?? I just said that?? I know. The creation of links also help in users actually coming to your site by clicking the weblinks. Think of it as just one more road to your website for users to take.

What are the best Social Bookmarking Sites?
This largely depends on opinion, but obviously there are some that are better than others. Again, my Review contains some more knowledge about the ‘best’ social bookmarking sites.

How can I use social bookmarking sites to help me on my website?
Again, we have a few options. First, if you run just a plain website without many scripts, some may suggest submitting by hand. That means go to the social bookmarking websites, and create the postings yourself. There are some tools out there that submit your articles automatically, but most professionals on the matter say stick away from using such automated systems as they could get your account banned.

If you have a wordpress website, like this one, there are options you can download as plugins to help you. We use a product called Sociable. It allows you to add a social bookmarking sites listing to each of your posts for both the authors and users to submit to. It comes with many (to many) as enabled, we have cut it down to 3. This way, users are focused to make each submission stronger, rather than having 10 week ones. There are other products out there, do a Google Search if you would like.

Vbulletin also has products out there. Check out Vbulletin.org under mods to select one that works for your forum.

We will be creating a massive list of Social Bookmarking Tools that will help you out as well, at a later date though. In the meantime, remember, Google knows just about everything.

Best way to submit articles on a social bookmarking website?
I am sure opinions vary on the subject matter as well. Generally, most of the experts agree that there shouldn’t be more than 3 keywords used as link backs to your articles or website in one articles, even 4 is pushing it. This means that the anchor text of the link in the article should be a two or three word phrase you are trying to promote as your keyword. In addition, there are several more opinions on submission. Some will submit to 30+, even up to hundreds of sites, the same article. Others will submit to the popular ones and make variations of the article and resubmit to some other ones. As for me, I don’t claim to be an SEO expert, rather someone who loves the idea of networking. My feelings are that if you submit it to far to many places, Google and the other search engines will find it and see that it is a duplicate (Google knows everything…). That would probably not be good in terms of page ranking and link backs, the article would ‘value’ very little.

Thus, I suggest submit to Digg and Delious or others like it, change the article or write a new one, and submit to others. Then write a new one and submit to two more, write another and submit to two more. A popular blogger whose post I can no longer find once said that “You should be submitting an article a day”. So there you have it.

Do I get backlinks from social bookmarking sites?
In general yes, why else would people do it? I am sure there are some that have a nofollow attribute. Nofollow is a script that people use to stop the search engines from counting external links. External links in massive amounts can sometimes hurt a webpages ranking. Regardless, most of the top ones, and many of the ones listed do not have a nofollow attribute, meaning you can get backlinks from it. The same holds true for sites like myspace, a link or two on there will not hurt your websites ranking, rather it will help.

More Information on Social Networking and Bookmarking

That takes a lot of time, is it worth it?
Most say yes, if you do it properly. Submit your articles at a ‘healthy’ rate. To little and it may not work enough, to many and you might get?banned for spam. Generally, like any website, follow common sense and you will be fine. There are also submission services out there that volunteer to submit your article to something like 30 bookmarking websites or maybe will agree to give you 10 stumbles for $3 or items. Some of them do what they say and I believe are actually pretty helpful.? Others are scammers that may hurt your site more than help.

[beamup]

Hi

That is very good read. Easily understandable for new comers and well defined each term with fine examples..

Good work!

Steve

[maroo2007]

Originally Posted by beamup

Hi
That is very good read. Easily understandable for new comers and well defined each term with fine examples..
Good work!
Steve

ya i agree with you

[chiptrance]

Copied your article. I will recommend your article to other new comers.
Well defined and keep on posting such good article in the future.

Thanks

[yoonoo]

Social bookmarking is very helpful espcially when the site is a dofollow. You can build back links and at the same time drive traffic to your site.