Social Networking is good for you!

Websites like Digg.com, Slashdot.org, Reddit.com, Delicious, Mixx, Stumbleupon and others, are perfect to promote faster a blog or a website if you have some very strong content. First, you have to submit your content to those websites, by including a SEO optimized description (you can see on the home page of social bookmarking websites what kind of content is preferred) and the users will rate the articles they like, sharing them with others. This way, you will get both viral and instantaneous traffic. Larges websites, such as Digg.com, can bring you tens of thousands of visitors in a less than 48 hours. Social bookmarking websites are an useful marketing tool for website promotion, internet marketing, blog marketing and viral marketing.

By using social networks, users worldwide will find easier the content of your website/ blog, unless it has already been bookmarked. Thus, an informative and creative website will achieve a higher position in search engines due to the traffic generated. As more back links a website has, as higher it will be ranked by search engines. By using multiple keywords, you can tag multiple categories.

Besides bringing visitors to your website, social bookmarking sites offer help you to stock, organize, search and administrate your online pages (article, content, images), in effective ways. Other benefits of using social bookmarking sites are:

ü      People with similar preferences can find each other, creating communities of users based on certain topics and interests;

ü      Social networking allows to a specific group (the members of an organization, for example) to send efficiently and free to one another various resources of common interest;

ü      Social networking help people to discover new aspects of a subject they are interested in, by staying in touch with other online users;

ü      Most social bookmarking websites offer useful tools to allow people’s access to information even if they are offline (RSS subscription, blogging software)

It should be considered that those visitors don’t watch advertisements and don’t post the nicest comments if they are not comfortable with your content. It has been proved that 1% is the number of those who can become potential subscribers of a blog if they like and appreciate the things they read about; also, there are only 18 clicks on one ad to 30,000 visitors. You may not gain any new subscribers. 

The main reason to write articles for social bookmarking websites is to generate traffic on your website through potential subscribers, even if they represent a small number of all those who visit your website. On the other hand, when people like what they are reading, they send backlinks to your content by posting some interesting facts about your website/ blog.

If you manage to write in a couple of months some articles good enough to reach Digg.com homepage, you can get as many subscribers as you'd get in 6 months without using this kind of promotion.

There are blogs that reached thousands of subscribers through articles like this in just 30 days since they have been released.

The bad part is that there are big chances for your website to be interrupted and affected by the tens of thousands of visitors coming in that range of 48 hours. Some people have received 125,000 visits to exceptional pieces of content in just one day.

The 10 Largest Social Bookmarking Sites are:

ü      Digg.com

ü      Yahoo! Buzz

ü      Facebook

ü      Technorati.com

ü      StumbleUpon.com

ü      Del.icio.us.com

ü      Kaboodle.com

ü      Reddit.com

ü      Mixx.com

ü      Propeller.com

How does it work?

"Social networks aren't just for fun anymore. Some companies use them to accomplish serious business." (Eileen Feretic, Baseline IT magazine, the August edition)

Search engines usually list on the first pages the most relevant and recent information, process known as indexing. As higher a website’s position is as more visitors it will have. When a larger number of websites link to the content submitted, Google's algorithm will analyze it, establishing if it has strong and relevant content. Each social bookmarking website will link back to your website, so it’s recommended to submit it to several social networks.

Most people search for topics of interest by using both search engines and social networks. It is easier for them to find your website’s content on the list of relevant topics resulted on a social bookmarking site. If the content submitted is highly rated, it will appear on the front page, generating an incredible large amount of traffic, as hundreds of thousands of people visit that page daily.

Social bookmarking is free and public, so you can drive quality highly targeted visitors any time, with no costs, only by taking advantage of their full potential.

Each social network allows you to select the niche category that fits your content. For example, if you wrote about a certain medical condition or about a beauty therapy, you just have to select the “Health Care” category or the one related to medical issues. Some bookmarking websites provide subcategories, making easier the process of submitting or searching for a certain topic.

It is also important to build a powerful social bookmarking profile through constant activity, in order to gain more exposure and traffic. You can start doing this by adding as many friends as possible; even if you don’t really know those people, remember that this is the way things works. Everybody does it! Secondly, you must submit quality content on a regular basis and not just from time to time. You can try Google Trends, in order to find out what are the most popular topics of the moment. It is all about labeling the web, while opening doors to multiple marketing strategies through the collective voice. Moreover, you have to be actively involved with the community, to share your opinion and draw attention on your profile. Don’t forget to comment and rate other bookmarked pages, becoming part of the community. It might necessary to remove some weird comments you’ll receive; don’t let them to affect you; pay more attention to the quality of your content and try not to offend anyone. Some people will even try to promote their products through their comments. It depends on you to approve or not this kind of actions, but it’s better to act as a professional and to keep an accurate image of yourself.  

It is recommended to set up an email account using a pseudonym. Some social bookmarking websites may expose you to spam, so it’s better to avoid this situation by signing up with a different email address. Remember that you should sign up to several bookmark communities, in order to capture more page views.

Also, social networks can boost your creativity, as they offer unlimited resources, press releases, trends and topics for your content. Almost any category and area of activity is somehow present in these communities, so you can enlarge your viewpoints, gaining a wider perspective.

Tagging- what is it about?

Tags are short phrases or words that are suggestive for a certain topic. For example, if we consider an article about Madonna’s concert in New York, the most recommended tags are: “Madonna’s concert”, “Madonna in New York”, “New York concerts”, “Concerts in New York”, “New York events” and so on. We have to imagine what are the most common phrases used by people when they search for certain topic on the Internet.

Although the title of an article should be creative and original, if it is the same or similar with other titles that have been already used, there are less chances to be indexed by search engines. On the other hand, if it sounds completely different from other titles, it will not be recognized by search engines. Tagging a certain link will result in more exposure. You can also use tags generators; choose the right one for you by searching on Google the available options. It is recommended to use Google AdWords- https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal- a service that provides the popularity rank for each tag related to your content. It’s enough to type a keyword; the program will generate all the possible words combinations, specifying how many people searched for those keywords. Thus, you can use those who have the highest rating, improving your website position in search engines.

By using these SEO tips when you submit content on a regular basis to social bookmarking websites, your own website or blog will gain the deserved exposure and traffic.