If you are not using social bookmarking techniques to gain extra back links to your website and increase traffic then you are missing out on one of the fastest and easiest ways of promoting your website. In case you didn’t know, social bookmarking is a method of sharing, organizing, searching and managing links to web resources. The bookmarks themselves are held in the forms of categorized links with appropriate anchor text and a short accompanying description. The most interesting thing about social bookmarking though is that the major social bookmarking sites are all loved by the main search engines.

Most of the big sites have a page rank of 6 or higher putting them in the top ranking sites on the internet. Every day millions of people visit these sites to bookmark and share their web favourites. This means two things to you as an internet marketer.

First of all, you can tap into the massive amounts of traffic that these sites generate. Most of these sites enable their members not only to share bookmarks but also to vote on their popularity. Sites such as Digg, for example, have a voting system that enables you to ‘digg’ sites up or down. If your bookmark gets ‘dug’ enough times then it will reach the top of the category listings or even the front page. Getting a front page listing on a site like Digg can generate insane amounts of traffic for the short time that it stays there.

The second advantage of social bookmarking is that, because the major sites are all high PR, then the links that you place there will be factored accordingly. In fact, there can’t be many ways to get easier high ranking back links than using social bookmarking.

Of course, social bookmarking has its rules and there are some that you absolutely should follow, otherwise your account will be banned and you may even lose all of the links you have generated.
First of all, never spam the major social bookmarking sites. They are constantly on the lookout for people flooding their sites with links and even actively encourage their users to report offenders. If you are to use social bookmarking effectively, then obey the 80/20 rule that states that 80% of your submissions should be for sites other than your own. If in doubt, create multiple accounts and spread your link building efforts out over them. This way, if one account gets reported then you don’t lose all of your links.

The other thing to do is to give something back to the community. Remember to vote up other links that you find interesting, and try to contribute interesting stories yourself; don’t just drop links to your money site all of the time.

If you are diligent and follow some simple etiquette, then social bookmarking can be a fantastic way to gain both instant traffic and long term gains in the search engines. Make sure it’s part of your website promotion efforts.

Social Bookmarking: Use It Don’t Abuse It

Most internet marketers are aware of the fact that nothing helps you rise up the search engine rankings quite like building back links. Back links are links from other websites back to your own, and are generally regarded as one of the most significant factors in achieving a high search engine ranking for a given keyword.  The problem with getting back links is that it’s a time consuming and tedious process with many sites to visit, profiles to fill out and a lot of commenting and posting to do as well. However, there is another way to gain back links that is quick, simple and very effective – use social bookmarking.

Social Bookmarking sites are all the rage just now, and no wonder. A beautifully simple idea, social bookmarking is meant to allow you to keep note of your favourite websites in one handy location, kind of like an on-line version of your browsers bookmarks tab. The big social bookmarking sites also allow their members to vote on bookmarks that they like (or kick down ones they don’t) and bookmarks that are ranked highly can appear on the sites front page where they get a lot of attention.

Social Bookmarking sites are extremely popular and have millions of visitors a day. Just being on the front page alone can make your traffic stats rocket, and then, of course, you have the power of these links all pointing back to your site. You see, the major social bookmarking sites, as well as being busy, all have very high page rank and that means that any back links that you post there are highly regarded by the search engines.

Because the sites are so simple and quick to use, social bookmarking is now seen as one of the easiest and quickest ways to get quality back links to your website. Of course, all of this power comes with some catches.
First of all, the big social bookmarking sites are constantly waging war on link spammers. If you are dropping hundreds of links to your money site and not contributing anything else to the community, then expect to get your account banned and your links removed. Similarly, these sites all encourage their members to weed out spammers so even if the owners don’t catch you, your fellow users may well.

The other thing to watch out for is the growing number of rogue or ineffective social bookmarking sites. Although there are thousands of social bookmarking sites available today, there are really only about 20-30 that are worth bothering with. Save your time and effort and concentrate on the main ones for the best effect.

Social bookmarking really can be link building on steroids but just don’t overdo it. Keep your content relevant, mix in some other sites with your own links and above all give people content that is interesting and there is no reason why social bookmarking can propel you to the top of the search engine rankings.

Social Bookmarking: Back link Building On Steroids