Social Bookmarking: What it is, How it Works and the Benefits for Your Business
When social bookmarking first started, social bookmarking sites were created as a way to store and share the websites that you find. Now social bookmarking has become more than just a place for storing websites; social bookmarking can help your business by giving it visibility on popular social media networks and helping with search engine optimization (SEO).
In this article, I’ll discuss what social bookmarks are, how they work, why businesses should use them, which social bookmarks sites are the most popular and how to use them.
What is social bookmarking?
A social bookmarking site is a website that allows users to tag or categorize webpages. Social bookmarking sites are used in social marketing and social media for content curation, social news, sharing bookmarks of favorite websites and discovering new online resources through tags (keywords).
Social Bookmarking has become an important part of social marketing because social bookmarking sites allow marketers and businesses to reach out to their social communities with social news, social media and content curation.
Social bookmarking sites are often used as a starting point for surfing the web, or they can be stand-alone websites that allow users to search through saved links by tags (keywords). Some social bookmarking sites also have additional features like sharing bookmarks on social networks. Many social bookmarking sites allow users to save social bookmarks on their social media profiles.
The history of social bookmarking sites
The first social bookmarking site was launched in 1999 by a web developer named Joshua Schachter, who created a simple way for people to store and share links online. Schachter’s website didn’t have social networking features, but it was a simple way for people to store and share links.
In 2001, Delicious was launched by startup tech company AVOS Systems Inc. from Seattle as an online bookmark manager with social networking features that made it easy for users to discover new resources through tags (keywords). Delicious became popular in social bookmarking sites, but the social bookmark manager also gained popularity among tech-savvy social media users.
By 2005 Delicious had an estimated one million unique visitors per month, and by 2008 it was still growing in popularity with about four million registered users. Delicious is now owned by AVOS Systems Inc., which acquired Delicious from Yahoo! in 2011.
In 2007, social bookmarking sites became more popular and social media marketing was on the rise as social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter were growing in popularity; this helped to drive traffic to social bookmarking websites. Social bookmarks also began generating revenue from advertisements that appeared on their website pages during the early 2000s, even though social bookmarking sites were initially created as a way to organize and store links.
As social media marketing became more popular, social bookmarking websites realized that they could use social bookmarks for their own purposes, too. This is when the social web began using social tagging (keywords) in order to discover new content on social networks like Twitter and social news sites like Reddit.
What are best practices in social bookmarking?
In social bookmarking, the most important thing is to have a comprehensive profile that includes social networking profiles. A social bookmarks profile should list your website URL and include key information about you or your business like contact details, social tag (keywords) descriptions, websites categories and subcategories for tags (keywords).
You can also social bookmark sites to your social networks so that people can discover new resources through social media.
It is important not to overdo social networking, because adding too many social bookmarks or tags about yourself will look spammy and distracting for other users on the social site. Remember that you are using social bookmarking as social marketing for social media.
Businesses should social bookmark their own website URL and social profiles, which will help to drive traffic back to your site through social news sites like Reddit, Digg or StumbleUpon. However, you must remember that these websites are using a democratic system in order to rank content because the most popular tags (keywords) are the ones that are social bookmarking to social news sites.
People use social tags in order to discover new resources on social media, so you should have a comprehensive profile and provide high-quality links for your website URL or social networking profiles if you want people to share your content across their networks.
What are the benefits of social bookmarking?
One of social bookmarking sites biggest benefits is that they can help to drive traffic and generate leads for your website if you social bookmark your own site or social profiles. Also, social bookmarks offer a way to expose yourself (your business) on popular social networks like Reddit, Digg and StumbleUpon.
Businesses can use social bookmarks as a way to gain backlinks for their website or profiles; this is why social networking profiles should include your own business site URL.
Social bookmarks are not only social media marketing tools, but they can also help you to discover new resources across social networks or social news sites like Reddit, Digg and StumbleUpon. This is why people use social tags in order to find content on popular social bookmarking websites that have thousands of users who share similar interests.
What are downsides to social bookmarking?
The main downside of social bookmarking is that it doesn’t always help to boost your website’s rankings in search engines because social media sites are not really crawling through links shared within their platform, but this does not mean social bookmarking has no SEO benefits.
Other downsides of social bookmarking:
- Social bookmarking websites do not have a built-in system that ranks content according to the number of social bookmarks or votes received by users on their social profile pages. This means you can’t really know if your website URL will be ranked highly in search engine results pages (SERPs).
- Social bookmarking websites do not have social media expert moderators that can guarantee social bookmarks are of high-quality. This means there’s no way to know if the website URL you’re social bookmarking will be included on social news sites like Reddit, Digg or StumbleUpon because these websites rely purely on social bookmarks to get content.
- Social bookmarking websites do not give social media users the ability to see who social bookmarked your website URL and social profiles, which means there’s no way of knowing how many people actually like you (your business). This is why it is important that businesses social bookmark their own sites or social profiles if they want social bookmarks to boost their social media presence.
How does social bookmarking help SEO?
Social bookmarking can help to increase social media exposure for your website or social profile because these websites allow users to social bookmark their own site URL and social profiles. Also, social bookmarks drive traffic back to the source (your social networks).
Another SEO benefit of social bookmarks is that they give you easy-to-use tools for social media marketing because social bookmarks allow users to share your website URL or social profiles across popular social networks like Reddit, Digg and StumbleUpon.
The main SEO benefit of social bookmarking is that they can help you to get backlinks for your website if people who visit these websites decide to social bookmark their own site URLs. This means social bookmarks help you to increase your social media exposure, boost website traffic and generate social signals for SEO.
Finally, social bookmarking helps search engine optimization because social networks have an organic presence that allows people who visit these websites to like (vote) or dislike (not vote) content they find on popular social news sites like Reddit, Digg and StumbleUpon.
Social media users who social bookmark your website URL or social profile can tell search engines what they think about content you share on social networking websites because these social networks allow people to like (vote) and dislike (not vote) content in order for it to show up more often when other social media users conduct social searches on social bookmarking websites.
What are examples of social bookmarking?
There are social bookmarking websites that allow you to social bookmark your own website URL, social profile or business page. This means these social networking websites give users the ability to share content across popular social networks like Reddit, Digg and StumbleUpon.
There are some social networking websites that will allow you to social bookmark content from social profiles or your website and add this information to a searchable index of social bookmarks called Delicious.com, which is a social bookmarking website that offers social bookmarks, social search and social discovery. Other social networks like Digg will allow you to share content across your own profile or business page and on popular social news websites like Reddit, StumbleUpon or Diigo.
How do you write social bookmarking content?
The best social bookmarking content is unique and informative. Write social bookmarking posts that offer a lot of social media value to readers, which means social bookmarks should be more than just social signals for your website or social profiles.
Social bookmarking websites can help you increase traffic to your website by driving people back to the source (your social networks). This means you need to write social bookmarks that are interesting, informative and include your social media username so people can connect with you across popular social networking websites.
Writing content for social bookmarking sites should be about the same as writing any other blog post–you just have to keep in mind how valuable it is going to be for social media users. So social bookmarks should offer a lot of social media value and help you to get social signals back from these websites.
It is important that social bookmark content is:
- Informative and educational.
- Provide social media exposure for your website across popular social networks like Reddit, Digg and StumbleUpon.
- Give social media users social signals that they can use to like (vote) or dislike (not vote) your website, social profiles and social bookmarks.
- Offer a lot of social media value for social networking websites because this is what helps people find useful content on these sites. Don’t forget about SEO benefits
How to learn more about social bookmarking?
Many online programs will teach you the basics of social bookmarking. Earn With Mike will teach you the basics of social bookmarks, social search and social discovery on popular social media websites like Reddit, Digg and StumbleUpon.
Are you wondering if Earn With Mike is worth it? Then check out our Earn With Mike review here.
I buy and review courses so you don’t have to. Sometimes, I even find courses that are legitimate and worthwhile; and that’s how I accidentally came across one that led me to building a 6-figure business in a little under 5 years. Now, I still review courses because it’s my favorite hobby. 🙂 Learn more about me here.
