Marketing Merge Network - Internet Marketing for Network Marketers

Quick tip about social book marking.

Many people know that you can generate traffic to your blog or web site (or other Web 2.0 stuff) by book marking.  At some bookmarking locations it creates incoming links for you.  Or, you generate traffic from within the bookmarking community itself.

(If you're not sure what book marking is and why it works see the article post below).

But a lot of people don't realize that the actual book mark itself can rank really well on Google, Yahoo and other search indexes. 

So next time you make that book mark post remember it has multiple benefits for your marketing.

Social Bookmarking can be a powerful way to create incoming links into your Internet Marketing content, which improves your rankings and visibility on search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and others.

Social Bookmarking can also generate a lot of hits to your content from the actual bookmarking sites themselves.

This Diagram Shows Direct Hits to One of my Blogs from Social Bookmarking Sites Like Stumbleupon.com, Digg.com, del.icio.us, and Others...

What is Social Bookmarking?

Originally, social bookmarking started in the early 90s as a means of storing and categorizing web pages.  The early idea was to have a location other than your computer to save or 'book mark' important web sites you wanted  to later reference.  That way if your computer crashed you'd still be able to find all your favorite sites on the Internet.

These bookmarking sites started to develop and became more sophisticated in how they categorized the sites.  They started to use 'tags' that would link the posted sites to a specific topic or key word.   That way visitors could find information on topics they were interested in. 

These social book marking sites also developed into places where visitors could 'rank' the usefulness of web pages and content that was book marked. 

Out of all this a phenomenon evolved where social bookmarking, as it is now called, started to be used as a way to promote web pages and content.  For example, a person could use social bookmarking to create incoming links to their Internet content, thereby increasing the visibility of their content on the search engines. 

The more incoming links a person has to their web pages or content the more likely it will be indexed higher on search engines (read more to find out why this isn't always the case).  Also, people would bookmark their content at social bookmarking sites to increase visibility from the other visitors who searched for information at those social bookmarking sites.

Avoid Social Bookmarking Pitfalls in Your Internet Marketing...

Search engines like Google and Yahoo have recently cracked down on the systematic use of social bookmarking as a means to generate incoming links.  If done too obviously, it is considered spam and can have adverse effects on the search ranking of your content.  You can also have your account revoked at a social bookmarking site if you are too 'spammy.'

If it is too obvious to the search engines (or people monitoring this) that you are using social bookmarking solely to promote your own Internet marketing links, you can be penalized on the search engines and lose the benefits of social bookmarking as a means to increase visibility to your content.

The Solution to Effective Use of Social Bookmarking to Market Your Content

There is still a tremendous amount of leverage and power for those who use social bookmarking properly to market their content.  You simply have to use good judgement and be more balanced in your 'bookmarking strategy.'  You also have to be very careful how you use systematic bookmarking tools like social marker.

How Tools Like Social Marker Can Hurt You (or Help You)...

Out of the social bookmarking phenomenon came tools that made it easier for marketers to bookmark their Internet marketing content in a systematic way.  Instead of having to spend hours bookmarking your web pages or content at dozens of bookmarking sites, you could use tools like social marker to systematize the process, thereby bookmarking your content at dozens of locations in a fraction of the time.

Search engines like Google and Yahoo use algorithms that recognize someone who is systematically 'spamming' the social bookmarking sites.  When you use a common tool like social marker it is very easy to get penalized and end up wasting a lot of time trying to promote your Internet content because the search engines will not rank you well when they recognize the 'spamming' pattern.

While you can produce some visibility by using the spam technique, it is becoming less effective as the search engine algorithms improve.  If you get penalized it can have a long-term negative effect on your marketing. 

The best bet is to use a more 'balanced and natural' pattern when using social bookmarking to promote your Internet marketing content.  Long-term this will give you a huge and significant result that will put you way ahead of the competition who will mostly spam and eventually be penalized.

How to Properly Use Social Bookmarking to Effectively Generate More Visibility

It is certainly true that you can use social bookmarking to create a growing number of incoming links to your Internet content.  Also, by bookmarking your content at the various social bookmarking sites you can generate a ton of traffic (visitors) who find you at the social bookmarking sites directly.

But as I've mentioned if you are blatantly spamming the social bookmarking sites using social bookmarker, or manually, it's going to bite you in the tail.  So how do you get around this and use social bookmarking to create more visibility for your Internet content effectively?

The key word is 'natural.' 

By natural I mean to behave like a 'real person' would when bookmarking your sites.  Have interests other than just your business 'money making' sites.  Show a broader range of interests by bookmarking sites of other topics... such as hobbies you are interested in.

Also, bookmark sites that are NOT yours.  

And, bookmark ONLY your best stuff when you are posting your marketing content.

This will create a more natural bookmarking behavior and the search engines, as well as the people at the bookmarking sites, will reward you for it with 'traffic' -- lots of it!  Over time, you'll be rewarded with a high search engine ranking when you bookmark your stuff because you will be recognized by the search engine algorithms as a legitimate contributor.

You'll also receive a better ranking at the bookmarking sites themselves, which will translate into more visibility opportunities when the bookmarking sites highlight profiles or content their members have posted.

In addition, as real people enter your social bookmarking profile and look over your postings, they'll be much more likely to see you as a legitimate contributor (rather than a selfish non-contributing promoter) if you have taken the extra time to bookmark a variety of interests as well as sites that are not only yours.

If you do take a risk and use a systematic bookmarking tool like social marker, do so wisely.  Don't promote only your own stuff with it--promote other sites with it that have nothing to do with making you money.  This will help you to look more natural as a contributor (and you will actually be a contributor by sharing other stuff).  Also, if using a systematic bookmarking tool like social marker, don't post every book marking site with the exact same title and description and tags--that's a big clue to the search engines that you're using social marker, which is considered a spammers tool.

It's harder to do things the RIGHT WAY (and the effective way), but in the long-run it will save you time and make you much more money than it will if you do it the 'spammy' way, which is how most people will use social bookmarking.  You can get way ahead of the pack and get your search engines listings ranking far better than everyone else's by doing this the way I've described (be a contributor and stay away from the spam effect).

Access the Click-by-Click Visual Tutorials at Marketing Merge...

For  click-by-click visual help setting up your accounts and effectively using social bookmarking to generate more prospects, log into your Professional Training account at www.MarketingMerge.com

If you're not yet a member at Marketing Merge, find an Internet Marketing guide to gain access to our click-by-click tutorials that will set you up in a big way on the Internet.

Featured Article: 

90-Day Action Plan to Generate Significantly More Prospects & Cash-Flow

People have asked how to do a 'shout out' at Digg... which is basically a way to share your posts (and content) with others at Digg, a social bookmarking site.

Those at the Professional Level will see a new tutorial on Digg posted this afternoon (March 20th) on how to do a "shout out" to promote your Digg posts, as well as how and why to favorite your posts there, and how to friend/unfriend people.

This will be posted in the Phase II area (Social Marketing).

Be sure to watch the first tutorials on how to use Digg before watching this one. 

Digg is a great way to promote your content (whether that be an article, blog, video or anything else).