September 27th, 2009 by Bruce

Social bookmarking is a relatively new phenomenon. While we can review the late 90′s for a worthy predecessor, social bookmarking didn’t leap onto the scene until the herald site Delicious showed up. Social bookmarking sites pull in all kinds of information, articles and blog posts which are saved, organised and sorted by relevancy and tags.

Some people have defined social bookmarking as search engine marketing with a human touch. The information is seen as relevant due to the fact that it has been provided by a human being, rather than assessed for relevancy by a robot and through search engine algorithms. As most of the individuals who use social bookmarking sites often give points to the content based on its relevancy and usefulness, this human touch is emphasised even further.

Social bookmarking is viewed as a great SEO tool for online business, as it feeds off the networking capabilities of the web. The most popular sites have huge numbers of avid followers who are essentially creating a new trend by receiving their news on any given subject or niche online rather than through the traditional methods of old. Social bookmarking sites can be linked and an RSS feed set up, thereby creating an aggregate of news that can be delivered efficiently with very little necessary effort.

While it’s not applicable in every instance, most of the time you can create back links to your site by placing URL’s into your content. Some social bookmarking sites initiate a “no follow” policy, which means that the operators attach tags to your links that effectively negate any SEO advantage. This does not stop people from clicking through to your site and becoming a potentially valuable visitor, of course, but it means that you won’t gain any advantage in terms of the search relevancy ranking for your page.

If you’re savvy about your online marketing and website development, you can use social bookmarking to great effect. Put meaningful content out there with valid and informative material, and people within the social bookmarking arena will rate it highly. Sharing of content is actively encouraged, and as a user’s network is informed of the existence of your content, the potential to go viral appears.

Make sure that your marketing message is subtle, as with any Internet marketing initiative. Blatant advertising is frowned upon, but relevant links when displayed in a soft-sell way will result in an increase in visitors. Make sure that you accurately attach your tags or keywords, to ensure that your message can be found within this vast Internet world!

There are hundreds and hundreds of social bookmarking sites, and you should try and include a plug-in within your site to allow people to easily and quickly bookmark your content. Sites such as WordPress make this very easy for you. RSS feed aggregators essentially summarize blogs and content and allow users to categorize things they find of interest into one easy to find place.

Social bookmarking should be an essential part of an overall Internet marketing and SEO strategy.

Michelle Dale is The Managing Director of Virtual Miss Friday, a cutting edge Executive Virtual Assistant Service which assists organisations and enterprising individuals with every detail of their entrepreneurial aspirations. Do you want to peruse some further information on these incredible online business building success strategies? Contact VMF Now!

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