Social Bookarking SEO Tutorial:
Social bookmarking is an easy way to get backlinks to your site. You just submit a title, URL, description, and tags = 1 easy backlink to your website.
But are bookmarks actually a good way to build one way links to your site?
Let’s examine the architecture of a social bookmark backlink to find out:
Looking at the link from Digg above we can see a few things…
1) First off, there are two links. One is an internal link to all of the Gizmodo links on shared on Digg and the other is a redirected link to the article
2) The link to the article is dofollow and uses the title of the URL. Since it links with the title or a similar title it can be made quite relevant and it will pass PageRank. It’s worth noting that some of the link juice will likely be lost in the redirect.
3) The homepage of digg is a PR of 8 so a link here would be strong, but obviously…
1) You’d be VERY lucky to ever get on the homepage
2) Even if you DID, your link would only be there momentarily until slipping into the depths of digg
3) Gizmodo’s page on Digg has a PR of 6, so their links DO pass PR for a while, but you’re not Gizmodo
Not every social site is just like Digg, but this is a fair look at how most social bookmarking sites operate.
The Verdict: While you can get somewhat relevant, dofollow links from social bookmarking, they aren’t the kind of links that will raise your rankings on their own.
Pro Tip: How can you get more authority/PR and improve your Digg SEO? You can consistently submit your content and build links to the page for your site’s Digg page. Just go to digg and search “site:yoursite.com” to find the page where your site’s content will aggregate.
Why Should You Use Social Bookmarking?
As stated, I wouldn’t recommend basing a link building campaign off social bookmarking, but the links are still helpful for Search Engine Optimization. In fact, social bookmarking might become one of the most important aspects of your promotion…
Social Bookmarking SEO benefits: With a name like Social bookmarks I’m not sure I even have to say what they’re best for. Bookmarking is great for…
- Increasing social signals
- Making your content easier to share
- driving traffic
Everyone knows that Tweets, Facebook shares, Google +1 activity, and other social signals affect the rankings now. Being more shareable and talked about is already great for press and public relations, but now it’s even more important since it has a growing affect on your search rankings.
Here’s an intriguing article on SEO Moz that illustrated the effect of a Tweet on rankings.
By bookmarking your content, you are getting it out in a social setting where people are more likely to share and link to your content. In other words…
It’s not the link from the bookmark itself that aids your rankings – It’s the indirect effect and implications
Bookmarking increases social signals which ultimately affect your rankings
Free Download: OnlyWire is my favorite means of social bookmarking. It’s an easy and fast way to bookmark your content, but signing up for accounts can be a pain. You can download my account creator for free to speed up the process.
Other stuff: Pixelpipe is another decent free bookmarking auto-submitter. The best part about Pixelpipe is that it integrates with ping.fm which allows you to add a number more sites.
More Ways to Increase Social Signals
Social bookmarks aren’t the only way you can influence the amount of sharing your content gets. Here are a few more tips:
1. Add social sharing buttons to every content page of your site.
The easier it is for visitors to share your content the easier it will be to get more social coverage. Also, something I do here on SEO Discovery is include a voting button for Blog Engage to increase my chances of appearing on the homepage there.
2. Use Social News/Voting Sites
The difference is that these sites have a voting system in place. This means that you have a much better chance for exposure because of the opportunity to get voted onto the homepage.
Rather than just constantly trying to rank on Reddit’s homepage (not gonna happen), post your content to social bookmarking sites and also place in the correct subcategories or societies at major sites (like reddit.com/r/seo).
3. Stay active on Twitter
Tweeting your own content and others can help you brand yourself and build relationships. Also, the people who follow you do so because of the content of yours that you share and the content from others that you choose to share.
Do you use social bookmarking for your SEO?
Have you been able to drive traffic effectively with bookmarks?
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