Understanding Social Bookmarking

While I see the term social bookmarking used extensively, I have found very few references that tell you what it really is and why it is important to your blog.

For the average web surfer, social bookmarking is nothing more a means of identifying particular blog posts or websites on any number of social network websites.

It is also a way for someone to develop and share a list of blog posts or websites with others that they find of interest or value in some way–usually on social network sites that they frequent and communicate with others from.

You do want visitors bookmarking your blog posts because it gives your blog search engine “mojo”—more weight and authority—which gives you better search engine placement for your blog posts.

From a purely traffic perspective, social bookmarking means valuable backlinks.

I am currently using two plugins to make social bookmarking easy for visitors to this blog:

[ ** This content is available to IMS Blog Members ONLY. Please Login or Register to review this content. ** ]

You can see both of these plugins in action at the bottom of this blog post. I was using the Sociable plugin, but the social bookmarking icons are too small and I suspect they are rarely used.

The most important point to know is this:

If you are producing quality content for your blog, you want to make it easy for someone to add your blog posts to their Facebook page, along with the other major social bookmarking websites.

Nothing will ever beat “word of mouth” when it comes to getting traffic to your blog. Social bookmarking is the Internet version of “word of mouth”.

One thing I do want to caution you about which is this:

I have been through half a dozen social bookmarking plugins and some of them can and will set off security/anti-virus software when used on your blog. Well, I can’t have that on my blogs.

The ShareThis plugin is one such example of a social bookmarking utility that can set off computer security software (not good).

I want visitors to be able to come to my blog and feel good about coming back. That’s why the plugins above are the only social bookmarking plugins I will use.

Now, if you found this article helpful…

I would appreciate it if you would bookmark this blog post using the links at the bottom of this post with one of your social network sites (i.e. Facebook).

Cheers,
Steve Roye
Online Business Consultant

About the Author/Founder of the IMS Blog

This former Navy Senior Chief (ret.) and professional entertainer didn't stop when he retired from the military...

Steve Roye is also an author who has also been an online business owner and consultant for almost a decade.

Now Steve focuses on helping others start or expand their online businesses.

Please check out the Featured Articles page for direct links to articles on this blog.

Last 5 posts by Steve Roye

• Entertainers Have The Edge When Building An Online Fan Club - March 11th, 2010
• 7 Secrets For Getting More Hits And More Traffic To Your WordPress Blog Now - March 8th, 2010
• The Lies About Making Money Online With Google Adsense - March 5th, 2010
• The Social Network Business Plan: 18 Wealth Strategies - March 2nd, 2010
• If You Don’t Understand Keyword Research, You’re Kinda Screwed - February 28th, 2010

Tagged with: get backlinks • social bookmarking • social networks • wp plugins

Filed under: Advanced Users

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!