What is bookmarking

Oct 25, 2008 in questions

Today’s question:

Exactly what *is* bookmarking and what does it do?

First let’s define it and go to Wikipedia.

Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet with the help of metadata.

In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, and can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private domains. The allowed people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, or via a search engine.

Most social bookmark services encourage users to organize their bookmarks with informal tags instead of the traditional browser-based system of folders, although some services feature categories/folders or a combination of folders and tags. They also enable viewing bookmarks associated with a chosen tag, and include information about the number of users who have bookmarked them. Some social bookmarking services also draw inferences from the relationship of tags to create clusters of tags or bookmarks.

Many social bookmarking services provide web feeds for their lists of bookmarks, including lists organized by tags. This allows subscribers to become aware of new bookmarks as they are saved, shared, and tagged by other users.

As these services have matured and grown more popular, they have added extra features such as ratings and comments on bookmarks, the ability to import and export bookmarks from browsers, emailing of bookmarks, web annotation, and groups or other social network features

That is a pretty good definition so lets look at how they help you and how to use them.

Every time you bookmark a site it creates a back link to that page. More back links equals higher ranking in the serps. Higher serp and you get more free traffic. That is the basic reason why.

Now how do you do it?

First understand that the word social is important. Like other link building strategies the key is to take part in the community. If you are doing commenting to build links and aren’t adding value and taking part in the conversation your comments don’t get approved. Wasted effort on your part and people start to dislike you.

The same goes with bookmarking. This is a community and you are sharing what you have found of value. If the only thing you find of value is your site/s no one will value or use your links. You may also get your account deleted and lose what little you have created.

If you are bookmarking your sites and other sites of value now when someone looks at your list you have provided value. In most of these sites people can vote your links up (good resource) or down (bad resource).

The real traffic comes when others agree and vote for you then you get proof from others that these links are worthwhile.

So if you are going to be bookmarking get in the habit of doing it for all pages that you find of quality.

Three ways to help yourself and others at the same time.

Bookmark your articles that you submit at the various directories.
Bookmark forum posts that you are taking part in that have good information.
Bookmark blog posts that you comment on.

All of these help other sites and help to find you so it is a win win for you and the site you used.

Hope this helps to clear up what social bookmarking is and how you can use it.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: bookmarking, social bookmarking, using bookmarking sites

Adding social bookmark to your blog

Oct 23, 2008 in questions

Today’s question:

I like your blog. Its informative. I am a newbie and would like to know how you put in the ‘bookmark’ at the end of the post.

This is actually easy to do on WordPress. It is a plugin called All-in-one Bookmarking Button. Just upload it to your wp-content/plugins/ folder, click it to activate and you are good to go.

I like this because it ties into social marker which is a great service to use to help speed up your bookmarking.

Social marker also has code that allows you to add this type of button to any web site too. It does not have to be a blog.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: all in one bookmarking, bookmarking, social marker

Bookmarking question today

Feb 28, 2008 in questions

Here is today’s question

Should you bookmark your posts more than once - after a month or so should you go back round and bookmark them all again?

This is actually a good topic. Too many people try spamming the bookmark sites. I never bookmark a post a second time at the same service at least on purpose.

Understand how bookmarking works and making your bookmarks useful is the real key.

If you want to lose your account at any of the better sites just go through and bookmark all your posts and nothing else. You will quickly be marked as a spammer and I have talked to many that have lost their account at places like Digg by doing this.

If all you are bookmarking is your blog and never anything else then you aren’t participating in the community. It is very much like spam blog comments. Take part in the community and add value and people will gladly post your comments.

Do the same with your bookmarking. If I find a good article about the things I follow I bookmark it. Give the person that supplied good content some link love and it gets returned. If you look at a persons bookmarks and they are all on the same site how much value does that add to the community.

Aren’t you more likely to follow the bookmarks of someone that has bookmarked 10 different sites on the same topic over 7 or more domains.

When I see that the person automatically has shown me that they are someone who has really looked at that topic and been finding the better items for me in that topic. They become an authority figure, not because they are the expert but because they have obviously looked at a variety of pages on that topic.

If you are commenting on blogs in your area of expertise to develop your own backlinks (and you should be) bookmark the posts that are of value. this will do two things for you. Make your bookmarks more valuable to the community and if you have commented and participated on that topic it will also help people find your site through your comment link. A win win win. The owner wins, you wins and the reader that follows your bookmark wins.

I know that the temptation to scam the system is there and short term it may generate some quick traffic but using the resources responsibly and consistently will generate you much more on a long term basis.

Mike Paetzold