I’ve been a bad little social whore. With the number of social sites popping up each week, I’ve been pondering how one might start using these sites to help promote your own site without becoming buried by the sheer number of them. In this post, I’m speaking directly to those sites that allow you to place a “bookmark” on them.
A bookmark is really no different than you saving a favorite in your browser, except for the fact that they are either public or private, and Google and other search engines can find them. Thus increasing the the number of links you have pointing to your site.
I’ve found a site that will help save you time while bookmarking your links to a number of the social sites out there. You’ll still need to spend the time to set up your accounts there, but the end results are going to be worth your time.
Why use a social bookmarking site?
In case you are wondering why you might want to use these sites, there are a number of responses to that. First, you know you need links on external sites that point to your site, right? This handles that.
Secondly, having links to your primary domain is nice. Having links to specific articles and posts is even better. This is known as deep-linking. This will help you place those links too.
Thirdly, it’s yet another way of finding more people to visit your blog or web site. As some of these sites provide a “friending” mechanism, you can thusly create a following on them to help bring more eyeballs to your site.
Follow the Rules
Each one of the social bookmarking sites listed below acts and behaves in their own way. They each have their own nuances and community rules. You should also take the time to become familiar with each one you intend to use on a regular basis. No need to go and get banned from any because you didn’t know the rules, right?
Update! Beware of Red Flagging
It has just come to my attention that Google and perhaps some other search engines look for excessive bookmarking and will red flag a site that appears to be abusing social networking for their own gain. My advice is to use some common sense when bookmarking your own sites and blog posts. The best way is still to get your visitors to do your bookmarking for you!
Use Social Submitter to speed things up
As one might imagine, there has been a need for a tool to help save people time in this regard. No one wants to spend the time creating all these backlinks by hand if they can avoid it! There are tools and what-not for marketing a web page or site that exist out there, you just need to find them. SocialMarker.com is nothing but extraordinary in the way it saves you time spreading your own link love across the Internet.
SocialMarker allows you to enter the title, url, description and tags for a post and then visit 48 different social book-marking sites to post a blurb about your post. Just hit submit and you’re moving along to the first site.
The first time through, you’ll need to create an account on those sites that you don’t already have an account, and that can take a little time. Once you have an account on each one though, you’re rolling. I took the time to establish an account with each and every social bookmark site they had listed, 48 of them. I was able to spread links to 5 different posts of mine to 48 sites within the scope of 2 hours once I was rolling.
If you happen to want to spread some links around the Internet to some quality, high PR sites, you need to give SocialMarker a look.
The Supported Sites
Some Observations
I don’t normally Stumble my own stuff, so I just click next when that site comes up in the queue. I also skip the YuppMarks, and HealthRanker, since they don’t look applicable to my blog. You just need to go through it, and decide for yourself which ones you want to sign up with and may be beneficial to you and/or your site.
When using SocialMarker, you should check to make sure the values that are being submitted are what you expect. Some of them look back at your blog and grab from there instead of what you supply into the SocialMarker interface.
Also, some are specific to a particular niche. Like Health Ranker, it appears to be primarily medical, so I skip that one too.
For those that set off to create accounts on these services, may I also suggest that you take a little time to dress up your profile there. You can supply your homepage on some, and define an avatar too. And don’t forget, while your there, add me as a friend and we’ll help each other grow.
Be A Friend?
I’m ‘waynejohn’ on most of these services (some won’t allow you to specify a username). If you participate in any of them, why not add me as a friend there if you are also on there? If you have any problems finding me, just let me know on my contact form, or simply leave a comment below.
Do you know of any social bookmarking sites that are not in the above list? Leave a comment and tell us about it.
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says:
hey wayne,
do you still use the social submitter tool? just wondering if chasing the social traffic has paid off for you now that a couple of years have gone by. I still use this tool and another called social poster for the bookmarking links mostly as the social traffic has died down in the last couple of years.
ivf´s last blog ..Infertility Treatments And Computer Forcasted Odds
says:
Nope, I quit commenting and linking altogether. I decided to not chase links and to just let them happen naturally.
Hi Wayne,
Just interested in why you stopped commenting and chasing links? And what has been the effect on your site?
Camden@Mens Gifts´s last blog ..Bronze Sundial- Sun and Moon Bronze Sundial
says:
I believe that the time spent commenting and linking from various sites is less important than creating new content and new sites. When you create a site that will naturally take off, people will create the links for you.
Creating links myself feels more like trying to shove bites of food down a baby’s unwilling throat sometimes…not to mention the time it takes.
The effect? Nothing really. I get less comments here perhaps, but I’m not here for people to tell me how “wonderful” I am, or how much they liked my article. My traffic has been steadily increasing for the past few years…even more so now that Bing has consumed Yahoo search.
Creating backlinks for the sake of improving your rankings can help, but again, I just don’t see the benefit when you can leave it alone and get the same results over a longer period of time. Perhaps it’s not as fast…but then, I’m 50+ sites ahead of those that do, and those 50+ sites will gain links naturally as well, or they won’t. Doesn’t matter…I have 50+ sites that are working for me.
Thanks MarbleHost!
Nice post. I am familiar with most of them but still they are in good description so that everyone can understand it very well. A couple of other things that I’ve found useful. Your efforts are awesome. Keep it up.
I had just tried it after seeing this post .thank you for this post and link.
Its an awesome tool. I never heard about it. Thanks a lot
I’m glad you find value here, cheers and thanks!
I must admit I find it insightful to read your blogging. Keep up the good work.
good!i like it
Hi JeD, I’ve added you on each of those services. Looking forward to what you find. Thanks for giving back!
Hello thanks very much for this very useful post!
I must say that I really love social bookmarking sites especially StumbleUpon and Mixx. With this I could explore more how bookmarking sites can help promote your own articles.
*
I can’t seem to find you Wayne perhaps you could add me on:
StumbleUpon: http://jedwardchan.stumbleupon.com
Mixx: http://mixx.com/users/jedchan
or perhaps we could follow each other on twitter: http://twitter.com/jedchan
Thanks again for this post Wayne, I’ll try SocialMarker.
By the way I thumbs-up this post and mixxed as well.
Cheers!
JeD Chan
Yeah, SocialMarker.com has a software version you can pay for, and it does way more sites also arielz. I’ve yet to use it, so I can’t vouch for how well it works. If the owners of the app want to give me a version that I can use, I’d be more than happy to write a post and help promote the product though.
I’ve actually contacted another company about writing add-ons to their existing tool that does the same thing. I’ve yet to hear back from anyone though. I’m this close to writing my own…
i usually using 4 major social bookmarking like digg, delicious, stumbleupon, and magnolia.
is there any software that can automate this bookmarking process?
I’ve use the social submitter a bunch of times with pretty good success, it certainly saves time, though it’s by no means perfect.
Hi Rodney, thanks for asking. So far I’ve seen a significant traffic increase from Google and other engines, but I’m not sure how much of that I can contribute to linking out. Near the same time I’ve added my blog to all the directories you see in my side bar, I’ve been running two campaigns, and commenting on many new sites recently.
The social networks only need to be established, you can grow relationships on there over the passage of time. I think as long as you get them started, get your profile done up a little, add a friend or two and go from there, the benefits will come with little time.
At least, that is what I’m going with today.
I’ll see if I can break out some numbers for a true analysis on this.
Thanks for your submission to the Thirtieth edition of the Blog Carnival: Blogging. Your post has been accepted and its live: http://thatsblog.com/?p=178
-ThatsBlog.com
I’m curious as to what sort of results you’re getting from this – seen much traffic coming from these sites? I tried this out awhile back with 10 or 12 of the better-known ones, and wasn’t blown away by the amount of traffic they generated. Then again, what you said about building a network on the social sites is very important, and that’s where the main benefits lie, I think. But who has time for that?
Oh Ettarose that’s just Dana blowing smoke again. I don’t see any hunks around here…maybe one man whore…but certainly not a hunk.
I’m blushing now…
Thanks for subscribing!
I had to come and see what all the talk is about this hunk of man, or man hunk or whatever Dana calls you. Ok, I admit it you are a little on the hunky side. I subscribed to you. Now you will be played like the man whore between Dana and I. Bwahahahaha
Thanks Wayne (and to all readers who listed other options) – so much learn!
And these blogs are so helpful
The best social bookmark site is by far Digg.
Hmm…just now looked at OnlyWire, that’s a new one to me. I’m setting myself up on there too. Initially it looks like SocialMarker may have more tied to it, but OnlyWire may be less time consuming.
Thanks for turning me on to it!
Looks interesting, I’m gonna have to tinker around with this service abit now. Kindof like onlywire?
BlueCrystalDude, glad you like it, just be careful not to over do it. There could be ramifications to it!
Thanks Laketrees, that is always nice and appreciated for sure!
Thanks Dana, I’m glad we could get that header straightened out. Feel free to steal anything you like around this mess.
I just put a link back here on my blog and added you to my blog roll. And stole a few things while I was here.
hi Wayne..
I’ll check this out ..it looks great …
I’ll add your site to my 2008 blogroll too
have a great weekend
This is amazing! Thanks for the information. I haven’t been active in these social bookmarking as there are way too many of them and it can get little out of my hand. But, I will give the SocialMarker a try. Thanks again for sharing this information!
Bluecrystaldude
I’m still using the free service but have considered paying. I’m still learning the in’s and out’s so I can’t justify paying the money yet.
Hi Wayne,
Thanks for the info!
Are you using the free service or paid?
Mike