What is Social Bookmarking?

Social Bookmarking websites are those that allow us to keep our favourite sites online rather than in the favourites section of our web browser. The biggest advantage of this to the user is that it means you will be able to access your favourite sites from any computer and even possibly your mobile phone.

The other advantage is that you can use social bookmarking sites to search for relevant topics and find information. For the user this can have a distinct advantage over using search engines. Why I hear you asking? Well the main reason is that search engines rank their result by using a computer program. However social bookmarking sites will rank their sites on popularity, so how useful they are to the user. This will enable you to find the most useful sites in a certain topic as determined by other web users.

Most social bookmarking website will group sites together under tag which are similar to keywords. These are usually broad and so are best used by people that are searching for general topics rather than specific information.

The Main Players

Probably the main social bookmarking sites are Del.icio.us, Digg and StumbleUpon. They all have their different qualities and will be used by different groups of people.

Del.icio.us - This is probably the biggest social bookmarking site and really kick started the use of social bookmarks. This is very easy to use and to integrate with your browser which makes it quite popular. It is possible to make sites either private so that you do not need to share them and also public.

You can search bookmarks of other people and if you like what they do you can add them to your network. This will allow you to very quickly see what bookmarks they are posting.

Digg - This is also a very large social bookmarking website that allows you to set up a full profile giving information about yourself and what you do.

StumbleUpon - One of the most interesting of the social bookmarking sites out there. As with the other sites you can set up a full profile adding as much or as little information about you as you want.

This site works quite well as it allows for a lot of interaction between different users. Not only will you be able to become fans of other user and they fans of you, but you will also be able to make friends. This adds a lot for of the social networking functions that you see on sites like Facebook and Myspace. You can set up your own blog and keep all your friends informed on what you are doing.

Addition features include the ability to have sites that are in your top pics and those that you have just discovered, this give more colour to what you do than on other similar sites.

How to Use Social Bookmarking Sites for your Website Promotion

The first thing to consider is that if your site appears on a social network then it will create a valuable backlink to your website and so help your search engine rankings. On the idea of search engines, it is also worth thinking about the fact that they consider social bookmarking links when raking your site. The more links you have from social bookmarking sites the more popular your site. This says to the search engines that you are more important and so they will take this into account when raking your site.

Also think about the traffic that these sites get and the people that will see your links. You can get valuable traffic coming to your site directly from the social bookmarking websites if you are posting your links accurately.

Now let's consider the best way to use these sites:

1. Make sure you tag your website and any other relevant pages on as many social networking sites as possible.

2. Encourage visitors to your site to bookmark your site and pages if they like them

3. Get on the social bookmarking sites and network with people who have may be interested in your business.

Conclusion

Social Bookmarking is fast becoming one of the most effective ways to market your online business. When you consider the fact that it is free it is a great thing to get into. I will make one proviso here though, don't just bookmark your site, include other sites that you find interesting. This will keep people interested in your profile and not just see you as marketing your business.