The Importance of Social Bookmarking

Mar
29

I am not going to get into the definition of social media optimization because, quite frankly, I am tired of talking about it. I have been spreading the gospel of SMO for months now across my organization. However, if you have a blog or at least a web page with killer content on it, I hope you are utilizing social bookmarks. Why? Because social bookmarking will help your web content travel across the internet in an effort to achieve true “omnipresence”. Paul does an excellent job in his SEO Blog emphasizing the importance of using bookmarks on your blogs/web pages and even points you to some cool tools you can use in an effort to do so.

What caught my attention though was the following graph (source: addthis):

It concludes, that 18% of people are still adding web pages to their favorites which is still a great source of repeat traffic; and I would argue that this traffic is probably the most valuable. Another eye opener for me were the low percentages for Stumbleupon and Digg, considering I get the most of my traffic from one of those sites. I guess the only caveat is that this data is only from those users who have the addthis widget installed on their blogs; but it sure is great information to have.

Technorati Tags: social media optimization, smo, socialmediaoptimization, addthis, social bookmarking, social bookmarks

Author: Michael Brito

Michael Brito is a Vice President of Social Media at Edelman Digital. All thoughts and opinions on this blog are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of his employer or clients; neither past or present.

Lee Odden

One thing many blog owners using the addthis widget don't seem to consider is that it sends readers to a third party web site. What if that site goes down? What if that site starts to show ads that distract them from the actual bookmarking?

Of course I'm biased because our Social Bookmarks tool lets blog owners add bookmark links (as you have above) and keep readers on the blog as much as possible.

The numbers for Google Bookmarks are very significant in light of their use for Google personalized search results.

Anyone that's really interested in social bookmarks should come to SES New York where Todd Malicoat, Michael Gray, Neil Patel and myself are presenting a session called, "Bookmarking Strategies".

Michael Brito

Yes, indeed. Lee - you are right. Your tool is much more effective to keep the eyeballs on my blog.

I'd love to attend the seminar in NY. Will you be attending the San Jose SES?

By the way, I have some news so we should probably talk early next week.

Michael

Lee Odden

Hi Michael, yes I will be at SES San Jose for sure. I'm bringing some of the TopRank crew as well! I've sent an email to you so we can coordinate a time to meet. Cheers!

Mary

Gents - great post. I am thinking about using Lee's bookmarkng tool on my blog as well. Although, I was on a site (i think techcrunch) a few days ago and I really like their popup bookmarking tool. It's probably developed in house though. Boohoo.

Ragnar Danneskjold

Speaking of social bookmarking...

A colleague and I have just unleashed the ultimate Digg-scamming website. We feel this will be the most cost effective way to promote any content on the Internet, hands down.

Check us out, and let me know what you think:

http://subvertandprofit.com

We will be expanding to social bookmarking sites beyond Digg very rapidly.

Thanks,
Ragnar Danneskjold [pseudonym]

Michael Brito

lol Ragnar - now, why would we want to scam Digg? Don't you think they are smart enough to see this coming? Not sure I would risk getting banned.

Lee - do you have any thoughts on this since you were banned unintentionally a few months back?

Lee Odden

I guess if I was going to get banned for something it might as well be for outright scamming, which isn't an option for a variety of reasons including: risk/reward is too high, degrades the community content, it's not sustainable.

Our banning had to do with Digg users hating SEO content. Read Graywolf's "How to be a dirty digger" for more on that sort of activity.

Arial Martinez

Ragnar,
Seems like you are in the business of spamming since you spammed this blog about your company.

~ Arial

: )

Ragnar Danneskjold

No... they are not smart enough.

We have created algorithms that will ensure our users' behavior will appear normal. Even User/Submitter has able to scam Digg successfully since last October, and they have far fewer measures to prevent tracking.

Mark Laymon

One problem with Stumbleupon traffic is that is does not convert. (NOT AT ALL) If you are working Stumbleupon you need to have pay per view advertising. But the link juice is good.

Michael Brito

I guess it depends on what your overall conversion goals are. I am sure if you are trying to sell products and/or services it might be difficult.

Mark Laymon

For branding it seems to be OK. But to make a sale or generate a lead it does not do well for me. Out of 3000 plus people yesterday only about 10 clicked on ads. Soon we are going to try different squeeze pages.

Sujan Patel

Having social bookmarking buttons are awesome and I have been getting more votes since having them on my site. But the only problem I had was because of those buttons visitors submit my post at bad timing and most of the time i don't even know about it until its to late.

Amardeep

HelpFul Post Thanks For this

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sendgiftstoindia

Hi there,
You are really right social bookmarking is really important & bcoz of that we are getting many visitors on our website.

bayilik

Problem to have visitor who push the bookmark buttons.Fantastic sharing.Thanks

Home Business Leads

With a blog, I agree social bookmarking your blog and posts is important. Don't forget pinging as well.

Ask Dr. Jacobson Online

I strongly agree with your talk about SMO. Although my web designer takes care of my blog, I make sure that he included the ADDThis button. Many of the people I have helped found my pages through services such as DIGG and other social bookmarking services. It also makes things much easier for my visitors to bookmark my articles.