The Importance of Social Bookmarking
Mar 29, 2007 Michael BritoI 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
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March 30th, 2007 at 11:08 am
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".
March 30th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
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
March 30th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
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!
April 1st, 2007 at 10:04 pm
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.
April 2nd, 2007 at 1:33 pm
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]
April 2nd, 2007 at 1:40 pm
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?
April 2nd, 2007 at 1:49 pm
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.
April 2nd, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Ragnar,
Seems like you are in the business of spamming since you spammed this blog about your company.
~ Arial
: )
April 2nd, 2007 at 1:57 pm
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.
April 14th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
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.
April 14th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
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.
April 14th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
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.
June 22nd, 2007 at 12:03 pm
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.
May 29th, 2008 at 12:48 am
HelpFul Post Thanks For this