There are many ways to spread the word about your blog and all the effort you put into making it the best. Few compare to social bookmarking when it comes to reaching a wide audience of enthusiastic readers quickly.
First, social bookmarking drives traffic. The type of people who participate in social bookmarking websites are looking for interesting things to read, vote on and comment on. There will be a target audience just for your blog.
One of the wonderful things about social bookmarking enthusiasts is that they are voracious content consumers. That means that they will return and read future posts of yours. Some of them might even submit your blog posts to share with others across numerous social bookmarking platforms.
Second, social bookmarking helps you build better search engine rankings in two ways. One, because the links from social bookmarking websites are fairly valuable, especially if your content gets voted to the home page. Two, because other bloggers who frequent social bookmarking websites will often build on your ideas in their own blog posts and link back to your post.
What social bookmarking websites should you use?
The most important social bookmarking communities are...
- Delicious
- StumbleUpon
- Digg
- Reddit
-Propeller
- Yahoo Buzz
- Mixx
There are also some worthwhile niche social bookmarking websites...
- BizSugar (for business-related posts)
- Tipd (for finance-related posts)
- Tipbo (for any post with tips in it) - Zoomit Canada
- Sphinn (for SEO-related posts)
- PFbuzz (for finance-related posts)
- MMO Network (for money-making posts)
There are many more, but these are all good. Here are 5 tips to promote your blog posts at these sites.
ONE: Make it easy for your readers.
Make it for your readers to social bookmark your pages. Add social bookmarking links to the end of each post.
TWO: Bookmark your own posts.
This is so very important. The whole value in the links and in the eyeballs that see your submission is in getting voted to the home page. You can't do that without great content and a stellar reputation and network amongst the membership. If you build that network, you'll reap the rewards.
THREE: Participate.
Be active on these social bookmarking websites. What do I mean by active? Well, at very least don't be a hit-and-run submitter. Once you have submitted your own post, make a point of voting for several others that you like and leave a comment. Regulars on the site will recognize the people who vote for and comment on their submissions...and those who do not. If you repeatedly ignore their submissions, why would they pay attention to yours.
FOUR: Don't spam.
OK, this seems to be a no-brainer, but too many people miss this. Social bookmarking is for sharing pages that will be of interest to people. Generally, these are informational. Submitting a home page is considered spam at any of the significant social bookmarking websites. So is a product page or any page about your company. News, opinion, strange facts, cute or wild photos - these are all good content. And make sure to stay on-topic; don't submit a hair replacement article to Tipd or Sphinn, for example. Study what has already made it to the home page on a social bookmarking site, and you will know what will fly there.
FIVE: Make the title sing.
Chances are you've already come up with a snappy title for your blog post. If so, you might want to just use that title when you submit to social bookmarking websites. On the other hand, it is worth reading carefully what works and what doesn't at each site. You probably need a longer title at Reddit. You might need a shorter title at Digg. You might need to emphasize the financial aspect at PFbuzz. But make sure the title is optimized to lure people in with curiosity.
There you have it - the top five tips to make social bookmarking drive traffic to your blog.
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