Using Social Bookmarking for Blog Marketing
There are many forms of “Social” Services available on the internet. Since all require a sizable amount of time and effort to build a “reputation”, I’ve decided to focus on the what I believe to be the best starting point for quickly increasing website traffic/links… Social Bookmarking. I’m also approaching the subject from a webmaster point of view and not a personal productivity enhancement, so your results/experience may vary greatly.
The hub for the sharing of internet links is Del.icio.us. It remains at the center of almost all of the other services, despite numerous innovations and presentation methods. The first step before trying any of the other sites needs to be a decent collection of bookmarks in a Del.icio.us account. My suggestions for doing so are…
Create a new Del.icio.us userid based on your website/blog name.
Create as many bookmarks as possible that relate to your topic/theme and add multiple tags.
There are many extensions/plugins/browsers available to make this easier.
Remove links that are very personal or totally unrelated, like your bank or insurance companies.
Keep some links that are somewhat unrelated to show you have other interests besides just the topic/theme of your website/blog.
Add links to your site and most of the posts/pages on it.
Maintain a decent balance of links to your site versus others. Don’t appear to be only about self promotion.
Remember that this is creating an online “personality” and that all bookmarks are viewable by others. Your collection should be representative of yourself and your site.
Export as XML and HTML files. They can be used for importing at most of the other services.
Now you are ready to move on to the next step and sign up at some other sites. My Top 5 suggestions, based enhancing marketability with the least amount of effort are…
Groups, watchlists, and notes.
Easy sync with Del.icio.us (under Third Party Tools)
Simpy API (REST) can be integrated with Java, PHP, or Python.
Can add your AdSense account and they only show ads to non-members.
Groups, ratings, saved copies, and community focused.
Lots of Add-ons available. Not just bookmarklets and toolbar buttons.
Submit your bookmarks to 11 other social bookmarking services. (Create an account, then go to Settings – External Accounts. Don’t do this with just the default IP address based account.)
Taxonomy for tags. (Intuitive names of topics and one of the better directories I’ve seen recently)
MySpace Organizer (Friend Import) and Friend Space Gen
REST API and examples of how to build queries.
Import postings from Del.icio.us based on Tags
Plugin for WordPress to automatically bookmark your posts.
Your “Shadow Tag Cloud” can be posted on MySpace or WordPress
Groups, comments, ratings, etc…
Spurled bookmarks can be setup to automatically add to Del.icio.us
My spurls -> Analysis can show broken links and archived versions.
Additional information can be found in the Word (or OneNote 2007) version of my notes. They are not as complete as I would like, but I’ve run out of time.
Google Notebook will be going live this week and presents a wonderful opportunity to test Social Bookmarking on a brand new site. Just be sure to add a link to http://www.notetalkers.com!
