Every webmaster has had a time where their traffic is so low, it causes hair to get ripped out of the top of their head. There are so many ways to increase your traffic, including blog commenting and social networking (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), as well as social bookmarking.
Blog commenting is a sure source of free, quality traffic, as well as social networking, but many people have mixed views about social bookmarking. Some people view it as a huge waste of time, while others view it as a valuable resource to gain traffic.
What is Social Bookmarking?
Social bookmarking is when you, well… Bookmark your page on a website. Let’s say you write an article on your website, and would like some free traffic for it. One good way to gain traffic is via social bookmarking.
When you bookmark a page, it is then viewable to thousands, if not millions of people who are signed up with the social bookmarking website. Some examples of social bookmarking websites include Digg, StumbleUpon, and Technorati. Those three, however, are just some of the more popular ones. There are thousands more.
So, once you or one of your readers “bookmark” a page on your website, others can view it and, depending on the website, share it accordingly.
How They Work…
Digg
Digg is a social bookmarking website that, like the other social bookmarking website I am talking about, allow the users to decide what is worthy of receiving more traffic. How? Let me explain.
After registering for an account, you can then submit “Stories”, which are really just blog posts, or any other type of content that you may have. Now, it’s your turn to do some more work. In Digg, you are allowed to have friends. You now need to build up the number of friends you have.
Why do you need friends, you may ask? Well, whenever you submit or “Digg” a story, your friends see it. If they also Digg it, then their friends see it. The more Diggs a story gets, the more likely it is that it will appear on the front page – free advertising.
StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon works a little bit different than Digg, but has the same principal. After you’ve written an article you, or other readers (recommended), can “StumleUpon” your article and “Discover” it, thus sending it over to StumbleUpon.
After you’ve signed up for your free account, you will be asked to select your interests, then you can start StumbleUpon(ing?) articles. To do this, you must install the add on located on the website.
Afterwards, you can hit the “Stumble” button located in the toolbar. This will bring you to a website that has been submitted to the interest you selected. You can either hit “I like it” or the thumbs down button.
The more times your article get’s stumbled, the more likely it will appear when someone hits the “Stumble” button. The more sites you like/dislike, the more rep you build, too.
Downsides & Conclusion
Although social bookmarking can get you mass traffic (depending on how much work you do), there is two downsides;
- Requires a lot of time to get decent results.
- Not all visitors stay.
The main problem is that for all of your time spent, most of the traffic you receive will only be there for about fifty five seconds, then leave and never come back. Social bookmarking, StumbleUpon especially, is very addicting and can eat up your time.
So, is social bookmarking a waste of time? I say yes, but I want to know what you think!
Photo By lrargerich
Related Posts.
Tagged as: blog commenting, facebook, free traffic, social bookmarking, twiter
{ 50 comments… read them below or add one }
← Previous Comments
I personally think that social bookmarking in most cases is a huge waste of time. It just isn’t what it used to be. The only thing I say it’s good for is helping to get a post indexed more quickly in the early stages of your blog.
CJ
CJ’s last blog ..Could You Make Over a Million a Year Blogging?
I agree with you there. Social bookmarking is becoming a distraction as it takes a while (StumbleUpon majorly), and doesn’t give you a large amount of readers who will come back CONTINUALLY.
Thanks for the comment
I agree as well. It’s a waste of time if you focus on bookmarking alone. You can just add bookmarking to one of your methods but don’t focus on it.
hey joe,
Short and sweet.
I had always have queries of how these social bookmarking thingy works. As you mentioned, I have heard so much potential it can generate traffic into your site, but i really had no idea how it works eventually.
I could have worked on and experiment on it but somehow I was too caught up with working on other marketing strategies that I am more fluent with.
However, your post has greatly enhance my knowledge of exactly how social bookmarking works. Better yet, it is very efficient of you to explain 2 of the most prominent social bookmarks online, stumble upon and digg.
However, I do have some queries about social bookmarking. If i am not mistaken, for every interest content that you wish to bookmark online, you inevitably have to fill up some kinda additional information such as the most common ones are title,description and keywords.
I have had doubts on how do you effectively fill it up. Basically one of them is by working around with effective keywords. Is there any tips you can most likely share here about some of the more in depth techniques of effectively using social bookmarks? Despite just hitting the bookmarked button.
One tip that I have known about is that try not to include the content title within the bookmarked title because if somehow it appears too often, search engines would label it as spam. =\
anyway,thanks for your post, joe.
keep up the good work, my friend.
cheers
Febap Liew@Making Money Online´s last [type] ..10 Great Marketing Strategies To Drive Targeted Traffics For Free
Social bookmarking methods are complete mysteries to me. All I know how to do is hit the buttons, but I’ve been told that the more you use the websites, the more credibility you build, furthermore adding more power to you in the eyes of the website. But, like Google, not all secrets are told.
Thanks for the comment!
Joe Boyle´s last [type] ..The Power of Microsoft Excel
lol..
thanks for the reply joe.
Maybe I should try doing so and watch how things go..
=)
Mysteries of the internet marketing world .. lol
cheers
Febap Liew@Making Money Online´s last [type] ..10 Great Marketing Strategies To Drive Targeted Traffics For Free
Hey Joe!
Good food for thought.
I think social bookmarking can be valuable, but you need to have a strategy. Don’t just stumble your posts, get together with friends and all agree to stumble each other’s stuff. Sometimes that’s enough social proof to get a post to go viral, even to a tiny extent.
It’s no good for me right now though, because I haven’t followed my own advice
Jillian´s last [type] ..“4 Hour Sleep Week” Book Review
Lol, me neither. If you can get something to go viral, even on a miny scale, it will eventually pick up and go big. It’s like a snowball. It starts out small, but with a lot of help and effort, it will become HUGE.
Thanks for the comment
Joe Boyle´s last [type] ..The Power of Microsoft Excel
Careful, this is against their TOS big time.
ANYONE caught in this “agreement” can easily find themselves banned.
Just sayin’
Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing´s last [type] ..Would You Like a PRIVATE Community?
Caught doing what? Going viral?
Please elaborate!
These “teams” have always been found out, and everyone gets banned.
Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing´s last [type] ..Would You Like a PRIVATE Community
Social bookmarking can be a great tool for generating traffic but what most people do is just spam and hence receive zero traffic.
Blogging tips´s last [type] ..Managing Canonical URLs In Your Wordpress Blog .
I don’t think I’ve found one guide that maps out how to CORRECTLY use a social bookmarking website, and get massive traffic, without being a spammer. When that guide comes out, I am sure that social bookmarking will become less of a waste of time. Thanks for the comment
i have never been a fan of digg and stumbleupon…
ok, i use twitter and facebook extensively but very inactive on digg….
Tushar´s last [type] ..What I Learned About StumbleUpon in 3 Tries
Twitter and Digg aren’t really social bookmarking sites. They’re are more meant for communication. So, you are safe.
Joe Boyle´s last [type] ..Don’t Worry About Traffic…
It depends on how many followers you have
Mad Geek @beingPC´s last [type] ..Some cool features of Windows Live Messenger Beta or Wave 4
That’s true. If you have no followers versus 1000 subscribers, you can imagine the difference in traffic.
Thanks for the comment
Joe Boyle´s last [type] ..Don’t Worry About Traffic…
Social bookmarking methods are complete my steries to me.
i’m fand of digg and stumbleupon too ^^
Eseotips´s last [type] ..Top 10 ways to promote your site
I have received some traffic from social bookmarking, but the problem is, the traffic isn’t targeted. Just because they found your site doesn’t mean they are determined to learn about what you’re talking about. Good luck!
Joe Boyle´s last [type] ..Don’t Worry About Traffic…
Good post.
I have not tried social book marking yet. I had a question:
Can we social bookmark a squeeze page?
Secondly, I read on viperchill, that Stumbleupon has now also introduced a toolbar that you do not need to install. And it shows up at the top of the page that you are viewing.
Nabeel
Hi Nabeel,
Yes, we can bookmark any page, as long as it is appropriate. In my experience though, bookamarking a squeeze page is not that effective, because it doesn’t have enough information on it.
Regards,
Gary
You can bookmark any page on the web, though it will be removed if it is inappropriate.
StumbleUpon has a toolbar version and a version that just floats above the page. I prefer the toolbar version. Takes up less space.
Joe Boyle´s last [type] ..Don’t Worry About Traffic…
The way you present the subject, it seems that social bookmarking is really a waste of time. But you can’t count on lots of traffic from one or two social websites unless you have tons of followers/friends… I think that you must create something like “link wheel” or “mini-net” using several social bookmarking sites, where you bookmark your posts and the entries in the bookmarking sites as well… also you must ping all of this, not all at at time, but smoothly… according what I’ve been reading about this, you may spend at least 30 minutes a day, 4-5 days, for each post to start getting some decent traffic, but I’m still looking at the mechanics and will try tyhis in a near future.
Cheers
Jorge
Jorge´s last [type] ..Starting Own Business Online – The 5 Gold Rules
As for pinging, you can Google “Wordpress pings” and copy a bunch of them, go to Settings > Writing, and paste them in the last box. This will ping all of the services you past whenever your write an article. Thanks for the comment!
Social bookmarking is useful things when you have number of favorite links,it gives the options to save your favorite links and share with others.
It’s not a time wasting process.
Surender Sharma´s last [type] ..Best Sources To Find Killer Blog Posts Ideas
Agreed. Thanks for the comment!
Joe Boyle´s last [type] ..Don’t Worry About Traffic…
I personally think social bookmarking is not a waste of time and the result you get depends on the work you do.
Thanks a lot for the great post,
-Onibalusi
Onibalusi Bamidele´s last [type] ..A Better Tomorrow
Yeah. The more you put into it, the more you get back, but it does cost you a lot of time.
Thanks for the comment!
Joe Boyle´s last [type] ..Don’t Worry About Traffic…
I can’t give personal experience, as I have none yet. I can say the main gripe is lack of conversion, but yet Delicious seems extremely popular.
Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing´s last [type] ..Would You Like a PRIVATE Community?
I have gotten a decent bit of traffic from social bookmarking sites, including Delicious, but, as I’ve said before, not many of the visitors stayed. It’s not targeted traffic.
Joe Boyle´s last [type] ..Don’t Worry About Traffic…
Personally, I don’t find social bookmarking a reliable traffic strategy simply because of the nature of the communities, interests and voting.
I would much rather place my time working on building backlinks that are going to have heavy relevance instead of taking too much time with it.
However, I do use social bookmarking as a way to keep track of my links but with browser synchronization it’s becoming less important to submit.
I just allow my readers to submit if they really feel like it otherwise I want to work on content.
Murlu´s last [type] ..Tapping Into Craigslist To Find Freelance Clients
I completely agree, Murlu. Social bookmarking is something you no longer need to do for your own articles.
Thanks for the comment!
For me it’s a waste of time if you focus on it. You can just add it to one of your methods, but don’t focus on it. Although it helps for additional exposure, but don’t rely too much on social bookmarking.
Yeah, social bookmarking is kind of like a side job. It doesn’t give you a ton of benefits, costs some time, but does give you something.
Hi Joe,
I think it’s way too time consuming to focus on them. One good thing with Digg, which can apply to high authority sites, is rather than digg all the time, you can build backlinks on the digg url for some SE traffic.
Louis
I agree. Most social bookmarking sites are too time consuming without a big enough pay off. Thanks for the comment!
Hi, thanks for explaining the difference between social networking and bookmarking.
I’ve started the networking on twitter but as yet haven’t done any bookmarking. Looking at the comments left I’m not going to rush out and start either.
There are many ways of gaining traffic, i’m learning them as i go, but it seems that the bookmarking is to time consuming for the results that people have mentioned here. I may change my opinion at some point in the future but for now i think i’ll leave bookmarking for those that enjoy it.
Thanks for the explanation, Barry
Barry Wells´s last [type] ..Is This The Age of Disposable Computers
Yeah, social bookmarking is a lot less valuable than social networking, in my opinion. You can build up a strong following of dedicated people on social networks, compared to the little you can build on bookmarking websites.
Thanks for the comment!
Nice and informative article! I wasn’t very well known to how Digg operates and the explanation really proved to be useful to me. I also thought that social bookmarking is rather a time waste, but know after reading the article, I will give Digg a shot again. I’m not sure about Stumbleupon though, as getting traffic there seems to be quite hard and requires tons of time.
Daniel Sharkov´s last [type] ..Auto Links Pro – An Effective Link Exchange Software
Hi Joe. I think Social bookmarking is one way to make traffic. its waste of time but must use it because it bring more traffic to website.
Eseotips´s last [type] ..How to get more traffic using Digg
Great post. It can be a waste of time if you’re just doing hit-n-runs. You’ll likely see better results if you focus on only using a few sites that are related to your site and establishing yourself there.
Awesome post Joe!
) and two: I love your style bro, it flows nicely.
)
Epic almost man, really enjoyed that because one: FINALLY I understand social bookmarking properly (does anyone really though
I think social bookmarking is a waste of time, I would rather spend the same time blog commenting since its better in the long run to build relationships and ironically I get more traffic that way.
Just to put it into perspective man, Brandon over at theInfopreneur told me that my post on how to steal SEO secrets was stumbled over 1000 times!! And guess what – I see no traffic on my site as a result and there are still only a handful of comments, so as you said correctly, they are spending all of 55 seconds there before they continue stumble upon(ing?) (stole that
Thanks for an awesome post and Dev, thanks for letting the J man post!
Awesome dude!
before some 2 years, social bookmarking is waste, but now we can get huge traffic from social bookmarking..
For me it’s just been a waste of time, but I can see how it might be helpful for some.
Digg V 4 is now in beta – some are very excited but personally I have never clicked a social bookmark at the end of an article.
Dot Com´s last [type] ..Digg For Victory
I too used to think whether spending time on social bookmarking sites to promote really helps. But instead of thinking whether its useful or not its better to schedule some time everyday for promoting and discussing in social media sites. Out of 100 visitors who stay for 55sec as you say if at least one of them become a repeated visitor then the visitor is a great asset. A wonderful post.
Mukundan Srinivasan´s last [type] ..How to get More ReTweets Use TweetMeme WP Plugin
I get very little traffic from social bookmarking. The dofollow bookmarks do however provide you with a good backlink. Just make sure it is dofollow.
Mike´s last [type] ..Youtube to Mp3 converter
Completely agree with you social bookmarking site need some time to show results.
Stumble upon gives better result than digg in starting i found this by doing it.
Thanks For Sharing Good Tips
Abhishek
Abhishek´s last [type] ..11 Essential Home Business Tools You Must Have
Hey Joe, I just posted an article about social bookmarking and I may post an update after reading your article. Social networks sites all seem to be viewed under the umbrella of “social media” with each network falling into one of four subgroups, i.e., relationship building sites, content dissemination/distribution sites, rating/tagging sites, and entertainment sites. You as well as some of your readers view rating and tagging sites like digg and stumbleupon as an ineffective use of time as far as social bookmarking is concerned and that efforts are better spent on relationship building, microblogging sites like twitter and on content sharing sites like any blog platform. It makes sense to me. I differ only in the idea that social bookmarking applies to rating and tagging sites alone. I see social bookmarking taking place across the entire social media spectrum or landscape. A bookmark or page link looks different on twitter or facebook than it does on digg or stumbleupon but it’s still a social bookmark after all isn’t it? Be well, Steve D.
Steve@social bookmarking´s last [type] ..Social Bookmarking For Internet Marketers
Social Bookmarking is a complete waste of time as a backlink strategy. The links have no value and are ignored by the search engines. Social traffic is the last thing you want coming to a niche site. The only use social traffic can have on your site is if visitors accidentally click an ad looking for the exit button. It is not really worth bookmarking aticles to get them in the index. Just send a backlink from another website, even a page with no PR has more credibility than a bookmarking site. Social traffic can balls up your ad revenue…
That is my opinion on social bookmarking! Good Blog BTW
Marvin Africa @ Macro Photography´s last [type] ..What is Macro Photography