MORE ON SOCIAL BOOKMARKING

Today we are covering How to use “Social Bookmarking” to Build Your Social Networking Spider Web and get massive traffic to your business.

This topic is on how to get a lot of sites to link back to your website or blog and to create a lot of targeted traffic by using “social bookmarking”!

Social bookmarking is very popular with marketers in every business, hobby or personal niche.  Social bookmarking sites such as StumbleUpon, Digg, Del.icio.us, and Technorati let users add links to sites they like and make those links public so that other visitors can grab those links and add them to their own lists.  This makes your URLs (website links) go viral.

Social bookmarking sites are a great way to get traffic to your own websites and blogs.  What you do is bookmark your sites and then hope others will share the links.  On some social bookmarking sites like Digg, viewers can vote for your entries and make them even more popular.

If enough people vote for your particular link (that has an article or blog posting associated with it), it might make it to the front page of that bookmarking site.  A front-page listing can yield thousands of visitors a day to your site. However, because of the very nature of social bookmarking sites, if you want to get tons of traffic from the bookmarking sites, you need to make sure that the links you submit are interesting – and not just your sales pitch page.

Take a look at current events to use as a source of information to write about – and then bookmark.  For example – let’s say your blog is in the interior design niche and you have a site on high end interior design.  A simple how-to site may not get shared a lot.

But let’s say you read an article about using simple products from Ikea or KMart for making high-end interior design work on a limited budget.  With this type of topic you’d have a pretty decent shot at having a lot of home owners or interior designers share your links with others.

If your blog tends to be less newsworthy and more general, then you don’t need to worry about how many people vote for your story or share your links.  In this situation, just concentrate on using the social bookmarking sites to build back links to your sites, which will increase your search engine popularity.

Concentrate on bookmarking the index page (home or main page) of each of your sites first.

The key to social bookmarking is to become a participant in a community that shares interesting information. Create a good, personal profile that tells a little about you.  Make sure to add some photos, and if the site offers it, start building a friends or fans list.

Be careful not to add too many links each day. Don’t go crazy and add 100 links a day. Try to keep it to 10 or less per day and you will be okay.

After you’ve been a participant for a few weeks, you might be able to get away with up to 50 per day.  And…. make sure to keep bookmarking stories on other websites and vote for a few of the popular stories that made it onto the first page.  This will help to make your profile look a lot more legitimate in the eyes of the community.

How to use “Social Bookmarking” to Build a “Social Networking Spider Web” – Tip 02B

This topic is on how to get a lot of  sites to link back to your website or blog and to create a lot of targeted traffic by using “social bookmarking” to create a “social networking spider web”! The first part of this post on Social Bookmarking is at http://markvschwartz.com/121/using-social-bookmarking-to-getting-traffic-02/

Social bookmarking is very popular with marketers in every business, hobby or personal niche.  Social bookmarking sites such as StumbleUpon, Digg, Del.icio.us, and Technorati let users to add links to sites they like and make those links public so that other visitors can grab those links and add them to their own lists.  This makes your URLs (website links) go viral.

Social bookmarking sites are a great way to get traffic to your own websites and blogs.  What you do is bookmark your sites and then hope others will share the links.  On some social bookmarking sites like Digg, viewers can vote for your entries and make them even more popular.

If enough people vote for your particular link (that has an article or blog posting associated with it), it might make it to the front page of that bookmarking site.  A front-page listing can yield thousands of visitors a day to your site. However, because of the very nature of social bookmarking sites, if you want to get tons of traffic from the bookmarking sites, you need to make sure that the links you submit are interesting – and not just your sales pitch page.

Take a look at current events to use as a source of information to write about – and then bookmark.  For example – let’s say your blog is in the interior design niche and you have a site on high end interior design.  A simple how-to site may not get shared a lot.

But let’s say you read an article about using simple products from Ikea or KMart for making high-end interior design work on a limited budget.  With this type of topic you’d have a pretty decent shot at having a lot of home owners or interior designers share your links with others.

If your blog tends to be less newsworthy and more general, then you don’t need to worry about how many people vote for your story or share your links.  In this situation, just concentrate on using the social bookmarking sites to build backlinks to your sites, which will increase your search engine popularity.

Concentrate on bookmarking the index page (home or main page) of each of your sites first.

The key to social bookmarking is to become a participant in a community that shares interesting information. Create a good, personal profile that tells a little about you.  Make sure to add some photos, and if the site offers it, start building a friends or fans list.

Be careful not to add too many links each day. Don’t go crazy and add 100 links a day. Try to keep it to 10 or less per day and you will be okay.

After you’ve been a participant for a few weeks, you might be able to get away with up to 50 per day.  And…. make sure to keep bookmarking stories on other websites and vote for a few of the popular stories that made it onto the first page.  This will help to make your profile look a lot more legitimate in the eyes of the community.

Yahoo Profiles.

In previous posts, Google Profiles – Creating Your Social Networking Spiderweb – Tip 08, we covered setting up Google and Microsoft Live Profiles and why they are such a great idea.  This is a continuation on that theme, only this time we are covering Yahoo Profiles and why you should set one up to promote yourself.

And here is an example of what my Yahoo Profile looks like http://profiles.yahoo.com/markvschwartz

Live – Bing Profiles.

In a previous post, Google Profiles – Creating Your Social Networking Spiderweb – Tip 08, we covered setting up a Google Profile and why it is such a great idea.  This is a continuation on that theme, only this time we are covering Microsoft’s Live (Bing) Profiles and why you should set one up to promote yourself.

And here is an example of what my Live Profile looks like – http://cid-76eddf7545e67454.profile.live.com/

“Google Profiles” are a great way to promote yourself, your brand and get your name out on the web.

Google Profiles are being given very good placement in the search engine results, so it is worth it for you to set one up.

A Google profile is exactly what it sounds like: A personal profile that appears when someone does a Google search of your name — it lets you display to others more about who you are and what you’re all about. My advice: Create one now to make sure you’re properly represented on the Web.  Creating a Google profile is a great “low cost seo” tactic used by many “seo experts”.

Once you set up your Google profile it will (soon) be available in other Google web applications.   For example, when you are in Google Maps there is a link to your profile at the top of the page.

Profiles are public and contain basic information about yourself: a nickname (the real name is displayed only to your contacts), your occupation, your location, a list of your links to other sites, a photo and a short description.

To begin with, you can upload a photo of yourself so people that have met you will know you are the person they are looking for. A profile also lets visitors send you messages (but doesn’t give them your e-mail address — nice bit of privacy protection there), read your bio, get contact information (whatever you care to provide), and see any links you care to share. And, Google now lists name-search results in a Profile section at the bottom of the query page. By creating a profile, you can stake a claim to that section and, hopefully, steer searchers to the real you.

Creating a Google Profile is easy:

1. Go to Google Profiles (http://www.google.com/profiles) and click ‘Create my profile’.
2. If you already have a Google username, sign in. If not, you’ll need to create one before you can proceed.
3. Enter information like your name, where you grew up, where you live, where you work, where you went to school. The more information you enter the more interesting you will be to people viewing your profile.
4. Profile Photo – The key to a good profile is a good photo of yourself so people know who they’re reading about when they get to your profile. So add a photo of yourself because everyone wants to see a photo when they’re reading a profile.
5. Create a short bio about yourself (and your business).  Make it engaging, yet professional. Remember, potential employers may look at your profile so be careful what you say.
6. What you Offer – Do you have a home based or personal business? If you offer some sort of product or service, your Google profile is a great place to promote it.
7. Keywords – What do you like to do and who are you? Those are your keywords. Are you a network marketer? Enter keywords into your Bio, your Super Power etc
8. Custom Links – Google Profiles allows you to enter all your important links. If you have a business website, blogs, or social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, you can include all of them in your Google profile. Including links to your other sites on your Google profile is also good for the other sites because it will give them a search engine boost.
9. Photos – In this section you can have your pictures from Picasa display.  If you have a business this is a good place to show pictures of your products (if for example you sell art or website designs, etc.).
10. Contact Info – I think this is self explanatory.
11. Profile URL – You can choose your own URL for your Google profile at the “Create a Profile URL” (at the bottom of the profile page) — otherwise, your profile will look like http://www.google.com/profiles/109806878684291553078. Use a name instead so your profile will look like http://www.google.com/profiles/markvschwartz, which is much nicer (and better for search). Be careful to choose a name that suits you (like your name or the name of your business). This will be what people see at the top of your browser bar and also what they see in search engines. You can copy your Google profile’s URL and add a link to it from your other websites so people can come and read all about you.
12. Click on “Create a Google profile”.

Setting up a Google profile provides an easy opportunity for you to promote your business.  Your Google profile is one more tool you have to network, connect online and improve how people find you on the Internet.  Ultimately, you have everything to gain by setting up your own Google profile as part of your “social networking spiderweb” and Internet marketing strategy.