Bookmarking your favorite web pages has been something your web browser could do for some time now. Virtually every toolbar has a handy bookmark link that will easily store a user’s favorite pages right there on their computer. Typically, bookmarks are created for pages that a user visits often and doesn’t want to forget.
The problem with bookmarking on your personal computer was soon found, and thankfully solved. What was this nasty little problem? Simply put, when you bookmark a favorite page using the bookmark tool on your personal computer, and then you find yourself away from said computer in need of one of those pages, you cannot get to it. Using this method, bookmarks are stored only on a users personal computer. This is limiting, and nobody likes to be limited!
Alas, social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us and digg were born in an effort to bring the public just what it wanted and needed: an easy and convenient way to organize, store and share bookmarked sites, videos and articles. In the process, a new business building tool was also born.
Here’s what bookmarking can do for your business: It can increase traffic to your website, help your search engine rankings, and also create an image of your company on the social media scene. On social bookmarking sites, postings are ranked by users, not editors. As I’ve said before, user created content and reviews are perceived as a sort of recommendation on the part of another average consumer, not a sales pitch from a large company.
Many businesses have blogs, which make great bookmarked pages. The key here is to make sure your blog has interesting and informative articles that keep readers wanting more. Because you are posting blogs to social bookmarking sites, you will want to keep in mind that people can share your bookmarks (this IS the whole idea!). The more your bookmarks are shared, the higher they will rank on the bookmarking site you are using. And judging from the buzz, if you rank high on these social media sites, your web traffic will increase significantly.
The only thing you need to do in order to make your bookmarks rank in search engines is to be sure to add the right tags and/or keywords to bookmarked pages. This is something that needs to be done consistently in order for your efforts to pay off. But this is most likely a practice you should be used to by now, as it’s the same in any SEO marketing effort.
The best thing about bookmarking is that all it requires from you is a little time. You’re most likely already writing articles and posting them to directories. You may even have some hubpages out there; or better yet, some videos. So what are you waiting for? Take those marketing efforts that you have already done and put them to the best use possible by posting them to an easy to use bookmarking site. Some consistent effort in this arena can steer you in the direction you want to go.