You’ve probably heard of the popular social bookmarking sites like Digg and Reddit. These are examples of social bookmarking sites where users can share links to their favorite content from around the web.
You may have also heard how some people are increasing their rankings with the use of bookmarks. So what is social bookmarking in SEO?
The Spammy Way to Use Bookmarks for SEO
Sadly, the popular and most discussed way of utilizing bookmarks for SEO is very spammy. The strategy is quite simple, make as many social bookmarks on as many different bookmarking sites as you can. That’s it really.
The theory behind it is that a bookmark is a link, and links help your site rank higher. However, one social bookmarking carries very little value in the eyes of the search engines. The obvious solution is to submit tons and tons of them.
Commonly, spam link builders will create a few web properties on sites like Blogger and Squidoo and then link to them with hundreds of bookmarks. Usually, there are hundreds of article submission involved as well in this link building process, each of which also gets bookmarked.
In the end, you have tons of very low value links built in the hopes that added together they will amount to something.
I don’t recommend using bookmarks like this.
The Right Way to Use Bookmarks for SEO
The right way to use bookmarks is harder in some ways, but much easier in others. It’s also mind-blowingly simple. You ready?
Create a piece of quality content and bookmark it on a handful of sites. That’s it. Now let me explain why this works and isn’t just the lazy way to bookmark.
Let’s recall what social bookmarking sites are really for. They’re for sharing great content with other people on the web. This is the reason people visit them and vote on content, comment on it, and share it with others.
The most important piece of the puzzle is the content itself. If you have taken the time to create something awesome, which can simply be a killer blog post, then you stand a really good chance of attracting lots of traffic from every bookmarking site you submit to.
Now how does this help with your SEO? Your average web user will simply share a link on Facebook or a bookmarking site, but those with a web presence may opt to mention it in a forum or even in a blog post. This is how you end up getting quality backlinks from honest social bookmarking submission.
To run through the cycle:
Create something awesome
Share it on bookmarking sites
Sit back and get natural links
The best part about it is you hardly spent anytime making bookmarks or doing anything besides making your site more awesome by creating some fresh new content.
And that’s how social bookmarking should be used for SEO.