How to Get Traffic From Social Bookmarking Sites

What makes you log into social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon? Most of the people will answer that it is to share, organize and manage bookmarks of content that interests them. What would someone in the SEO world answer? Obviously, that they invite many visitors to his/her listing in these sites. How do they manage that? It's not magic. Just get your site on the front page of any of these bookmarking sites and you'll be amazed by the number of visitors you get. Let's check out some of the ways in which you can use bookmarking sites to increase your traffic.

• Give a catchy headline - Needless to say, the first thing that any reader would see in your site content is its headline. So, it needs to be crispy, short and attention grabbing. There are a few things that you could do to get this done. For one, start it off with a strong action oriented verb. Adding "how to" can also invite readers. Avoid articles. For example, take the headlines "The three steps to put an elephant inside a refrigerator", "How to put an elephant in a refrigerator in three steps" and "Put an elephant inside a refrigerator in just three steps". Obviously, the second and third would attract more readers.

• Add a meaningful description - Your description has to be related to what you say in the content. You can exaggerate to some amount but never lie. Also, avoid long sentences where you go on and on about what you intend to say. Remember that some of the bookmarking sites even have set limitations in the number of characters.

• Make the first paragraph captivating - You might have caught the attention of the readers with your headline and description. But the first paragraph helps you retain that attention. The headline and description that you provided have already given an idea of your content to the readers. And that's the reason they are in your page. A first paragraph, which normally is the introduction, poorly written can make your visitors leave your site even before they come to the real matter.

• Create relevant and original content - Content is king. Yes, here too. Its not search engines alone that give importance to good content. Bookmarking sites also place high priority for quality content. Make sure that your content provides the required and relevant information for the readers. Never post junk to cheat them. It can in fact get your site banned.

• Use English language - This is not to sound linguistically biased but the reality is most readers follow English than any other language. Exotic languages like the ones that have non-latin alphabets have the disadvantage of being legible to only a selected group of people. Languages like French, German and Italian might be more common; still the fact is they are not English. If you really need to submit content in any language other than English, submit it in bookmarking sites meant for that particular language.

• Insert your keywords - Keywords matter here too. After all, just like search engines here too people give the keywords to find what they need. Insert them not only in your body content but also in your headlines as well as descriptions.

• Confirm the facts before submitting - Never fail to countercheck the facts that you provide in your content. Finding yourself wrong in any of the details given can make you look silly and ignorant. Adding to this your site will lose its credibility. Consider yourself in the readers' shoes. If you find anything wrong in a website you visit, will you ever go back to it again? Well, the same point applies here. Get all the right information. If needed, get it checked by a subject expert before submitting.

• Proofread your content before submitting - Grammatical or spelling errors can make you end up look really dumb. It could be either a mistake from you or a typo. But ultimately the reader would think your language is poor. So proofread the content carefully and correct all the mistakes before submitting.

• Submit your link in the right category - If you are looking for information on weight loss you are definitely not going to check the sites on beauty or skin care. Obviously, the only common point among these topics is that they all apply to the human body. So if your content is on weight loss make sure that you submit your content in the health and fitness or other similar category instead of that which is only vaguely connected.

• Submit articles in article directories - If you have been optimising your website for search engines, you are of course familiar with the practice of submitting articles in article directories for more viewability. This can help in the case of bookmarking websites too. Links from article directories can be a good source of more traffic, provided the content is good.

• Avoid old news and boring topics - Sometimes, however good your content is, it might be some information that has been dealt with by many people before. Or the topic that would interest none. Imagine some content on creating good content for SEO. The topic has been so much written upon that most of the readers would overlook the content, even if it is first-rate and perfectly error-free.

• Include related articles - Adding related articles to your site can glue your readers to your site even if they reached there following another piece of information. If they like your content they may end up not only reading the other content in your site but also returning for more later.

• Provide RSS feeds and newsletter subscription options - If your site is interesting and relevant, visitors would like to hear more from you. Providing options for RSS feeds and newsletter subscriptions let them return to your site more often. Hence, provide these options at easily visible places in your site.

• Be friendly and courteous - Online presence is not possible without support. You cannot singlehandedly manage your social bookmarking without the cooperation from others who do the same thing. Similarly, keeping a friendly and courteous approach to all can be really helpful. Reply to the comments that you receive, be it negative or positive. Be amiable when you do that. Drop in comments for others in the bookmarking sites.

• Help the users to bookmark your site - Users spend very small amount of time in a website. Within that short time you need to your point across and impress them. If you want them to bookmark your site, a little bit of help from your side wouldn't hurt. After all, the benefit from that is yours, right? Hence, provide the bookmarking button where it is easily seen.

• Timely submission - When you make it to the front page of a social bookmarking site you are not going to be there forever. Its 24 hours that you get to be there. So, if you submit your link when half the population, who is your target audience, is sleeping, by the time they check in you would've reached on the 10th page. Hence, submit the link when your readers are awake. However, this is problematic if you aim for a global audience. You cannot, after all, wait for readers in all parts of the world to be awake at the same time.

So what is the delay? Once you get all these above points done, go ahead and befriend all those bookmarking sites and get your site prepared for a huge number of visitors.

The Web Clinic search engine optimisation service helps to increase the visitors' traffic from a search engine to your websites through improvisation and updation of the on-page and off-page factors of the website, which influence its ranking in the search engines. For more details visit our SEO Services.