What is Social Bookmarking Services?

Social bookmarking is a way for Internet users to store, organize, share and search bookmarks of web pages. In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, but depending on the service's features, may be saved privately, shared only with specific people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private. The allowed people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, via a search engine, or even randomly.

However bookmarks also have a distinct advantage over search engine results. Searching the internet with a search engine, no matter how good, means that the information is selected by computer software that attempts to determine meaning.

A list of bookmarks is the result of human action, we filter the sites we view and list links only to those sites that provide value. So if you share some of my interests you will probably find it of value to access my bookmarks list rather than using a search engine. Social bookmark sites enable you make any link public or private so that we can make a selection of our bookmarks available to each other.

In order to sort and fliter bookmarks on a social bookmarking site they are Grouped under broad subjects or are coded using Tags - words or phrases which help us to find the link later and other sites we have bookmarked that have the same tag.

Some social bookmarking sites use both tags and groups or a means of bundling tags. I have reviewed 15 social bookmark sites that are all linked to the OnlyWire site. As you will see some of the newer sites are now introducing an increasing range of collaborative tools and developing a unique focus for their site.

Tags are similar to Keywords but at the same time different. When we create keywords for a web page we are really trying to match words or phrases people will be using to search for information and create a density of keywords on the page that will improve our chances of a good search engine placing.

Tags are usually "single" words that categories the site and enable us to find all the links related to the same Tag in the future. But rather than me describe this - it would be better if you had a look at a site to get the idea.

Tips of social bookmarking to generate more traffic to your web site

* A well structured marketing strategy to promote your site and the goods or services you sell. Bookmarking links to your web site will steer more traffic to your site from your target market.

* Creating and maintaining interest is extremely important in attracting users to your site. You need to make the right connection with your target demographic in order to sustain their interest. This means generating a fictional profile of your target customer base and including information and features that would appeal to them.

* SEO techniques, such as using highly searched key words, are crucial in allowing search engines to acknowledge your links when it hunts for specific phrases.

* Combine SEO techniques with well written web copy. It can make a dramatic difference in generating traffic to your web site.

* The type of bookmarking service you chose can ultimately increase the odds of your web site being sighted. Links to and from popular bookmarking sites and the use of highly efficient bookmarking tools can make a dramatic different in your online traffic.

Benefits of Social Bookmarking

* Social bookmarking is a grassroots process that allows users to establish the value of a specific web page, article, podcast, or video.

* Search engines love to crawl social bookmarking sites as there aren't much better websites for search engines to crawl than social bookmarking sites.

* It is an excellent tool to get free traffic. If the content is good enough and even more net surfers start bookmarking it then it will be on the move and you will get more and more free traffic for your web site.

* By bookmarking an item, individuals are casting a vote to endorse that specific resource.

* The idea is that social bookmarking gives resource credibility; the more users who bookmark a specific item, the more valuable the resource is considered to be.

* Social bookmarking is all about the collective voice.

* Most of the social bookmarking networks increase the profile of items that receive numerous bookmarks.

* It probably won't be long before the major search engines begin to include social bookmarks as a part of their ranking algorithms.