Before the first ever Tweet, before FourSquare checked into the scene and before Facebook became the all-encompassing behemoth that it is now, there was social bookmarking.

SEOs loved social bookmarking websites. They were easy to use, passed along some authority and generated huge amounts of traffic. Then, slowly, the social bookmarking sites started to implement the dreaded nofollow tags. No link juice flowed, and no authority was passed down to bookmarked sites.

Power users rose up and dominated the landscapes, forming rings and cliques that made it harder to hit those all important hot news spots – and the SEOs became even more disenfranchised.

Then, the final insult. The new! New Digg! New Sphinn! Sites that make it even harder for the average Joe to direct traffic. The death knell for social bookmarking.

Is there any point in social bookmarking any more?

Let’s find out.

Runners and Riders – The Social Bookmarking Sites You Should Know

Digg

Since the highly unpopular update of Summer 2010, Digg has gone from being an incredibly popular news aggregator to a pale husk of its former self. Digg disenfranchised its former power users, took away the ability to downvote stories and set itself up as a way for news sites and popular blogs to automatically promote stories. The backlash is still reverberating, but Digg is seemingly a spent force in the social bookmarking sphere.

Worth a look if… you’re really desperate for a no-follow link that only six people will see.
Do say… “This place is a pale husk of its former self. I’m off to Reddit.”
Don’t say… “I think Digg v4 has really revitalised this place!”

Reddit

Simply put, Reddit is a place for the Reddit moderation team (Redditors) to share content that they want you to see, whilst aggressively downvoting anything they percieve as “other”. Reddit recieved a huge boost in users when people abandoned Digg, but it still remains firmly in the hands of a clique.

Worth a look if… you want to see pictures of cats.
Do say… “…”
Don’t say… anything to be honest. You’ll only bring unwelcome attention upon yourself.

Sphinn

Sphinn was the go-to bookmarking site for anyone in the online marketing industry. Set up along the same lines as Digg and Reddit, users could vote on stories, discuss them with each other and generally feel like they had a voice in the community. Then they got rid of voting. Featured stories are now selected by a crack team of editors, making it extremely difficult to have any content featured.

Worth a look if… you don’t mind disappointment.
Do say… “Of course I agree with your choices. I’m glad that someone smart gets to choose what we should read.”
Don’t say… “Actually, we rather liked democracy. It wasn’t perfect, but at least we had a voice.”

SERPd

The spiritual successor to Sphinn, SERPd is basically what Sphinn was 6 months ago, but with a much tighter knit community. Plus there’s a SERPd blog which allows members to submit their own guest posts – which really adds to the community feel.

Worth a look if… you’ve written a top quality article on any aspect of online marketing.
Do say… “I rather like democracy. It’s not perfect, but at least we have a voice.”
Don’t say… “Actually, I’d rather someone smart would just choose what I should read.”

StumbleUpon

If you need traffic, StumbleUpon will generate it. It won’t be targeted traffic, and users won’t stick around, but if you can write an eye-catching piece StumbleUpon will get it seen. If only for a split second.

Worth a look if… you want to increase the traffic to a page, and think you can grab the attention of the hyperactive.
Do say… “This’ll only take a second!”
Don’t say… “Thanks for reading. Now if you make yourself comfortable, the lecture will be split into two, one-hour periods. Are we comfortable? Let’s begin.”

Delicious

The world’s largest social bookmarking site, Delicious plays fast and loose with their nof0llow tags, meaning that popular bookmarks may have some tangible SEO benefits. Otherwise, the site offers an extremely easy to use way to file away important articles that you might need to refer to in the future.

Worth a look if… you need to keep tabs on various online resources, whilst passing on slight benefits to your own sites.
Do say… “Here’s a great article on social bookmarking, and one on SEO, and one on…”
Don’t say… “This is my article on scams, and this is my guide to social media, and this is my homepage...”

Social Bookmarks – Wah! Huh! – What Are They Good For?

As we mentioned above, social bookmarks aren’t going to pass on lots and lots of page rank. They just aren’t going to be an integral part of an SEO strategy. But when they’re combined with an SEO campaign, social bookmarks will provide some tangible benefits for an online business:

• Increased exposure: Millions of users log on to social bookmarking sites. Why not show them what you’ve got?
• Increased traffic: Using social bookmarking sites properly can drive thousands of new visitors to your landing pages. You won’t see huge conversion rates, but every little helps.
• Networking: You’ll meet interesting new people on social sites – and they might be able to scratch your back once in a while

Over to You

So, what do you think? Can social bookmarks be useful for SEOs? Are there any sites we’ve missed that do pass on link juice? Have we done any of the sites above a disservice?

Let us know in the comments section below.

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Obtaining Links from Highly Respected Pages

The key to effective link building depends on you being able to identify high ranking sites that might host a link to your site, whether they are business directories or other websites. Factors such as Google Page Rank will play a smaller role than in previous years, but still give a good indication as to Google’s opinion of the site. A small handful of good links from some very highly ranked and popular sites will always be more effective than hundreds of links from unpopular ones with no page rank.

Making the Most of Social Media

As social media plays a more central role to SEO, all those essential inbound links from your Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Reddit and Stumble Upon accounts will start to carry more and more clout. Google often uses your article’s success with the native users of social sites when deciding how to rank it for the broader masses.  Clearly and article with 157 Diggs is going to have wider appeal and is likely to be more popular than one with 3. Google pays keen attention to these, making it important for you to get involved in social media in 2010.

Keeping Your Links Context Relevant

An often overlooked factor in any link building campaign is the relevance of your site to the linking one. Links that offer further information about a topic will not only conduct better traffic, but will have a greater impact on your SEO.  Keep your links within the same language as your site, and find reasons why people will benefit from your link.  For every product and service, there is usually a fan base, or enthusiast group waiting to be tapped in to. Are there any popular forums or discussion boards relevant to your products or services? Perhaps you might place an add in an online magazine for your industry? Sometimes the way to do this, is to post a comment and get involved.  Many free sites and comment systems allow you to include a signature, or a website URL in a profile or comment. ( Be sure to check the site terms and conditions, as different webmasters will place different rules around promoting sites! )

Maximising Your Naturally Generated Links from Good Content

A website with useful and informative content will naturally pick up inbound links that other users add. It is easy to convince yourself that this is down to others, and cannot easily be influenced from your site itself. But there are some simple rules that will help you maximise this area. All you really need to do is consider what you can offer people, which they cannot easily find elsewhere. As an expert in your industry, this might be anything from inside product information, industry news or practical tips about a product or service. If you can think of at least one type of person who would benefit from this knowledge, then write it! More content is always a good thing.

Be Aware of Creative or Hidden Link Building Opportunities

Often there are neat sites which you can obtain links from easily. Does your domain have an entry at www.aboutus.org? Have you a review on www.reviewcentre.com? There are also domain information and company information sites that are readily indexed by Google, and by taking five minutes to create an entry for your company or website, you will be generating some more informative, permanent back links that will improve the profile of your website.

In a nut shell, link building is almost a science in itself. You cannot go far wrong, provided you don’t add any links from spam websites, or websites of a different language.  By keeping mindful of where you might add links to your site – and never losing sight of the people who would benefit from this, you will maximising the effectiveness of each and every link added and contribute to the structure of the web itself.