Social Networking – a Great Way to Build Quality Backlinks for Free

A few months ago I decided to check the status of my campaign to get a PR 3 ranking in 90 days by generating thousands of backlinks. I entered my url into the backlink checker and to my surprise, the majority of my backlinks were generated by social networking sites. That was not what I was expecting, to tell you the truth I thought that my article marketing efforts was going to yield me the best efforts, but that was not the case. Social networking and Social bookmarking sites was responsible for 40% of my total backlinks.

In the past my best backlink tool was the use of article marketing. I generated backlinks using article marketing by submitting 3 articles to a minimum of 50 directories every week. Using this strategy I was able to triple my backlinks because many of the articles that I submitted was picked by other directories or website owners looking for content for their websites. The process of generating backlinks while using article marketing generally takes few months. Lately with the use of a social bookmarking software, I am able to generate hundreds of backlinks daily.

The social bookmarking software I am talking about is able to post to hundreds of social networking and social bookmarking websites like Digg, Facebook, Sphinn with just one click. Being able to submit to so many high PR ranking social networks is like having the best of both worlds. One benefit is that you will receive high quality backlinks and the other hand you will also generate more traffic to your website. I use these social networks to announce every time I submit a new blog post or article to the directories.

In addition to the obvious possibilities of traffic generation and backlink building, there are other advantages to social networking websites. If you are lucky enough to have your article or blog post make the front page of some of these social networks, you just might need a new server. There have been many stories of servers crashing due to too much traffic from social networks such as Digg, Sphinn and Stumble Upon.

It took me a while to learn how to take advantage of these social networking websites, but I am glad I took time out to catch up with the rest of the world. Web 2.0 strategies has introduced internet marketing to whole new masses of people, adding these strategies to my backlink building arsenal has created better results with less time.

by DavidErickson

Some Great Social Bookmarking Tools You Can Use

Social bookmarking has been around for as long as the Internet has existed. If you found a website or resource that you really liked and wanted others to know about it, you told your friends. The quickest way to tell them was to send them an email or post a message on a forum containing the link to that website so they could look at it and add it to their browser favorites list.

This marked it so it could be found again in the future. That was the old way to spread the word about the things that were new or exciting on the Internet. Now, there are some easier and much more effective social bookmarking tools you can use to get the word out about new things.

Social networking involves “tagging” a website of particular interest so that it can be easily accessed. The tag shows up in two places; one being the user’s profile or website, the second being the original homepage of the tagging bookmark. The tag can appear on a list of favorite websites posted on a blog or website, or it can be a special website designed specifically for these tags, called a bookmarking network. Examples of popular bookmarking networks are twitter, facebook, squidoo, flikr, and wetpaint.

Visitors to those sites can then rate the URL value according to how often a search occurs or that link is clicked on. Popular bookmarks remain at the top while less favorable links and spam are lost to new searches. Social bookmarking can be monitored for trends in the market and is used to introduce new and better products and ideas.

Many consumers, whether they realize it or not, use social bookmarking everyday to decide what products are worth investing in, where to shop, where to eat and other consumer decisions. This is because when they do a search online, the most popular searchable things that have had multiple tags come up first in the list. Tags can be a good way for consumers to gauge whether or not a product or company is legit by who manages the feeds and how often the website is tagged.

Here is a list of some great social bookmarking tools you can use today to boost your website visits and get the word out about new items of interest:

Twitter. Do you twitter? This seems like the most asked question recently by social networking people. This free social networking site works by people who become members and post short updates as they wish on anything in general. It’s advertised as a “service for family, friends and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick , frequent answers to the questions; What are you doing” (Twitter.com) The update feeds can then be posted on the person’s blogs, websites or anyplace else where they want people to know about what they’re doing and talking about. People often post their articles or other tidbits about their businesses with links included to get others to visit their website.

Facebook. This is an international social networking site whereby members sign up free and can post messages and updates whenever they wish. If they include links to their websites or other online items, members can go there to read more about them. Feeds are then available for adding to blogs or websites for real time updates. Facebook is growing in popularity among people who were typically participating in other social networking sites like MySpace, but its attracting more career- and business-oriented people.

Squidoo. This neat little social bookmarking site has nothing to do with sealife. In fact, not only is it a great way for people to interact and post updates, but it allows users to create simple websites called “lenses” for others to read about their special interests or topics. So if you are promoting a certain niche interest, an idea or something related to your business, you can create a page to promote this idea and include links back to your sites. Squidoo offers its members additional tools like forums to come up with ideas to promote their pages and highlights popular lenses all over the Internet.

Flikr. If you’re into sharing more than words and like to include images as part of your networking efforts, then you may like Flikr. This social bookmarking site allows users to post images for others to review. Users can also talk about their experiences by joining either private or public groups. So families can use Flikr to share personal photos, or public groups can share images and talk about things of interest. Each photo is assigned a tag which can be placed on user’s websites and blogs. Flikr rates images according to how many times they’ve been viewed and this list is posted on the community section for all to see.

Wetpaint. This is a Wiki format social bookmarking site that allows members to create a website about anything they are interested in or want to promote. It’s a similar concept to Squidoo, except that it is expanded to include the ability to integrate popular feeds into both your Wetpaint site and your blogs or other websites seamlessly. Wetpaint is supported by not only all the major search engines, but also by all primary news feeds and searches conducted by Internet users. This opens up the possibility that someone who may just be doing a general search will land on your Wetpaint site.

There are so many great tools out there that you can use to get the word out about your ideas and share your blogs and websites more effectively. In just a few minutes, you can be signed up and hooked into the best of what the Internet has to offer. Be sure to check out the above social bookmarking sites to get the most out of these services and increase your website’s searchability.

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