Web 2.0 And Social Bookmarking: A Marketer's Savior

Marketers haven't always had it easy. There was once a time when they had to struggle and go through grueling and time-consuming processes like demographic information researching and market segmentation. This was during the internet era of Web 1.0. Those were dark, dark times for marketers all over the world. They needed someone, or something to help them make it through. They needed a savior.

People started to criticize Web 1.0 for being too inclined with HTML while it doesn't even consider important aspects like the establishment of social connections and social interactions. People wanted a new web platform to make up for all the restrictions, limitations and deficiencies. Then came the savior that internet marketers were asking for. Then came the dawn of a new internet era: the Web 2.0 and social bookmarking era that was hell bent on making social connections and networks among the members of the community.

Web 2.0 refers to a website that performs unique and attractive functions. These sites' main focus is to establish social connections and networks among the internet users of the world. Social bookmarking is a process in Web 2.0 that involves the saving or storing of relevant bookmarks on to social bookmarking websites, and the tagging of these bookmarks with the appropriate keywords that would let users search for and locate them with ease.

These two innovations have greatly benefited internet marketers around the world. But they have also contributed so much to the community in general. For one, Web 2.0 and social bookmarking have made the process of communication and interaction for people from different parts of the world much easier. These innovations have also made it possible to search for and locate information on the internet with ease. This was because of tagging which is also known as folksonomy.

As for internet marketers, their lives were made so much more easy and peaceful because of the emergence of Web 2.0 and social bookmarking. Because of these innovations, internet marketers don't have to worry about doing tedious demographic researches and trying to segment markets as Web 2.0 and social bookmarking does all these for them! Internet marketers could just skip those processes and focus on analyzing the demographic information provided to be able to determine consumer tastes, preferences, wants and needs. Internet marketers would find it very easy to develop strategies and techniques to help them market their businesses to consumers more effectively.

Web 2.0 and social bookmarking also allows marketers to advertise their business to millions of people in their networks. This would lead to increased web traffic, increased page rankings, and of course increased profits for the internet marketer.

In short, Web 2.0 and social bookmarking gives internet marketers the ability to enjoy tremendous awards while lessening their work at the same time. These innovations are truly saviors to internet marketers all over the world.

The author is from Seattle, Washington. He has been doing affiliate marketing over a year now and wants to share his observation on how one survives with that business. His project now is Bookmarking Demon

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Business Promotion Through Social Bookmarking Sites

What is Social Bookmarking?

Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to store, organize, search and manage bookmarks. It is popular among people with affiliate marketing programs as it drives traffic & back links to the website.

Social bookmarking sites allow you to do 2 main things:

· Manage the bookmarks on-line, where they can be accessed from any computer.
· Conduct searches for information based on other people's findings rather than search engine's.

Why to use social bookmarking?

Social bookmarking is getting very popular with the Internet Marketers. In addition, of creating brand awareness and increasing profit, social bookmarking have other benefits as well like -

· It can be accessed from anywhere & everywhere
· It makes it easier to search data as it is organized and categorized by the user
· It allows user to search data, which are not necessarily indexed by search engines
· Search is made easier as it facilitates ability to tag web page / site
· As user voting plays an important role in getting a high vote, chances of appearing in search results are increased
· Social bookmarking sites get the natural links i.e. if people like your story, chances are they will publish it in their forums, blogs etc. with your website URL. Hence, your website will get the natural links.

Importance of social bookmarking from SEO point of view

From an Internet marketing perspective, this is useful because it drives traffic to a web site in two ways:

· Direct click-through from the social bookmarking web sites.
· Through the search engines, as links from social bookmarking sites will help raise your search engine rankings.

Popular Social Bookmarking Sites

· Delicious

Delicious is a social bookmarking site' which was acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. Delicious has more than 3 million users and 100 million tagged items. It allows user to tag his stuff as well as find other people's stuff. User is also provided with an option to either set his bookmarks to private or public. Public bookmarks are visible to everyone whereas private bookmarks are visible to people who are in your network. Delicious is a free site and can be used by anyone who has an access to the Internet

Reasons behind Delicious's popularity

. Make it easy to share resources with peers, friends & others.
. Allow you to quickly bookmark the pages.
. It gets simpler to submit your links to a web site, blog, Facebook, etc.
. Helps to keep your content focused on your primary topic, which helps you to effectively brand yourself.
. Discover more cool links like you already have.

· StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon is the Internet's only web discovery service that allows people to discover great websites recommended by others with similar interests. It was founded in 2001, based in San Francisco and backed by the same investors as Google and Facebook. More than 20,000 advertisers are using StumbleUpon to promote products and services. It has more than 7.4 million users and receives 425 million recommendations per month.

Reasons behind StumbleUpon's popularity

. It rewards the best article.
. It does not ban the best sites.
. It has more positive pages.
. It allows more diversity of interests.
. It is easy to use and has better quality of comments.

· Reddit

Reddit is a social bookmarking and news site. It was founded in 2005 and is based in Boston, Massachusetts. It allows users to submit articles, vote on them, as well as get engage in discussions. From SEO point of view, Reddit can prove to be an essential site as the article / websites voted up to the front page usually receive a great deal of traffic and can easily see over 10,000 visitors within the span of a day.

Reasons behind Reddit's popularity

. It offers more transparent results.
. It allows popular stories to stay at the top of the front page for a longer period of time.
. Reddit's new restricted feature allows anyone to view the content, but only invited members can submit, comment, or vote.
. It has greater homepage personalization

How to increase number of repeated visitors

Here, are tips to increase traffic and number of repeated visitors to your site.

· Set your goals - It is mandatory to keep in mind your main focus. Know the right section to post the article offering educative content. Also make sure that the title you choose is captivating and exciting, so that the visitors are compelled to visit your site. The article should be meaningful and precise.

· Offer high-value content - Ensure that the content you stumble is of high-value for the users to spend time on your website. Avoid spamming in groups or forums because it may bring huge traffic in the initial stage but after sometime, it would simply fade out.

· Promote your brand effectively - It is essential to make it look informative as well as appealing.

· Bloggers have been at it an average of three years and are collectively creating close to one million posts every day

· Update the site frequently - We generally visit sites that offer a wide range of information on daily basis. Hence, one should always update the content to build users interest in the business. We generally visit sites that offer a wide range of information on daily basis. Hence, one should always update the content to build users interest in the business.

· Build relationship - Send some good stumbles to your friends. Reply to the stumblers who rate your content positively through discussion groups, help forums and inbox.

· Ask for Feedback - Make it a habit to ask for the feedback from your readers. Take comments and suggestion seriously and always strive to improve the quality of your content.

I am webmaster of RedAlkemi. Founded in 1986, RedAlkemi.com has steadily grown to become the industry leaders in Search Engine Optimization, delivering measurable online results through Search Engine Marketing strategies, Social Media Marketing, and Website Design and Development. With over 400 clients across the globe, 20 business partners, multiple challenging projects and a motivated team of +130 professionals, RedAlkemi has carved a niche for itself in the field of Search Engine Optimization.

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