By now you’ve surely heard of using social networking sites to get more traffic, in fact, I’ve written about it myself.

Sites like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Squidoo and many other social networking sites are great for helping get traffic either directly and also, more importantly, from Google.

But fewer people talk about the importance of social bookmarking sites to get traffic and they can be just as good as social networking sites when done properly.

Social bookmarking should be one of your main strategies for maximizing your exposure, ranking higher in the search engines and making more money online.

And don’t just go with one or two sites like Delicious or Digg go for a good number of sites, at least 20-25, and that is for each account you setup. You can and should have multiple accounts but that is a topic for another day.

So here is what you need to do to get more traffic…

Traffic Strategy

First, come up with a general traffic strategy that lets you quickly get Google’s attention.

As I have talked about before, you should be using content and links in Web 2.0 properties, particularly authority sites, to let Google know and remember you exist.

Then consistently post content to those Web 2.0 sites which will create one way back links to your Web properties (like your blog and Web site).

The key word there is “consistently” because you need to continuously be creating content and creating back links, without that consistency you’ll just be continuously defeating yourself. Sort of like people who go on fad diets, lose some weight, gain it back and have to start again.

Make a publishing calendar, that’s what I do and it really helps be consistent and continuous.

Also part of your strategy is making proper use of “anchor text”, account user names and your titles, all of which should include your keywords.

When do you stop?

Only when you don’t want to make any more money with the Web site. Otherwise you keep doing it. Nobody ever said it would be easy to make money on the Internet but following the 3 Pillars anybody can but it takes work; fortunately, virtually all of it can be outsourced so you don’t have to do that work.

Dominating with Social Bookmarking

It’s all well and good to create Hub Pages, Squidoo Lens, Facebook Pages and all of that to get some good content and back links but that isn’t the only thing you need to do because just making them doesn’t mean Google will rank you on page one.

This is where social bookmarking comes into play.

You need to be promoting those social networking sites by bookmarking them. That will then get you valuable back links to your social networking pages.

Because you can bookmark any Web page be it a Squidoo Lens or a blog post it should be one of the core strategies for you traffic generation.

What to Do

First thing to do is find every important page you have, whether it is a blog post, a Squidoo Lens, a YouTube video or even a product sales page; note I said EVERY important page because Google ranks pages not Web sites so you need to find the important pages you want Google to rank.

Then create accounts on the social bookmarking sites.

Then you need to create a bookmarking schedule and bookmark those pages. You don’t want to do it once and you don’t want to do it all at once so you need a schedule, just like, and coordinated with, your publishing schedule.

This way Google will see a nice “natural” progression of bookmarking and give you that Google Love you want so much.

Then, every time you add a new page or post or sales page you add it to the bookmarking schedule so it gets it share of your bookmarks.

One thing to do though is that you don’t just want to be bookmarking your own sites. You need to be bookmarking other sites also otherwise it will just look like you are trying to scam the system.

A good percentage of bookmarks should be other people’s Lenses and blog posts and such. In fact, “traffic guru” John Reese recommends that 80% of you bookmarking should be other people’s sites, that’s how important he things it is.

What are Some Bookmarking Sites

Here are some of the sites I use to bookmark:

1. 1-webmarks.com
2. bookmarktracker.com
3. clipclip.org
4. clipmarks.com
5. del.icio.us
6. digg.com
7. diigo.com
8. esnips.com
9. fa.vorites.com
10. faves.com
11. jumptags.com
12. leenks.com
13. linkagogo.com
14. mylinkvault.com
15. mystuff.ask.com
16. myvmarks.com
17. propeller.com
18. spurl.net
19. tedigo.net
20. trailfire.com
21. wink.com
22. yattle.com

Go there and sign up and put those sites in your bookmarking schedule

Isn’t It a Lot of Work?

Yes, it can be quite a lot of work, particularly at the beginning, but again it is an important part of running an online business.

Fortunately, you can outsource it or use some tools to make it much easier. Here is a list of tools I us, they will help you automate bookmarking of the best bookmarking sites:

1. Howie Schwartz’s Bookmark Generation
2. Ross Goldberg’s Internet Marketing Revolution
3. SENuke

They each have their strengths and weaknesses so try one or all; they all have a 100% money back guarantees or free trials.

Conclusion

Social bookmarking should be a core strategy in your traffic generation plans. Google will show you more love as will your bank account!

Just sign up for accounts, find all your important Web pages and start bookmarking; don’t forget though to bookmark a lot of other sites also. Just remember to use a continuous and consistent approach.

You can use some tools or outsource the job so you aren’t taking the time away from more important things; hmm, I should have said “you SHOULD use some tools…” instead of “you CAN use some tools…”

Are you doing bookmarking? Leave a comment and let me know what you’re doing and how it has helped you.

Talk soon,

The Shameless (Ethical) Marketer
http://www.8-8-8Sale.com
http://www.MusicForInternetMarketers.com
http://www.SecretsOfGoogleAdWords.com
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