- Home
- Search Engine Optimization
- Google Domination | Illuminating SEO
Google Domination | Illuminating SEO
- By Illuminating SEO
- Published 03/4/2009
- Search Engine Optimization
- Unrated
Bookmarking is one of the first things that you hear about when it comes to Web 2.0. You have probably heard many times that it is a very easy way to gain traffic and backlinks to your site, and that it is essential if you are to succeed using Web 2.0 properties. The problem is, most people don’t tell you how to bookmark properly in order to get good rankings and in order to get as much traffic as possible.
Many people think that part of the goal with social bookmarking is to get on the front page of the bookmarking sites, or to get the most “diggs” or “props” on their bookmark. This is not the case. There are three different goals with bookmarking. You are trying to get traffic from the bookmarks, you are trying to get backlinks from the bookmarks and if the case of low competition keywords, you are trying to get rankings.
Every time you bookmark, you will get a backlink to your website. That much is obvious. So every time you bookmark, the page(s) you bookmark get a little more link juice and they rank a little bit better in Google. So I am going to tell you how I use bookmarking to gain traffic and how I use it to get more rankings for low competition keywords.
Tips for Getting More Traffic from Social Bookmarking:
In order to get the most traffic from a bookmark, you need to make it appear natural. If you bookmark a site and it sounds like a sales pitch, people are less likely to visit your site if they come across that bookmark. They see sales pitches everywhere, and most people don’t like them. Would you check out a bookmark if it said “Go to my site here. I have the best product in the world and you don’t even know how badly you need it. Seriously, if you want to succeed then you need my stuff. So go to my site because it is awesome”. Now, I know you aren’t that blatant and annoying with your bookmarks (right?), but you get the idea.
Instead, you need to write your bookmarks as if you have nothing to do with the site. Pretend you are just someone who happened to find your website, appreciated it, and bookmarked it. Act like you are a third party who doesn’t know the owner of the website and who doesn’t have any affiliation with the website. Say something like “I was looking for ______ and I came across this site. It has some really great tips about _______ and I found it to be very useful”. Obviously you won’t use those exact words because it all depends on what your site is about.
Which one would you click on? The sales pitch or the other one? If you would click on the sales pitch, then there is probably something wrong with you, or you are looking for your competition. But if you were just an average person, you would click on the second one because it is friendlier and more natural.
So in order to gain more traffic, make sure your bookmark appears to be from a third party, and not from the owner of the website, or someone promoting the website. The second thing you should do in order to gain more traffic from your bookmark, is to use a title that will catch people’s attention.
The first thing people will see of your bookmark is the headline. You don’t want to have a boring title that would not interest anyone. Let’s say you are promoting SEnuke, and you have written a review page about it and you are now bookmarking that page. You don’t want the title of bookmark to be “SEnuke Review” or “Review of SEnuke” because it is boring and will not catch anyone’s attention.
For the title you want it to be something interesting, and something eye-catching. Be original! Add some personality into the title! If you are not creative and cannot think of something exciting that will grab people’s attention, then even saying something like “In-Depth Review of SEnuke SEO Software” is more interesting than “Review of SEnuke”. By simply adding adjectives (adjectives = descriptive words) then you can make the title more interesting.
There are lots of ways to make the title eye-catching, just do something! Make it stand out a little bit and use psychological keywords that will attract people to read it! (There is a power words cheat sheet that came with the product full of psychological keywords). Just try to do something that will make people actually look at your bookmark, and you will get much more traffic than if you just write a boring title like “SEnuke Review”.
Tips for Getting Better Rankings from Social Bookmarking:
Obviously part of the point of social bookmarking is to get backlinks to your webpage(s) so that you can rank more highly in the search engines. This does occur, and can be very effective when combined with other linking methods (to make it appear more natural). However, for low competition keywords, it is also possible to get your bookmarks to rank for your keywords, and you can dominate the first few pages of Google with your bookmarks, if you bookmark correctly.
Above I explained how to bookmark for maximum traffic benefits. Well, if you can get your bookmarks to rank for your keywords, you
can also bookmark in order to get good rankings in Google. (This is where multiple profiles come in handy, so you can bookmark both ways).
I stated above that if you want to get traffic from your bookmarks, then you should act as if you are a third party individual who happened to come across the webpage and was impressed. This is true if people are on the bookmarking sites looking at bookmarks. However, it is not necessarily true for the bookmarks that appear in the search engines. When bookmarks appear in the search engines, people don’t mind if they see results from the actual site owners. You still want to avoid a blatant sales pitch, but you can speak from a first person point of view, giving an accurate description of your site.
When bookmarking to get more rankings, be sure to use your keywords in the title, and in the description. Make sure that it still looks natural, but stick your primary and secondary keywords in both the title and description if possible. An example of one I have done was for the product I am promoting, Google Slapper. I bookmarked my page (unfortunately the one that got deleted, so now the bookmark is useless) with propeller, and right now as I am typing this my bookmark is #1 for the keyword “google slapper bonus”. The title of the bookmark is “Google Slapper Bonus – Amazing Bonuses for Jay Deibolt’s Google Slapper Method”. It is a long title, but it contains my keywords. The words “bonus” and “bonuses” are both in the title. The product name is mentioned twice, and the creator’s name is in there as well, just in case someone types in his name in their searches.
I use the product name a couple times in the description as well, but it is not as important as the title. If you want proof that this works for ranking well for low competition keywords, then here is a list of the keywords that this bookmark ranks for:
#1 for “google slapper bonus”
#1 for “google slapper bonuses”
#1 for “jay deibolt google slapper bonus”
#1 for “jay deibolt google slapper bonuses”
#1 for “best google slapper bonus”
#1 for “best google slapper bonuses”
#1 for “amazing google slapper bonus”
#1 for “amazing google slapper bonuses”
#1 for “bonus for google slapper”
#1 for “best bonus for google slapper”
#1 for “best bonuses for google slapper”
#2 for “bonuses for google slapper”
#3 for “jay deibolt google slapper”
#33 for “google slapper”
There are a lot more keywords that it ranks for, but they are hardly searched. When this product launches many of these terms will be searched quite often. It doesn’t matter what keyword they search for if it is related to a bonus, they will find me. If you take a look at the results for those keywords, you will also notice that I have an OYAX listing and a Jumptags listing on most of those pages as well. My bookmarks are showing up all over the results for anything related to a Google Slapper bonus. You notice that I even rank for “jay deibolt google slapper”, which many people will type in, and I rank for the term “google slapper”, although because of the rank I probably will not receive many hits from that search term.
As you can see, by including my keywords in the title I rank well for all the keywords I am targeting related to a Google Slapper bonus. Try searching for a Google Slapper bonus. Just do whatever searches you would normally do. I guarantee I am on the first page of any search term you use. If you are looking for a Google Slapper bonus, you will find me.
From these results how many sales do you think I will get after the product launches? I have posted a comment on the bookmark saying that the page has moved, but I don’t know how many people will notice. I am currently bookmarking the new page in order to hopefully get valid bookmarks to the top of the rankings, so you may find different bookmarks when you try searching for those terms.
That is how I do my bookmarking. I generally bookmark pages more than once using multiple accounts/profiles, and I bookmark both ways. One day I do it in a way that will get me more traffic, and one for better rankings. For sites like Digg and Propeller, I do it for rankings because you can only bookmark them once and they rank really well if you do it properly (as shown above).
If you follow the steps above, you should be able to receive lots of traffic from your bookmarks, and achieve many first page rankings for low competition keywords.
Many people think that part of the goal with social bookmarking is to get on the front page of the bookmarking sites, or to get the most “diggs” or “props” on their bookmark. This is not the case. There are three different goals with bookmarking. You are trying to get traffic from the bookmarks, you are trying to get backlinks from the bookmarks and if the case of low competition keywords, you are trying to get rankings.
Every time you bookmark, you will get a backlink to your website. That much is obvious. So every time you bookmark, the page(s) you bookmark get a little more link juice and they rank a little bit better in Google. So I am going to tell you how I use bookmarking to gain traffic and how I use it to get more rankings for low competition keywords.
Tips for Getting More Traffic from Social Bookmarking:
In order to get the most traffic from a bookmark, you need to make it appear natural. If you bookmark a site and it sounds like a sales pitch, people are less likely to visit your site if they come across that bookmark. They see sales pitches everywhere, and most people don’t like them. Would you check out a bookmark if it said “Go to my site here. I have the best product in the world and you don’t even know how badly you need it. Seriously, if you want to succeed then you need my stuff. So go to my site because it is awesome”. Now, I know you aren’t that blatant and annoying with your bookmarks (right?), but you get the idea.
Instead, you need to write your bookmarks as if you have nothing to do with the site. Pretend you are just someone who happened to find your website, appreciated it, and bookmarked it. Act like you are a third party who doesn’t know the owner of the website and who doesn’t have any affiliation with the website. Say something like “I was looking for ______ and I came across this site. It has some really great tips about _______ and I found it to be very useful”. Obviously you won’t use those exact words because it all depends on what your site is about.
Which one would you click on? The sales pitch or the other one? If you would click on the sales pitch, then there is probably something wrong with you, or you are looking for your competition. But if you were just an average person, you would click on the second one because it is friendlier and more natural.
So in order to gain more traffic, make sure your bookmark appears to be from a third party, and not from the owner of the website, or someone promoting the website. The second thing you should do in order to gain more traffic from your bookmark, is to use a title that will catch people’s attention.
The first thing people will see of your bookmark is the headline. You don’t want to have a boring title that would not interest anyone. Let’s say you are promoting SEnuke, and you have written a review page about it and you are now bookmarking that page. You don’t want the title of bookmark to be “SEnuke Review” or “Review of SEnuke” because it is boring and will not catch anyone’s attention.
For the title you want it to be something interesting, and something eye-catching. Be original! Add some personality into the title! If you are not creative and cannot think of something exciting that will grab people’s attention, then even saying something like “In-Depth Review of SEnuke SEO Software” is more interesting than “Review of SEnuke”. By simply adding adjectives (adjectives = descriptive words) then you can make the title more interesting.
There are lots of ways to make the title eye-catching, just do something! Make it stand out a little bit and use psychological keywords that will attract people to read it! (There is a power words cheat sheet that came with the product full of psychological keywords). Just try to do something that will make people actually look at your bookmark, and you will get much more traffic than if you just write a boring title like “SEnuke Review”.
Tips for Getting Better Rankings from Social Bookmarking:
Obviously part of the point of social bookmarking is to get backlinks to your webpage(s) so that you can rank more highly in the search engines. This does occur, and can be very effective when combined with other linking methods (to make it appear more natural). However, for low competition keywords, it is also possible to get your bookmarks to rank for your keywords, and you can dominate the first few pages of Google with your bookmarks, if you bookmark correctly.
Above I explained how to bookmark for maximum traffic benefits. Well, if you can get your bookmarks to rank for your keywords, you
I stated above that if you want to get traffic from your bookmarks, then you should act as if you are a third party individual who happened to come across the webpage and was impressed. This is true if people are on the bookmarking sites looking at bookmarks. However, it is not necessarily true for the bookmarks that appear in the search engines. When bookmarks appear in the search engines, people don’t mind if they see results from the actual site owners. You still want to avoid a blatant sales pitch, but you can speak from a first person point of view, giving an accurate description of your site.
When bookmarking to get more rankings, be sure to use your keywords in the title, and in the description. Make sure that it still looks natural, but stick your primary and secondary keywords in both the title and description if possible. An example of one I have done was for the product I am promoting, Google Slapper. I bookmarked my page (unfortunately the one that got deleted, so now the bookmark is useless) with propeller, and right now as I am typing this my bookmark is #1 for the keyword “google slapper bonus”. The title of the bookmark is “Google Slapper Bonus – Amazing Bonuses for Jay Deibolt’s Google Slapper Method”. It is a long title, but it contains my keywords. The words “bonus” and “bonuses” are both in the title. The product name is mentioned twice, and the creator’s name is in there as well, just in case someone types in his name in their searches.
I use the product name a couple times in the description as well, but it is not as important as the title. If you want proof that this works for ranking well for low competition keywords, then here is a list of the keywords that this bookmark ranks for:
#1 for “google slapper bonus”
#1 for “google slapper bonuses”
#1 for “jay deibolt google slapper bonus”
#1 for “jay deibolt google slapper bonuses”
#1 for “best google slapper bonus”
#1 for “best google slapper bonuses”
#1 for “amazing google slapper bonus”
#1 for “amazing google slapper bonuses”
#1 for “bonus for google slapper”
#1 for “best bonus for google slapper”
#1 for “best bonuses for google slapper”
#2 for “bonuses for google slapper”
#3 for “jay deibolt google slapper”
#33 for “google slapper”
There are a lot more keywords that it ranks for, but they are hardly searched. When this product launches many of these terms will be searched quite often. It doesn’t matter what keyword they search for if it is related to a bonus, they will find me. If you take a look at the results for those keywords, you will also notice that I have an OYAX listing and a Jumptags listing on most of those pages as well. My bookmarks are showing up all over the results for anything related to a Google Slapper bonus. You notice that I even rank for “jay deibolt google slapper”, which many people will type in, and I rank for the term “google slapper”, although because of the rank I probably will not receive many hits from that search term.
As you can see, by including my keywords in the title I rank well for all the keywords I am targeting related to a Google Slapper bonus. Try searching for a Google Slapper bonus. Just do whatever searches you would normally do. I guarantee I am on the first page of any search term you use. If you are looking for a Google Slapper bonus, you will find me.
From these results how many sales do you think I will get after the product launches? I have posted a comment on the bookmark saying that the page has moved, but I don’t know how many people will notice. I am currently bookmarking the new page in order to hopefully get valid bookmarks to the top of the rankings, so you may find different bookmarks when you try searching for those terms.
That is how I do my bookmarking. I generally bookmark pages more than once using multiple accounts/profiles, and I bookmark both ways. One day I do it in a way that will get me more traffic, and one for better rankings. For sites like Digg and Propeller, I do it for rankings because you can only bookmark them once and they rank really well if you do it properly (as shown above).
If you follow the steps above, you should be able to receive lots of traffic from your bookmarks, and achieve many first page rankings for low competition keywords.
