Anyone who's trying to market a product, or a website online knows what the biggest problem is... and that's traffic. Getting traffic is the number one problem that online marketers face. There are two reasons for this. One is that they simply do not know the best techniques for getting traffic. The other thing is that they don't know how to get targeted traffic without spending a ton of money on paid advertising, which by the way still doesn't mean that you're getting targeted traffic to your niche.
The fact is that there are just so many websites online, and everyone and their mother are trying to vie for the same traffic, and so unless you know certain techniques to get your site out there in front of eyeballs that matter, you're pretty much dead in the water.
It's sort of equivalent to having a store out in the desert. Sure you could build the nicest store in the world, and sell the best stuff there is, but if you're out in the middle of the desert nobody is going to come in and buy anything from you.
Many people feel that they can just build a website and put it online and the people will start flooding in, but that hope is quickly shot down however when they go to their website stats page and hear crickets chirping.
There are many different ways to get traffic yet all are not equal, and some are better than others - and that's that. In the beginning, when the search engines first started, it really was a lot easier. You could simply throw some good keywords onto your website, add some meta-tags, and the search engine spiders would come around and list your site.
What happened however is what always happens, which is that people began to realize that they could work the system and manipulate it, throwing up a bunch of junk on their websites and kind of suckered people onto their site. Of course the search engines recognized this and began to change their algorithms so that it wasn't quite as easy to spam them. Naturally however people always find a way around the system and did so.
The website that possibly changed all that was Google. Google didn't want to be just any old junky search engine where spam was more prevalent than actual sites. They wanted people to come back often to their search engine and knew that the way to do that was to make their surfing experience tremendous, and to get them exactly the information that they wanted, as quickly as possible. Their algorithms have changed the search wars drastically, and now you literally must have valid content on your site to achieve a good standing. It became more difficult at that point than ever to get traffic.
However a different kind of website has began to emerge where the users pretty much runs the show, and dictates what they wanted to see. Social bookmarking sites, or Web 2.0 as some people call them have helped change everything due to the fact that your own peers - other web users - pretty much control what's relevant and what's not by basically reviewing websites that they like for themselves and other users.
Sites like Digg, Delicious, Facebook and many others have now dominated the web and it's a trend that doesn't seem to be going anywhere soon. In fact many feel it's the perfect system, as does Google. Google, and the other major search engines and directories seem to love these sites more and more because they know that these are authority sites where the vast majority of the content has been basically voted for by web users as great content.
A few marketers have actually figured out how to use this to their benefit without spamming, one such marketer being the guy who wrote the book on the subject. Craig Desorcy has written a book that anybody who wants to get traffic on today's internet must read. The books title, "Social Bookmarking Secrets Revealed" pretty much says it all because Mr. Desorcy does just that, which is reveal all the secrets of Social Bookmarking, showing you exactly how to get massive amounts of traffic from people who have gotten to your site through the best medium ever... word of mouth.
To show you that Craig Desorcy is the real deal, a guy who loves helping people succeed online we've asked him a few questions about his book and Social Bookmarking on a whole. Here's what he had to say:
Q: What is Web 2.0 all about from a marketing perspective? What is social bookmarking and Tagging? What are the demographics of Social Bookmarkers and Taggers?
A: From a marketing perspective, web 2.0 is like a watering hole for your prospective customers. It's where they gather and share their needs and problems so that you can eavesdrop and pick up on clues for future product ideas that offer the solutions they're seeking. It gives you the chance to make it a peer-to-peer situation where you can appear as both the go-to expert and a genuine part of the community so that you build trust with your audience.
Social bookmarking is similar to keeping a favorite's list compiled on your computer. Only this time, you're sharing that list with other individuals and sending the links viral. Tagging is what happens when you have a link you want to share, but need to attach keywords or phrases to it to help identify the purpose of the link to others. For instance, a link to parenting.com might have tags like "parenting, kids, mom, dad," and so on. The great thing about social bookmarking and tagging is that it crosses all boundaries and is used by a wide range of demographics - from Baby Boomers wanting to share retirement links with friends to teenagers passing along links to funny viral video sites they find on the 'net.
Q: What is the difference between social networks and social bookmarks?
A: Social bookmarks are the actual links you're sharing. Social networks are the directories that you share them on. So if you go to socialbookmarktraffic.com and bookmark it, you might choose to bookmark it on Digg.com, Del.icio.us, or some other social network of your choice.
Q: What kind of businesses does bookmarking help?
A: Bookmarking benefits any business that's on the 'net. The intent is to have your links found and shared with as many people as possible, preferably targeted individuals who fit your customer profile. Tagging helps make that happen because when someone goes to del.icio.us and types in a keyword that relates to your domain's purpose, your link will come up in as many bookmarking lists as it's been shared.
Q: What are the top social network scenes? What are Del.icio.us, Furl, StumbleUpon, and Flickr? What is Digg and how do you get the public to Digg Your Domain?
A: The top social networking is a bit different from social bookmarking. A social network is a community like MySpace, Squidoo, Ning, Facebook, and others. Del.icio.us is one of the top social bookmarking sites. It's where you tag links and share your list with other like-minded individuals.
Furl and StumbleUpon are similar, only with StumbleUpon, people surf the web randomly, and users "Stumble" your site so that it goes into rotation. Flickr is a photo-sharing site where tags are used. If you went to Hawaii on vacation and took several pictures of the beautiful sunset, you could post them on Flickr and tag them with words like "sunset, Hawaii."
You can use Flickr photos on sites like Squidoo to make your lens look better. Digg is a social bookmarking site where people can share stories that are on the web and the community ranks it.
Once a story (like a post from your blog, for instance) is on Digg, others can Digg it too or vote it down. People can leave comments about the story, too. The best way to get the public to Digg your domain is to make it apparent to them. Make sure you have text that says, "Digg this story!" And have buttons and hyperlinks at the end of each blog post to make it easy and convenient for them.
Q: Which social bookmarking sites are the worth your time? How do you submit to them? What is tagging and how do you choose the best tags for your bookmarks? How do you determine what is hot on bookmarking sites?
I think Technorati, Del.icio.us, Digg, StumbleUpon, Furl, and Flickr are the top social bookmarking sites, but it's always wise to submit to as many as possible. To choose the best tags for your links, consider what words spring to mind about your site's purpose. It's not good etiquette to spam the community with irrelevant tags. You want to include the tags people will most likely use to find your domain, as well as those you hope to rank well for in the Google SERPs.
Q: How do you build up your traffic stream using bookmarking techniques? Does bookmarking help with you SERP results?
Determining what's hot on a social bookmarking site is usually as easy as looking at a tag cloud. A tag cloud is a cluster of words used to tag links recently in the community, and the more times it's been used, the bigger the word will appear. Lesser-used words will remain smaller in comparison. You can begin building up momentum with your traffic via bookmarking sites by submitting your links yourself. But always make sure you also bookmark other sites so it doesn't look like you're spamming. Bookmarking does help you with SERP results. Google likes to see how many other sites are pointing to your domain, and each time the link is shared, it's another nod in your direction.
Q: Explain the concept of "going viral"? How can you position your web site to go viral?
A: Going viral means it heats up on the web in a shared format. You can create a video, but if you're the only one watching it on YouTube, it's stagnant. It goes viral when you start seeing people share it in emails, on communities, and in social bookmarking sites. A viral website needs to have certain elements that make people want to share it with others. That may mean it's funny, shocking, or just extremely informative. Think of when you last shared a site link with someone - what was the purpose? Was it helpful? Did it have something you found unique and interesting?
Q: How important is your reputation on the social bookmarking scene? How do you build a reputation as a quality bookmarker?
A: Your reputation among die-hard bookmarkers is important. For instance, if you spam Digg with tons of your own links, they'll start down-voting every one of them and can be very harsh in the comments they post. A quality bookmarker shares a myriad of links that are truly helpful and relevant. They don't place a link about celebrities in the science category, and the links they do share aren't always their own.
Q: What are the best free bookmarking scripts and services?
A: One that comes to mind is http://addthis.com/ a good free resource.
Q: What social bookmark icons should you feature on your web site?
A: It really depends based on your content. Say you have a big time techie blog, then digg is a must image but if your blog or site is more general, stumble upon is better.
It's best for one to check out what's getting many bookmarks at these sites because each social bookmarking site kind of has its own demographics.
Q: Explain the concept of tag and ping? Are there any legitimate tools to automate the process of tagging and pinging to bookmarking sites?
A: Every time you post a new entry to your blog, you want to ping it. This means you're notifying the social bookmark sites that it's been updated with fresh content. You can set this up automatically in your blog so it does it for you each and every time. Wordpress blogs do this automatically for you and at this time, I can't really recommend any paid tools because I'm not 100% satisfied with what I've tested.
So it's clear that Mr. Desorcy knows exactly what he's talking about, and that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of what he reveals in the book. What's also clear though is that to if you're going to succeed at getting traffic to your website these days, you have to make the mandatory changes along with the internet. Social Bookmarking Secrets Revealed teaches you exactly how to do that quicker than you could ever think possible, and one thing about Craig Desorcy is that he is a stand up guy who will answer any questions you have.
You need this product to succeed on the internet today, bottom-line!
Bruce Hunter is the CEO of CORE Magazine in Denver Colorado. Visit us now to learn more about how our search engine marketing firm can help you get the top ten rankings that will bring highly targeted visitors to your site who are actively seeking to buy exactly what you sell.
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