Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Flipboard 3 Search engine optimization is a tricky area of business that all organizations with any kind of online remit need to spend time getting to understand. Social bookmarking is an area of SEO that causes a huge amount of confusion and head scratching. Social bookmarking websites such as Delicious and Reddit can in fact be very powerful platforms that contribute positively to an SEO campaign. Here are 5 reasons why social bookmarking needs to form a part of your SEO strategy. 1. Fast Site Indexing Search engine optimization is very often a waiting game. But what about the times when you just don’t have weeks to spare? One way of getting Google to index your site with lightning speed is to engage with social bookmarking platforms. Google and other search engines are crawling these platforms almost constantly. When Google finds links to your content across multiple social bookmarking sites, it will index that content with far greater speed than if the social bookmarks did not exist. 2. Send Social Signals The very nature of social bookmarking dictates that social signals are sent out across the expanse of the internet, letting Google know that the content you have produced is worth sharing and bookmarking. As a result, Google is informed that your content is useful for a group of people and your SEO will be improved as a result. 3. Do-Follow Links In the game of search engine optimization, a huge amount of focus is put on do-follow links. Do-follow links essentially pass on some SEO power from the linking website, whereas a no-follow link does not. Many people hold the opinion that social bookmarking sites are useless because the backlinks are no-follow links. But this is not always the case. Social bookmarking sites that can provide your business with valuable do-follow links include Digg, Diigo, and Scoop It. 4. Targeted Traffic Most business websites operate within a specific niche. When you operate within a niche, having masses of traffic from the four corners of the globe is not necessarily that useful. What is more useful is receiving targeted traffic from the specific demographic that you have a vested interest in. This is where engagement with social bookmarking can help. People who visit your website as a result of social bookmarking will actually be interested in what you have to say. This means that you are likely to gain loyal readers, you will improve your page views, and Google will look favorably upon your new found popularity within a niche. 5. Boost Your Page Rank The cumulative effect of the benefits listed above is that you will ultimately have an improved Page Rank. When Google is considering how to rank web pages and websites it takes into account incoming links from sites with impressive domain authorities, social signals spread out across various platforms, and engagement with a particular audience. By refocusing some of your SEO efforts on to social bookmarking you will find that your sites have improved rankings within Google, and that they also climb to the top of search results with greater speed. Twitter Tweet Facebook Share Email This article was written for Business 2 Community by Spencer Frandsen.Learn how to publish your content on B2C Author: Spencer FrandsenSpencer Frandsen is a digital marketing specialist and co-creator of outdoor review site GearTrend. When he isn't writing about digital marketing, he is eating at the best restaurants in Salt Lake City.… View full profile ›More by this author:3 Strategies for Improving Your Customer Service“How” Your Customers Make a Purchase is Just as Vital as “Why”5 Ways To Increase Brand Awareness Through Pinterest