How relevant is social bookmarking for SEO today?
-
I've been doing SEO for a little over 4 years. I've never used sites like Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, etc. either personally or on behalf of my clients. This past week I had a discussion with another SEO who asked what I'm doing for my clients with regard to social bookmarking. I responded that I'm really not doing anything and they were shocked. I took a pretty good verbal beating over it. She was borderline offended.
I have always been able to deliver solid results for my clients without any type of social bookmarking, so I struggle to see the need, but am surprised at how shocked this other SEO was that I don't do it. How beneficial is it and am I really missing out?
-
Great response Samuel, thanks for sharing your thoughts.
-
Garrett, thanks for the question. I hate to give a complicated answer, but the answer is, "It depends." Specifically, it depends what you and the other SEO mean when you talk about "SEO." The phrase means different things to different people. Let me explain.
If you are referring specifically to helping a website rank more highly in organic search results, then the number of Digg submission, StumbleUpon shares, Reddit links, Diigo saves, and more will not help a website directly. These are not direct ranking factors (one reason, among many, is that it would be too easy for anyone to spam Google's algorithm via these methods).
However, these methods are useful in general online marketing (which some say is to what "SEO" refers) in ways that can help to increase a site's organic prominence indirectly. Here's an example. Say that you use social-bookmarking sites to "spread the word" about a site and its content. People find out about the site and its content via the social-bookmarking sites and then decide to write about the site, share it on their own social networks, and link to it. Then, the mentions and links that result indirectly can eventually help the site in organic search via the natural, earned backlinks.
Here's the key. Social media and bookmarking sites are public relations and communications channels that can be used to reach a targeted audience (for any purpose). One use is to spread the word in the ways that I described above to increase awareness of a site and its content. The more you do this, the more that referral traffic and the resulting mentions and links will follow -- and the more that organic rankings will likely increase as an indirect result. (Of course, do not spam.)
So, I guess my answer is that social bookmarking will not help organic rankings directly. But it can and should be used in a strategic way in terms of what is called off-page SEO, public relations, or content marketing (depending on who you ask) to help long-term organic rankings, sales, conversions, and more over the long term indirectly.
I hope this answer is clear and makes sense!
-
Garrett trust me you are doing it right and especially for the client end I don’t really see any need of it. The most they can deliver you is some extra amount of traffic (with the bounce rate of 90% and plus) as far as the link equity from social bookmarking is concern, it’s more like directories.
The reason why they are shocked is because they have no idea how to ACTUALLY build quality links so they keep workin on shit that are not important at all in my opinion.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
The relationship between Social Media and SEO?
I have read mixed reviews about the relationship between these two in the past. Are there any ways Social Media can improve SEO?
Social Media | | sophiecrosby970 -
Knowing audience through social share
Is there any way I can search on Google or use any tool to find my audiences who have shared my blog post on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn or anywhere else? If Moz provides this functionality then where can i find it. Also, How can i find the same information on competitors blog?
Social Media | | musigma0 -
4 Weeks In - Need to Develop my SEO Strategy
Hello All, 1st post \ interaction on Moz! I'm now half way through my 4th week in an 'Online Marketing' role for an established travel operator \ agent in the UK and I now want to really start working on my SEO (and linkbuilding) strategy. I'm using Moz for most things and I have highlighted (via crawl diagnostics) lots of warnings & errors (15,000 pages crawled, 12,000 errors and 26,000 warnings!) which I will be addressing with the web design company next week... We engage (but not as much as we should) in Social Media and I have an excellent content writer who can write unique, interesting and informative content about our niche - which is quite large! I am obviously keen to focus my SEO efforts on the content and I have created accounts on Web 2.0 (Squidoo, Hubpages, Blogger etc), Social Bookmarking (Stumbleupon, Digg, Reddit etc) and I have started to engage with other webmasters within the industry in the hope I can submit one or two 'guest posts. Adding to that we have an excellent blog that 'sits off' our site and already has some great content on! I am also looking at other content ideas such as; lists, infographics, quizzes, surveys etc So my question is; do I continue with the 'content strategy' and if so, should i continue with the platforms I am currently using (as above)? I don't think that I'm a million miles away but any advice would be greatly appreciated! Andy
Social Media | | TomKing0 -
Monitor Social Traffic
SocialAppsHQ has revised their pricing plans. https://www.socialappshq.com/home/pricing?utm_medium=email&utm_source=pricechange We have been using both their Apps and Social Monitoring. The Apps has worked pretty well for us and the revised pricing will actually be cheaper for us, so I'll likely continue with that feature. As for the Social Monitoring, perhaps I'm not using it effectively, but I get notice of social traffic too late to be really useful. To help generate viral lift in Twitter, for example, I need to be notified within an hour or so that someone has mentioned our product. If I am notified eight hours after the original tweet, then many on the east coast are already asleep and I can't retweet effectively until the next day, and it looses impact when the discussion is cold. Also, the revised pricing makes this feature much more expensive for us. What services can you recommend that will give us rapid notification of search phrases on FB and Twitter? Best,
Social Media | | ChristopherGlaeser
Christopher0 -
Facebook 'SEO', Likes and Fans
I spent a bit of time this morning combing Google looking for some documentation on SEO for Facebook, specifically the value of 'likes', when liking one's status, how that effects the visibility of a given post and basically the criteria for creating whatever they deem a post to have gone 'viral'. I'm convinced there has to be some answers for my first two questions... ....somewhere. Likewise, I can appreciate if there's nothing available to answer my third question pertaining to 'viral criteria'. Nevertheless, if anyone has any resources/documentation that could provide me some insight into how FB interprets 'likes', how an increased number of 'likes' may lead to greater visibility and (more or less) the mechanics of how this interacts with the entire Facebook structure, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks for reading, I look forward to the responses!
Social Media | | NiallSmith0 -
Social Media and Local Search results
Hello, I have profiles in several social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. When I search with my name on google.com the profiles are showing on the first page, but when I do a local search, the profiles start showing in the end of the second page. I'm very active in my social media profiles, and I don't know why is this happening. How long does it take for the profiles to show on the first page in local search? Can I do anything to speed up the process?
Social Media | | FisnikSylka0 -
UK home improvement - building links or social shares?
Hi We are a regional UK installer of double glazing windows, doors and conservatories and I am looking to build the amount of quality links to the website to help improve our search position - 1st page for keywords such as conservatories, double glazing, pvc doors, pvc windows, composite doors What is the best approach to do this? Search for double glazing inurl:forum pvc doors inurl:forum and locate forums, but what is the best approach answer questions with the web address in the signature of the post? Looking at the major national players in opensite explorer such as anglianhome.co.uk
Social Media | | ocelot
safestyle-windows.co.uk
greenwayupvc.com
everest.co.uk
valuedoorsuk.co.uk
yaledoor.co.uk/ Their backlink profiles look quite spammy? as they mostly point to web directories So is there a gap that I can take advantage of? We have little budget for sponsored articles on sites like what anglian have been doing looking at the backlinks but are there any other articles that I could write for our site that would help improve quality links to the site for keywords such as conservatories, double glazing, pvc doors, pvc windows, composite doors Same with their social profiles they seem quite poor, what would be the best approach on Facebook and Twitter to attract local followers - the majority of social followers I have seen have been fellow marketers or rival companies on the follower lists of twitter Many Thanks0 -
Social Bookmarking
Hello, In our SEO package that we use to sell our product to clients we list Social Bookmarking as one of the services we provide. What is the appropriate amount of social bookmarks that we should obtain monthly? How heavily do these weigh in your opinion? Thank you for your time
Social Media | | imageworks-2612900