Social bookmarking began in the late 1990’s. However, it didn’t catch on until the release of Delicious in 2003. Since then, social bookmarking sites have been popping up like daisies. However, it wasn’t until the release of Reddit and Twitter that social bookmarking really caught on. Now, social bookmarking sites are a great way for you to drive traffic to your website, blog, Facebook page, or wherever.

Social bookmarking sites are sharing only sites. As opposed to social networking sites where you can build a profile and have your own little website within a network, like Facebook and Google Plus. Basically, on social bookmarking sites, you create a simple profile to share and save posts to that profile. You don’t have a personal page, blog, or mini website within that site. It is simply a one-page deal. A few of the more popular social bookmarking sites are Twitter, Reddit, Stumble Upon, and Pinterest.

These sites are great for getting instant traffic because of their nature. Basically, you can post and share links without worrying about who is going to see it or how it may be tied back to you. Some social bookmarking sites accept all kinds of links, while others are specifically focused on certain niches like news, sports, or politics. There are hundreds of social bookmarking sites out there.

These sites are great because you can get a lot of extra traffic to your site. It also helps with your website’s ranking because the more backlinks your site has, the higher it is favored by the search engines. In addition, millions of people visit these social bookmarking sites to look for the latest news, articles, blogs, et cetera, so it is a really great venue for you to promote on.

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Here is a list of several popular social bookmarking sites. There are many more out there. However, I have posted more than enough for you to get started with. Some are niche specific and others are more general. Find and use the ones that will work best for whatever you are trying to promote.

BibSonomy – Specifically designed for researchers to share bookmarks and bibliographies, it’s run by Knowledge Data Engineering Group at the University of Kassel, Germany.

Blinklist – Launched by Mindvalley, they are focused in three areas: Technology, Media, and Marketing. Blinklist has a user-friendly interface. In addition, they quote “fully profitable” on their site. So, you can label and comment about any web page on the Internet.

BlogBookmark – Designed specifically for Blog hunters, BlogBookmark claims to have the hottest news, gossip, and blog chatter from around the web. I highly suggest that mainstream bloggers bookmark their entire sites here.

blurpalicious – It’s not too different from other social bookmarking sites, but with a tagline of “Get Blurped!” it is definitely a place to post more light-hearted and fun sites rather than serious or sales sites.

CiteULike – This is a free service that you can use to share, store and organize any academic papers, articles, or information you are reading.

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Cloudytags – This is a cool site to which you can submit your links. Cloudytags then analyzes your page and suggests the tags your site is displaying. Definitely, submit your links here.

delicious – THE social bookmarking site. It allows you to easily add sites you like to your personal collection of links and to categorize those sites with keywords. Not to mention that if enough people save your site in a bookmark, it will make their popular page thereby sending you a lot of traffic. Delicious is owned by Yahoo and is a MUST for your social media and bookmarking strategy.

Diigo – This is social bookmarking on steroids. Get an account and start using it. Enough said.

Digg – The social news site that changed the Internet, Digg is a very high power authority and a listing in Digg for a site, even if it only has a couple of votes, will rank highly on Google and other search engines for certain terms. If your site is shared and voted upon on Digg, and makes the Digg homepage, you’ll get a lot of traffic and attention from other bloggers who read Digg.

Folkd – Similar to Reddit, Folkd is a place where you can post pages, news, audio, video, and blogs for the world to see.

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Ikeepbookmarks – A place where you can save links and make them public so other people may find them. It’s more of a bookmark or favorites tool, however, it makes them public.

Iloggo – Create a personalized homepage and share it with your friends so they can see your links as well!

Kaboodle – A site filled with people who want to buy, it’s a shopping community that shares and recommends products to each other.

Linkarena – A German social bookmarking site. Nothing says you can’t post in English, but you may be limiting your audience.

LinkedIn – Although more of a social networking site, it is one of the greatest places to market your brand. It generates roughly 2 new users every second and is considered to be the most professional social media site on the web.

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mySiteVote – A social bookmarking community where members vote up their favorite sites. If your site gets votes, you’ll be looking at a lot of traffic!

Newsvine – As the name suggests, it is a site where you can post all kinds of news articles. However, they have many rules to ensure they only feature good content.

Pinterest – Based on the “show, don’t tell” approach, users can share pictures linking to any site they want. Get yourself on here because over half of the daily users consider this site before making an online purchase.

Reddit – A social bookmarking site like many others. However, it is growing rapidly and has many mini-sites so you can post virtually any content. There are rules within each mini-site, so be careful. One thing to note is that if you start getting votes, your links will get clicks. Definitely, join this community.

Segnalo – An Italian social bookmarking site. Nothing says you can’t post in English, but you may be limiting your audience.

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Slashdot – Mainly focused on technology and software, Slashdot links can give you a lot of juice. If you can post here, do so.

StartAid – A social bookmarking site that allows users to describe, tag, and categorize their links. StartAid ranks well in Google and other search engines.

Start.Me – Formerly Favoor this is a personalized Internet start page where you can save all your favorite sites and share them with the world. It’s more of a bookmark or favorites keeper, but still a nice social bookmarking outlet.

StumbleUpon – Owned by eBay, StumbleUpon is a site that features your entire page within itself. Users can view your page from within StumbleUpon and then go to the site for more. It’s an amazing blend of social bookmarking, voting, networking, web surfing, search, and blogging. Get your links here right away!

Stylehive – A fashion based community, Stylehive is a collection of all the best products, brands, designers, and stores discovered and tagged by the Hive community.

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Twitter – Post anything you want and have people follow you as well as share your links. So far it’s still a social bookmarking site, however, it’s growing into a social network as time passes.

Wirefan – A place where you can submit and vote on popular links in a select group of niches.

Well, there you go! Now get out there and start signing up on some of these sites! I personally recommend that you go straight down the list, one by one. Click on the link, see if the site will work for you, create an account, and start posting. Then, move onto the next link and start the process again. Set a goal for yourself of setting up and posting to one new account each week! Before long, you will be generating tons of traffic to your URL’s!

For more great information take a look at the supplemental content on this website and check out these great blog posts. In addition, feel free to connect with me on social media.