What You Need to Know About Bookmarks

What You Need to Know About Bookmarks

Feb 5, 2019 | content marketing, SEO

What are Bookmarks?

Bookmarks are links from social media accounts like scoop.it and instapaper. The problem is that many don’t get indexed at all and will not help a bit. In this article we will discuss what you need to know about bookmarks. You will learn howto fix the problem to get  your bookmarks and promote your pages

What You Need to Know About Bookmarks

If you are bookmarking (social linking to) a low quality page with content that is not relevant to the pages it links to; chances are your bookmarks will not get indexed. In addition if your social site has a pile of unrelated bookmarks (ie unrelated to the niche you want to link to) it will have little value. This a big problem when you outsource marketing and search engine optimisation and your outsourcer places your bookmark links on sites that have a mixed bad of content. Your hotel and tourism business links may end up in a site with teeth whitener and plumbing supplies. It will be deemed to be of low value.

This video shows a bookmark campaign that failed:  Google did not index many posts.  As a side note, this happened at a time when search was undergoing testing and change. That has settled down to some extent but it is still worrying and we analyze why this can happen and how to fix it below .

Why Google Devalues Bookmarks

Why Social Bookmarking is Failing

In 2016, Gary Illyes from Google even said they were just going to devalue (or not count) lower quality links.  That trend has continues and in addition Google now favors quality over quantity for links. As bookmarks are just snippets their quality is by nature low and as a result they don’t get huge traffic. But it’s not just bookmarks. Ahrefs estimates that over 91% of  websites get ZERO traffic from Google.

There are 3 main reasons  that sites are failing:

1) They Don’t Have Relevant Links
Optimally, you want to get links to and from a page / that is relevant to your business.

2) Your Backlinks are not In-Content and Not Contextual
Getting links to your pages from inside an article (in-content) are better, They  are contextually relevant and natural. Links that stand alone are not contextual and will have less value.

3) The Site you Bookmark has Marginal Traffic
If you link to or from a site that has no traffic your bookmark will  have low value.

How to Fix Bad Bookmarks

First and formost make sure that your bookmark links are valuable on their own and that they link to quality pages.

Any site that Google  ranks, and is getting organic traffic, is a site that Google likes – links from it and to it would be valuable. Links for sites that Google has approved as Newsworth and appear in their News listing are high value, so long as they are relevant.

You need to Build your own social network (see page 61 0f my book).

Your social network should include Facebook, Instagram, Blogger, YouTube and Video Sites. Post content and links (bookmarks) on these sites that are highly related to your niche. Only create bookmarks that link to high value information.

Get Google News Approved
Be Google News Approved
Post high quality blogs on relevant authority sites that are Google News approved. Once your content is solid you can promote it with links from relevant social bookmark sites. Quality Social bookmark sites include Scoot-it, LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest with content that is relevant to your niche and the articles you are linking to.

 

Bookmarks and Content Marketing

Based on what we just covered here and in the preceding lessons on Content Marketing you can see how bookmarking can help promote your content. The best promotion of blogs are actually other blogs linking to it. That actually a hierarchy of blogs which are call tiers. Always make sure that the most valued links point to you own site. Use Bookmarks to promote the second tier.

Example –

1. Write a blog about travelling as a life changing experience – this links to a relevant page on your website.
2. Another blog “Journey to discover” links to this (tier 2)
3. Bookmark tier 2 with a few links from your own network
4. You can extend this with another blog maybe about Tips for planning the perfect holiday
– Put this on a high authority guest blogging site like TheFritz
– You can link this to 2 and to another authority site. Bookmark this with another related network.

Strategic Link Structure

If you plan to do much  blogging you will need to vary how you link you content. Linking is referred to in my book DIGITAL MEDIA in several chapters.

Backlinks and What You Need to Know About Bookmarks:

Technology

Structured linking  is an advanced concept that is fairly new but will soon be mainstream.  It is a subject of my next book on TECHNOLOGY. It’s not trivial: Strategic link structure creates highly effective bookmarking that extends beyond social media.

In this hybrid content networks, social media bookmarks take a secondary role to in-depth articles. They are part of a holistic linking structure that builds authority leading back to your website and sales partners. Don’t miss this

– You may register to be advised of the launch and enjoy our  pre-launch special pricing.

Anonymous in the Social Age

Anonymous in the Social Age

Jul 28, 2014 | advertising, broadcast media, distribution, Social, the future

Facebook uses our post to advertise their clients

Facebook Ads in our Posts

I posted a link to an article about Booking’com to Facebook. To be exact I posted it to buffer an automated service that schedules links out to several of my profiles including Facebook.

The post looked like this (see on right) – A snipet of the article and a HUGE Ad featuring Booking’com.  Now I did not POST that Ad, it was not even in the article I posted, so clearly it was Put in my post by Facebook…. Interesting!

Are our communication, post and shares now the new media for ads?

Maybe we should expect that because FB is a free service and they need to advertise client to support our community. But really, isn’t that a bit much?

Should we not have a say in who sponsors our posts? I think we should, what do you think?

I imagine this is done automatically within the ad system.  It is fully automated so I don’t have a person to contact and discuss how I might control this in the future.  That got me thinking just how social is social anyway. We are sharing and engaging with people many of which are using automatic tools even to answer comments on post, let alone post on many sites. I have not problem with automation to help get the job done – but are we paying too high a price for automation, is it making us all Anonymous to some extent.

In this case, I am unknown by Booking’com who have advertised on what I think is my Content. Lets not get into that argument, it’s not the point, it does not matter if it is my content or not.  They are advertising under my name, I am pretty sure I own that…. I think!

Does this get muddy or what? But lets not get sidetracked. The advertiser here is in a post I wrote, bold and Big with Images and Text far in excess of  my Post which is overwhelmed by their promotion.  They probably do not even know it!  They certainly don’t know who I am –  and that is my point.

Anonymous in the ANTI Social Age!

Automation has allowed us  to be everywhere, a million of us all at the same time, everywhere, all at the same time in the same place. Yet we are invisible in the noise and clatter of systems pushing text and images, ads and communications at us.  Social Media we thought was about point to point, person to person and persons to groups and the end of Broadcast Media and mass communications. But it is not. It is becoming another form of mass media where our content is infused with propaganda not of our choosing and delivered to many we do not know and, to our embarrassment, to some we do.

We are in the age of mass media where content is often created by both consumers, suppliers and media, merged and mingled by autonomous systems and delivered by systems, to where we are not sure.  Systems  deliver our communication based on rules, assumption and directive we agree to. They go to sites, pages and people who in turn share, comment and create the next cycle and the next cycle of content and comments is merged, mixed and propagated by the channels and systems we subscribe to.

We don’t control it,  and the worst is still to come.

For more information on Annonymous in the social age see my follow up post which expores the issue in more detail – new-social-media-in-post-ads-are-unfair-to-all-i

Twitter Hires Jennifer Prince from Google

Aug 19, 2013 | Marketing

Twitter Hires Googles’ Advertising Star

Jennifer Prince is going to head social media company’s ad sales efforts in movie, and TV biz. For the full details Click the headline above.

We are seeing a powerful trend here with online search and new hitting the mainstream broadcast and advertising media. Last week it was Jefff Besoz buying the Washington Post. Watch these moves carefully as we are beginning to see how tweets, video and social media are going to change everything.

Jeniffer Prince plans to hire a sales team to widen Twitter’s coverage of movies and TV and possibly expand into the videogame biz.  “All entertainment brands are working with Twitter, but they’re just scratching the surface,” Prince said. Her aim is to promote Twitter as the “social soundtrack” that can enhance marketing of TV shows and pics.

 

 

 

 

 

Hotel Websites are BORING

Aug 19, 2013 | Marketing

Study finds travelers view hotel websites as booring!

TrustYou – Reputation Machine says “Guests scan the website looking for what they need (king suite-check, fitness center-check, restaurant-check, parking rates-ugh) and then they go to review sites to figure out what the reality of the stay is, because the website doesn’t come across as honest or accurate anymore”.

Hotel Websites are B-O-R-I-N-G: TrustYou – Reputation Machine says “Guests Get Real Info from Reviews”

The study suggest that getting on top of Search engines should not be the first priority. There are many ways travelers can find your website and many more ways you can put your brand and engage with travelers today. 

Cross channel marketing and high quality engagement websites  should be the priority. Learn how market and be seen everywhere with this book on How To build Your Brand and Market your business online. 

 

Bad times for OTA

Bad times for OTA

Aug 15, 2013 | Marketing, OTAs, SuperCarousel

direct travel shopping

direct travel shopping

Online travel agencies (OTAs) are weakening amid intense pressure up and down the value chain, especially in the mature US market. Supplier sites are building relationships with the travellers and increasing their direct bookings resulting in improved cost and revenue:  Brand.com can be a cheeper distribution channel and an increased opportunity to merchandise and upsell to consumers.  See http://www.tnooz.com/2013/08/13/news/dark-days-for-online-travel-agencies/

 

Related is How travelers Shop..