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

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

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:

• Building Your Footprint (Page 5)
• Content Marketing (Page 17)
• Building Your Social Media (Page 61)Digital Media Strategies for Hotels and Tourism
  Available from Amazon in eBook and paperback

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.