Social bookmarking is a term that is often defined as Web 2.0 because it has an online community atmosphere.  It is basically a site where people get to list their favorite sites for other people to see and the other people can comment on them and put in their two cents on the content of the bookmark.

Now the question is, how do you use social bookmarking to help your blog?

You use social bookmarking in a couple of ways.

1.)    To get your site indexed quickly as the video below will show you.

2.)    To get traffic to your site.

I have literally seen over 1,000 visitors in two days because of a site that was submitted to Stumbleupon.  You can actually see this in the case study for the blog that I am giving away at Blogging Beginners which is free, but below are a couple of screen captures that show  you the increase in traffic and where it came from.

A key point to remember is that you don’t want to submit only your sites to the social bookmarking sites.  You want to submit other good content as well so it doesn’t look like you are spamming the sites.

I use a couple of tools to submit to the social bookmarking sites the first one I use is Bookmarking Demon.  It is great because after you set it up not only can you submit to numerous sites quickly and easily but you can ping your pages in the sites.

Bookmarking Demon will let you add a bookmark to over 100 sites out of the box and you can easily add more as you find them, but I only have mine set to send to a little over 60 services.  The reason for this is there are a lot of services that use the Pligg script which is known to be susceptible to viruses and I avoid those services just on principal.  My computer is unlikely to be infected because I have all the proper software installed but why take the chance? Don’t worry, it comes with a comprehensive user guide that will tell you about all of this and even show you how to set up your linking campaigns.

Bookmarking Demon is what I used to get the post in the video above indexed and I highly recommend it to get your site indexed and get backlinks to your site.

The other tool I use is OnlyWire.  You can see this by mousing over the Bookmark and Share button below this post.  I highly recommend you put this plugin on your blogs because if I see a post I like I will use that button to submit your post to over 16 services.  But if I don’t see that button your post I still have a browser plugin that will let me submit any page I am on to multiple services.

Now why do I recommend using OnlyWire when I have already used the Bookmarking Demon?

It is because the Bookmarking Demon does a great job at getting me backlinks and getting the post indexed but there are three services that can get you a lot of traffic that Bookmarking Demon doesn’t do that well with.  They are StumbleUpon (as you saw above), Digg and Technorati.  These are the main services that I use OnlyWire for.

The combination of these two guarantees that my posts are indexed within 48 hours and I usually see at least a little traffic from them within 24 hours.

There is one more effective technique you can use for social bookmarking and that is to find a community of bloggers that have set up a social bookmarking group (like we have with Blogging Beginners) and you submit your site for bookmarking and if they like your post they bookmark it for you. Having your posts bookmarked by numerous people helps you get traffic and indexed.  But remember if you join one of these groups you need to actively participate in the group to get the most from it.

Overview:

Social bookmarking will get your site indexed quickly and bring traffic to your site.

Tools:

Bookmarking Demon – for quick and easy distribution of your posts to a LOT of social bookmarking sites.

OnlyWire – for quick distribution to a number of social bookmarking sites including the biggies, StumbleUpon, Digg and Technorati.

Social Groups – to submit a specific post to be bookmarked by numerous people.

Do you think it takes magic to write a great headline? Nothing could be further from the truth. It just takes a touch of talent, mixed with a bit of technique. And great writers are highly sought after and highly paid.

Joe Sugarman is a legend in the world of copywriting. His number one rule is that every single sentence almost forces the reader to read the next sentence. Your headline should promise a benefit to the reader. Your article should support that promise.

You want to tap into your reader’s emotions. Your writing should be passionate and emotional, taking advantage of their wants, needs and desires. You convey the article’s main idea by creating titles that are short and punchy.

They dont have to be creative or funny — the opposite is actually true ” its sometimes better if their not. Good headings are almost never cute or clever. Cute or clever titles rarely pull readers. (One of my most creative was Roasted Penguin Tastes So Good It Would Make Gandhi Slap His Kids! It was cute; it was clever; and it failed miserably.)

Writing headlines is an art  you’ll want to spend a lot of time crafting this component. Not everyone is successful in crafting attractive and eye-catching headlines. This means if you can master the ability, you’ll be light-years ahead of the competition.

Writing headlines is much like writing a song. In a song, the words must be appealing and in harmony with the music. The same is true in copy. A banner must sing. In other words, it should be in harmony with the story and sound satisfying to the reader.

Good headlines should be active. Make them short and say only what they need to say to cover the topic. They should convey the number one benefit to the reader. The copy that follows should be plain and simple paragraphs that support that benefit, as well as giving more.

Their purpose is to entice us to read on, to rouse our curiosity. I once heard a good headline is like a good pickup line. While they never get you the girl, they buy you a few more minutes to plead your case.

Don’t get me wrong. Funny headlines can sometimes work. I’ve used them myself. But they work best offline, like a direct mail piece. Online you want to think about how people use the search engines. I promise you no one is typing in your clever headline, so the chances of it being seen are nil. They’re using keywords… words relevant to what they want. So use the same words to attract them. And you’ll get the added benefit of higher rankings from Google; they’ll see you as more relevant. Good stuff. After all, higher rankings means more traffic… and that’s what you’re trying to get, right?

If you are blogging you need to know have a few blogging instructions to make sure you are starting out on the right foot.

If you are going to start a blog there are some things that you need to consider before you take the plunge. These items will help keep your readers coming back and build a loyal following of readers.

1.) Make sure your blog is set up on the right hosting service. By this I mean, should you be using a free blogging services like WordPress.com and Blogger.com or should you be setting up a blog on your own domain.

The simple rule of thumb that I use is if your blog is for your business or for profit have it set up on its own domain name. If it isn’t for either of these purposes then you should be fine on a free blogging service.

The main advantage of having the blog on your own site is that you can add plugins and optimize the blog much easier than you can with a free blogging service. This brings you traffic and traffic brings you customers and sales.

2.) Make sure you use the right blogging software – software like Joomla, TypePad and Concrete will all make blogs but I recommend that you use WordPress. I recommend WordPress because it is the most highly supported when it comes to plugins, themes and even support. There are a number of sites that will help you with your WordPress blog besides the support that you will find at WordPress.org. Besides it is easy to learn and to use.

3.) Keep your blog in one niche – I do a lot of blog research and I constantly find blogs that have numerous niches covered. They will cover items such as custom cigars and acne on the same blog. Most of these are using some type of auto-posting system and throwing in Adsense and other advertising programs. These are the type of sites that make the search engines and PPC advertising systems change their rules and end up hurting everybody.

If you keep your blog in one niche the likelihood of getting readers to come back time and time again is greatly improved. This also brands you as an expert in your niche and builds loyalty with your prospective customers which in turn will increase the sales of your product and/or affiliate products you recommend.

Speaking of niches, your niche should be something that you have an affinity for. You don’t have to be the expert but you need to like the niche enough that you are willing to put in the work and it helps if you do know enough to know if the post you are entering is good information or bad information.

4.) Do some keyword research – Keywords are the heart and soul of your blog. If you are relying on the search engines to get traffic to your site you need make sure you are using keywords that are being searched and are targeted to your niche.

There are a lot of free keyword research tools out there but Google’s Adword Keyword tool is by far the best free tool you can use to do some quick research of your keywords and it will suggest keywords that you might not of thought of.

5.) Make your blog reflect you – this simply means that your blog should be something that reflects your personality or the personality of your business. This can be the tone of voice you use in your posts or it can be something as simple as putting your name and picture on the blog. Let people know who is doing the talking, let them see you, let them put a face to the voice and you will find that you will get a better following than trying to be the anonymous expert.

These steps will get you started with blogging, review them before you start your blog or if you already have a blog going see if they apply to your blog. They are the backbone of almost all successful blogs and if followed will give you a foundation of trust that your readers will appreciate.

At Blogging Beginners you are provided with all the blogging instructions you will need to build your blog, find your niche, do your keyword research, create posts and drive traffic to your site.

That’s right WordPress 2.8 is just around the corner.

The exact date it will be available I am not sure of but there are some cool changes with the widgets and theme installer.

I installed the beta (on a non working site of course) and created a quick video to show you some of the changes that will be coming.

Watch the video below and let me know what you think.

By the way if you noticed the Twitter Bribe below, I might as well tell you there is no bribe if you want to know more about that Robert Plank plugin you can read about it in the Tweet Rewards From Your Blog post.