14 killer tips to get traffic from social bookmarking sites

You can get over twenty thousand visitors per day using sites like digg, reddit and stumbleupon etc when your listing hits the front page. Getting on the front pages of these sites is not as difficult as it seems. You can follow these steps and you will get on the front pages of these top rated social sites and see your traffic explode overnight.

1. Pay keen attention to your Headlines

Make your headline catchy. Many great articles go unnoticed on social bookmarking sites because their headline is not catchy. Your headline is the first thing and most times the only thing readers will see, so if your headline is not catchy your chance of getting on the front pages is reduced.

2. Write short and meaningful descriptions

Although the headline is important to draw attention, if your want to keep that attention, a description that is meaningful is extremely vital. It should be provocative, but never use lies and false facts to provoke interest.

3. Write an interesting first paragraph

This rule is true if you want to be successful at social bookmarking. If you have successfully implemented steps one and two, as part of the catch the user’s attraction game, never make a poor first paragraph make anyone leave your site.

4. Always remember that Content is still king

The first paragraph is not everything though. Keeping along the line of drawing and retaining the user’s attention, never forget the content is king level. If you write articles that are simply trash, no one will want to bookmark them. You might be able to attract visitors at first glance, but never count on them being repetitive. Furthermore, you can get yourself banned from social bookmarking sites if you consistently post junk.

5. Make it easy for visitors to vote or bookmark your site.

Your aim is to get other people to bookmark your site, not yourself. Therefore use social bookmarking buttons at the end of your article, in case your visitors want content, the can easily post it.

6. Knowing when to submit is crucial in your attempt to get to the front page.

You only have twenty four hours on social bookmarking sites to get to the front page and stay there. Therefore if you post when most people are sleeping, your are wasting your time. Generally posting before 10 am is not good. Generally 3 pm is ideal and on workdays when you want to get traffic, but on the other hand competition for the front page is fierce compared on weekends.

7. Always submit to the right category

Sometimes it will be hard for you to find the right category, because there is no right one for you. Or maybe you have submitted to the wrong category. Avoid submitting to the general, miscellaneous or other where all unclassified articles goes. This is because these categories fill fast, which limits your chances.

8. Build respectable profile

All users are not equal when it comes to social bookmarking sites. If you are a respected user, who has many interested articles posted, the probability of anything you submit getting noticed will increase. Having links to interesting articles on others websites is vital in the building of a respectable profile. In addition is will seems suspicious if your profile only has links to one site. Generally social bookmarking site do not like when users submit their own content, because the regard this as self promotion.

9. Cooperate with other social bookmarkers

It is suicidal to be a loner on sites like digg, stumbleupon, ect. You story can make it to the front page not only because it is good, but because they are supported by your network of friends. For instance, if within one hour of posting your articles you get at least fifteen votes from your network of friends, it is likely that others will vote for you. You might not believe it, but fifty votes can get you on the front page of dig.

10. It is recommended that you submit all content in English.

Never submit old news, it will not help you in any way in becoming a respected user. Always check your facts. You might be flattered that users read your articles, but it will be the opposite when they prove your facts wrong. It is also important that you check your spelling because you will not get a second chance to do it.

11 Not all topics do well

Even though you might have submitted an article that is very good and to the right category, there is no guarantee that it will make it to the front page. One possible reason could be that your story is not about popular topics. Some website have topics that their reader love and some that do not do well. Negative stories about well know public figures and companies usually makes it to the front pages. So do your research.

12. Have Related Articles or Popular Articles

It is a fact that traffic from social bookmarking sites can be like an invasion, it pours in, in a day or two and then they are gone. This drop in traffic is considerable, that is why it is important that you have related articles to keep them at your site longer.

13. RSS feeds, newsletter subscriptions, affiliate marketing

You can benefit a lot from the traffic from social bookmarking sites by placing your rss feeds, newsletter links and affiliate links in places where they can be easily seen. You will be astonished by the sales, signup, and subscriptions you will receive when you get to the front page of any major social bookmarking site.

14. Never use automated submitters

After a while as an active social bookmarker, you will notice that you are spending countless hours posting links. This takes a lot of time and you might ask yourself, why I do not use a automated submitter to do this. Often than not, automated submitters contain malware which are use to steal passwords. Therefore if you do not care about your profile at all and you do not mind being banned, you know what to do.

15. Always respond to comments on your stories

Any article you submit can trigger a very heated debate on social bookmarking sites with hundreds of comments. If this happens, please do respond and you should be proud. Post comments on other peoples stories you find interesting as well, this will help you make friends and so enhance your profile.

16. Prepare your server for the expected traffic

Always remember that having an article on the front page of any major social bookmarking site can drive you a lot of traffic, which can cause your server to crash. You should therefore make sure that your site can handle hundreds of thousands of visitors. It would look bad on your part to attract lots of visitors and you are unable to be of any service to them because your server crashed because you have exceeded your monthly bandwith.

17. Finally the snowball effect

Despite they striking similarities of social bookmarking sites, you will discover that if you make a post and it is popular on one major site, it will eventually be driven up on the other sites as well. Usually it is the dig posts that takes the lead and the others follow. To use social bookmarking to your advantage, you may want to get to the front page of the major site only and you will benefit from the snowball effect that will drive you up the other sites. Another fact is that people will start blogging about it, this will enable you to get many backlinks from their blogs. This can give you a boost in your pr ranking on the next update.

/Smash Blog Tips/