Which Social Bookmarking Buttons Should I Put On My Web Site?

Most of the web sites you visit on a day-to-day basis have social bookmarking buttons under their blog posts, videos, or whatever type of content they feature. If you are reading this article then you probably already have these social bookmarking buttons on your own web site, or you're planning to do it soon. In either case you will need to put some thought into which buttons you want to place on your website. You'll need to choose as few as possible to keep things from getting too cluttered, but you also need to make sure you choose the ones that will benefit you the most. 

There are two main reasons you are using these buttons in the first place:

• Direct Traffic
• More External Links

These buttons make it easy for your visitors to bookmarking your pages. If your bookmarked pages make it to the home page of any of the social bookmarking sites then you will get a huge surge of traffic.

Let's be honest though, relatively few pages actually make it to the front page of any major social bookmarking site. But even if your site doesn't make it that far, other people browsing those sites can still come across your links and will click onto your site. And even if nobody does click in, you can still gain favor with the search engines just for having more external links into your web site.

So now you know how much these social bookmarking buttons can help you and you may be tempted to place as many buttons as possible after every article you write, but you need to show some self control. Too many buttons simply looks unprofessional. Your visitors will immediately see that you are trying too hard and you'll come across as desperate. You need to pick out as few buttons as possible while still reaching the widest audience possible.

So How Do I Choose The Best Buttons To Use?

First you'll need to add the most popular social bookmarking sites that accept bookmarks and stories on any subject. These include, but are not limited to, Digg.com, Del.icou.us, StumbleUpon.com and Reddit.com. These are the big dogs, and it is generally expected that you would include these buttons. They are some of the largest sites and can be the most rewarding to use. You may also consider Google, Yahoo! and/or Live.com, but try not to get carried away unless you can squeeze them into your template without them looking too invasive.

Next you'll want to pick some sites that are related to your specific niche or genre of your web site. This can be a little tricky because it all depends on your audience and the type of content on your web site. For instance, JoomlaDigger.com offers Joomla extensions and tutorials, so it is obvious that it should have a button for JoomlaVote.com. If your web site has anything related to software development then you may want to add a button for DZone.com. If your site has a blog or regularly-updated content (on any niche or genre) then you may want to add a button to Technorati.com. If you write about environmental issues then you may want to use Hugg.com. You may need to do some research to find out which sites your visitors most often use by setting up a survey, or look into social bookmarking sites in your niche or genre that you don't already know about.

What If I'm Too Lazy To Pick Out These Buttons?

If you don't want to bother, or if your site's template doesn't have much room for social bookmarking buttons, then you could always use a service like AddThis.com. You can keep things nice and tidy by adding a single AddThis button, which can have a dynamic drop down to expand and show several social bookmarking buttons, or just a link to a page on AddThis.com which will allow easy submission to several social bookmarking sites.

I recommend using the Ultimate Social Bookmarking Buttons plugin for Joomla 1.0 or Joomla 1.5 web sites. It allows vertical or horizontal alignment, unlimited CSS customization, and has 60 buttons (including the AddThis dynamic button) to choose from. And you can always add your own buttons if a web site isn't already included.