There are so many social bookmarking sites out there that it would be impossible to review all of them within the limits of this article.
We will discuss some highly notable examples that are sure to drive up traffic if you use them with the strategies we will outline later.
StumbleUpon This site is unique in that they have their own search engine that offers up random "stumbles" to people who are just in the mood to crawl the web of interesting pages others have bookmarked within the system.
When you sign up to join the site, you give them an indication of the categories that are of interest to you.
Then, later, when you install their toolbar on your web browser, you are given a button that has the words "I like this" and a thumbs up next to it.
Anytime you are browsing the Internet and find a page you like and want to bookmark on StumbleUpon, you just click the "I like this button" and tag it.
Later, if you want to see what other people have added to StumbleUpon, you can choose the option to "Stumble the web" and see pages that other people have randomly bookmarked.
This site is tremendously popular and can drive up your traffic overnight! The nice thing about it is that although the stumbles appear random, they are driven by the categories you initially chose when you signed up.
So, when someone stumbles across the page you bookmarked, it may seem like a random page to them, but you've just attracted people to your site who already expressed an interest in what you are promoting.
It not only drives up your traffic, but the traffic you receive is much more in tune with the type of visitor you are seeking to attract! Del.
icio.
us This was the original social bookmarking site and is still highly popular.
It first came out under the URL del.
icio.
us, but now you can also find it by typing in delicious.
com.
Delicious has several great features.
One is the ease of bookmarking, with an option to add features to your browser toolbar.
Another feature is the way it can recommend tags for you, if someone has already bookmarked that site.
A great feature of the site is the way it easily integrates with other elements of the social web, like blogs and websites.
You can save bookmarks and create a cloud list that you can import and display in your blog or other content areas.
It's very easy to search with a search box available too.
You also have the option to save a public profile so that when someone lands on one your bookmarks, they can check out who saved it.
Within that profile you can add contact information and a website URL.
This is a great way to drive traffic to your site.
If your bookmarked pages land on the front page of any of these social bookmarking sites, they will lead to instant celebrity, at least for the time frame they are posted on the front page.
Digg.
com Another popular social bookmarking site is Digg.
com.
This site makes it very easy to rate and comment bookmarked pages.
They also have the categories of bookmarks separated by the media type.
So, if you are interested in videos, then you use that tab.
If you want news, click that tab.
The way digg works is that you have to register to use the service.
Then, you will be allowed to rate the bookmarks on Digg.
com.
Anytime you find a story you like, you can choose to "Digg it" and it will increase the count of Diggs on that story or bookmark.
When the count reaches a high number, it may get promoted to the front page where it attracts enormous attention.