Social bookmarking is getting to be an important part of search engine optimization strategies. Sites like del.icio.us impact search ranking. Read on to find out why and how you can benefit.

With broadband Internet access, the proliferation of laptop computers and mobile telephones turning into real computers, ubiquitous computing is a reality. And people surfing the web from any number of devices are going to need online bookmarks that are stored, not in your home PCs bookmark menu, but online.

Why bookmarking for search engine optimization

Todd Malicoat aka Stuntdubl was one of three panelists to explain about social bookmarking and search engine optimization at Search Engine Strategies in New Yourk 2007.

His main focus was on del.icio.us, a Yahoo! property and the most popular social bookmarking site out there. He made clear that it’s all about links: If your site makes it to the Popular page, your link will be syndicated to a lot of services like PopURLs and OriginalSignal.

Even if you don’t hit the Popular page, there are still good reasons to pursue links from del.icio.us. Del.icio.us users are early adopters – smart, savvy people. And the links are real bookmarks which will get you repeat traffic.

Here are Malicoat’s tips for a del.icio.us campaign:

• Remember a good title – it will be the anchor text
• Coordinate the launch – 30-50 bookmarks within 24 hours is what it takes to make the Popular page
• Place an “Addâ€? button after the article
• Concider adding a del.icio.us badge
• Use Feedburner to add a del.icio.us button to your RSS feed

See also: Stuntdubl’s recommended del.icio.us tools.

Where and how to bookmark

Lee Odden of TopRankResults recommended these services for bookmarking as a part of a link building strategy:

• Del.icio.us: High traffic opportunity, quite high syndication opportunity.
• Furl: Medium traffic opportunity, low syndication opportunity. Will cash the pages.
• Ma.gnolia: Meduim traffic opportunity, low syndication, robust API, group oriented.
• Google Bookmarks: Medium to low traffic, medium syndication, affects Google’s personalized search results.

To find out which service to choose for your campaign, become a user and get a feel for the community. Match tool to the audience.

There are different ways to display “add bookmark� links. If your audience will recognize the icons, go with them. Otherwise, use text or a combination of text and icons.

There are also plug-ins available that will display a drop down or fold out menu of bookmark services.

• Share This is a WordPress plug-in that adds a customizable pop-up menu of bookmark services to your blog posts.
• Add This lets you add a simple, customizable button to help your visitors save and promote your website or blog to the social bookmarking services.

More tips for link building with bookmark services:

• It’s hard: Do your research to know what works. And use it for your very best articles, not all of them.
• Use social bookmarking to get traffic to news stories, tools etc, but not to the home page.
• Don’t create a voting block on Stumbleupon. If you have 30 people who are voted for you time and time again, you will be penalized

More of Pandia’s Search Engine Strategies coverage.

See also: Top 5 social bookmarking services.