Picture this: you’ve launched your website for a couple of months now and your traffic has never gone over 100 visits a day, but today, after submitting a link to 5 websites, your server just crashed because it can’t handle the traffic.

How would that happen? It almost surely isn’t search engine optimization, considering that these techniques take from 1 week to 3 or 4 months for their effects to show.

The answer: Social Bookmarking. Remember these two words, they are going to save your website! Now lets take a look at the top 5 sites that can bring you a ton of traffic when you need it - right now.

1. Digg.com - this is the Big Daddy of social bookmarking. Although not the first of its kind, it surely is the biggest one out there. Getting on the front page will submit your site to the so called “digg effect”, which can bring down even dedicated servers.

2. del.icio.us - it may not bring as many visitors as Digg, but it’s the second best out there and it still gets the respect of every webmaster blessed with a front page posting.

3. Slashdot.org - this one can bring visitors on par with Digg, but only to tech related articles and sites.

4. StumbleUpon.com - unlike the other sites in this list, StumbleUpon doesn’t rely on its website for the browsing but on browser plugins that send stumblers to sites matched to their preferences.

5. Reddit.com - although it’s the last on our list, you should still pay attention to it. Reddit has a more relaxed policy on what content appears on its site and with the free tagging folksonomy your content will be categorized exactly how you want it.

Now that you have the list, you’ll probably want to know how you can get that craved front page listing. The answer: good quality content.

I know everybody says that, but it’s actually true, and here is one idea on how to make great content: think of one problem that has been annoying you for some time and solve it. It doesn’t have to be something life changing; no matter how small your problem is you can be sure hundreds or even thousands of other people are irked by the same thing.

Another to get a lot of eyeballs is to attack a well known organization or person. Most times this isn’t the kind of attention you would want for your website, but if you think you can weather the bad criticism then this can make your site a traffic hotspot.

With all this potential, sometimes you may ask yourself if gaming the system could be an option. My advice is to play fair and have your links rank high because they’re good - being labeled a spammer and a cheater on the Internet is one of the worst things that can happen to your reputation.

Ok, so you know where to get your content seen, how to create that content and what not to do. Now go do it and enjoy the traffic!

Article marketing is not only a fantastic means of ’spreading the word’ about your company, or the services you provide, but also one of the best methods of building links back to your website. By building links to your site, you benefit from the two-fold implications of increased website coverage, and the obvious SEO benefits from increasing your back-links. Through submitting articles which are original and good quality across a number of various sources online, you effectively increase the scope of your linking coverage, which ultimately leads to an improved ranking and greater exposure for your website, and for your brand.

Articles increase back-links primarily through links to your website in the body text of the article, and links from the resource box attached to the foot of the article. By submitting these articles to article directories, you are effectively publishing links to your website, which would otherwise be hard to find. Links, in terms of SEO, are invaluable, as the cornerstone of off-site strategy. By creating a network of structured links from relevant sites under appropriate search terms, you are inevitably going to reap the benefits of improved search engine rankings. On top of that, many article directories, by way of their masses of content and links to the directory boast impressive PageRanks, which can subsequently benefit back-links through your articles, making it a more valuable process overall.

In addition to receiving links from article directories, it is also possible to have your articles picked up and published elsewhere by other webmasters. This means that you’ll have further coverage through your articles, positioning your links in front of more browsers, which can only be a good thing.

If you’re interested in adopting a link-building strategy through article submission and article marketing, the first steps you should consider are to draft your articles. A good starting point is to come up with one article, and rewrite it several times. This effectively increases the number of articles you end up with, which can make your subsequent links more valuable. After you have your articles written, it’s time to think about the appropriate keyword strategy you wish to adopt, and the directories you wish to use. Of course, it is possible to obtain profession help with the process to ensure effectiveness if you are at unsure, or alternatively there are a number of articles available online which can offer you some further guidance on article marketing.

Link building through articles is one of the most prominent SEO strategies used today, and is a great way of reaping direct rewards from time invested. It is a primary method for many SEO specialists, and is certainly a method than can be attempted by the less experienced marketers, or those with access to limited resources. Building links through article marketing is favoured for many reasons, including the fast and cost effective results that can be realised. Additionally, it really can vastly improve the image of any online venture, which can make an incalculable difference to customer perception and goodwill.