So I know I've never mentioned this before, but I really, really, and I mean REALLY love the Del.icio.us bookmarking website. Aside from leveraging it in association with a well-rounded social bookmarking campaign, the site is essentially very useful and easy-to-use.

Del.icio.us, for those of you who may not know, is an online bookmarking tool where users can record all their favorite websites, tools, and other online resources... essentially, one can record any web address that they want to remember for future use. What I believe makes this tool so much better than say the standard "favorites" feature on your browser is that with Del.icio.us, your bookmarks are saved into an online account, and accessible from everywhere. This is a huge plus if you're geek like myself and happen to work from multiple locations such as an office and at home.

How I use Del.icio.us
I happen to use Del.icio.us daily... yeah man, seriously... that often. And, it's so easy. I spend anywhere from a half-an-hour to an hour each day reading through my collection of industry news, gossip, and happenings... aka industry blogs and newsletters. During this time, if I come across anything of importance, say like a new tool, theory, or SEM strategy, I'll bookmark it. To make things even easier, I've downloaded the "My Del.icio.us" and "post to Dec.icio.us" browser buttons (for IE and FireFox). These buttons make bookmarking so much easier as one does not have to actually visit the Del.icio.us website to add a listing. Instead, with one quick click of the "post to Del.icio.us" button (followed by a login and password session - one per day) I can bookmark any page instantly, and move on.

What I tend to do is bookmark all of the things I want to bookmark each day, and then designate some time at the end of each month to editing, tagging, and organizing my listings into their appropriate category. For example, I have a "search engine optimization" tag that houses all of my search engine optimization bookmarks. And, the same for when it comes to Pay Per Click bookmarks... and so on, and so on. Categorizing and labeling bookmarks is a big part of what makes this tool so valuable. How relevant would your list of bookmarks be if they were buried within your account? You'd never be able to find and use them.

Here is a screen-shot of the how I tag and categorize my bookmarks. As you'll see, I go into great detail when it comes to labeling my listings as locating them quickly is something that is important to me. To do this efficiently, I have utilized the "bundles" option and separate my labels into categories such as "Graphic Design", "Internet Marketing", and "Website Design".

How you can use Del.icio.us

1) One way to use Del.icio.us is to use it exactly how I do... bookmark everything that you feel is important to know or remember, and then later spend some time sorting it into their appropriate categories. As you're doing so, you'll essentially be compiling a library full of online tools, references, and resources relating to your specific industry. For example, in my online travels, I had found and bookmarked several guides pertaining to local search marketing. As it turns out, I currently have no use for such information, but nonetheless I have it and can reference it should I ever need to.

2) Another interesting way to use Del.icio.us is as a means for researching specific topics. Let's take the Internet marketing industry for example. If you were someone that was new to website design, development, and marketing and wanted to get a better understanding of how to improve your website's search engine placement, Del.icio.us makes for a good starting point. Here's my thought... because Del.icio.us accounts are available to the public - meaning you can view what others have bookmarked - you could simply find a well-known search marketer's Del.icio.us account, say mine, Matt McGee's, or even Tamar Weinberg's, and view everything that they've found to be important on a variety of topics. Instantly, you would have access to many of the same tools and guides that we use and find valuable. That to me sounds like a short-cut if I ever knew one.

3) Last, but certainly not least, Del.icio.us is one of those tools that can be leveraged to promote one's own website or cause. Bookmarking your own website, blog, press releases, or tools can increase the chances that they are not only found by Del.icio.us users with similar interests, but by search engines as well. Simply put, search engines crawl and index Del.icio.us accounts on a regular basis - just as they would with any other website - and their findings (aka links to your website) could in fact be used to influence search engine rankings... regardless of their use of the "no follow" tag. Hey, a link is a link.