'Bookmark this Page' tool - 'AddThis'
from Paul L.G. Morris: an experienced, respected and qualified Computer Advisor.
A free tool that helps you add bookmarking to your website
To encourage return visits to a website, many people (including myself) have a 'Bookmark this page' or 'Add to favourites' feature. The rationale is that if a visitor finds your site, or a particular page, interesting, they will add it to their bookmarks or favourites list. The way this is shown on a webpage could be just plain text or a simple button.
However, there are two problems:
1) The first issue with this simple approach is that - unless you can do some smart 'javascript' coding - each page needed its own specific code.
2) The second relates to the growing popularity of 'social book marking' sites (see below for an explanation), each of which have different requirements. This led to many sites having a plethora of buttons; one for each service.
Social book marking sites are websites that store for you your list of favourite websites and pages. You do need to join the service (most are free) so that you have an account which holds the details. The features or approach differs but typically you can add a webpage, comment on it, see how popular that page is, who else has bookmarked it, share bookmarks with a friend - the list of options goes on.
Examples of such sites include: Del.icio.us, Digg, Facebook, Furl, StumbleUpon, Twitter…
"Add This" is a recent service, currently free, that is designed to overcome these issues. They provide a single button that can be used throughout your website which, when clicked, provides a list of all the major social book marking sites. The website visitor then selects the service they require. This list also includes the standard 'add to favourites' option. I have changed my book marking method on all my websites to use "Add This".
In addition, if you provide RSS feeds, you can get a similar button that works with feed readers. And, as a bonus, they also provide a simple report showing which pages have been bookmarked with which service. Below is an example report from one of my accounts:
You need to register with "Add This" to use the features. Once registered, the service provides some 'javascript' code that gets incorporated on each page of your website. If you can maintain the HTML side of your website, it is a simple matter of copying and pasting the given code into an appropriate location, otherwise your web developer can do it for you.
You can see book marking and feed reader examples on my photography website
AddThis can be seen at www.addthis.com
However, there are two problems:
1) The first issue with this simple approach is that - unless you can do some smart 'javascript' coding - each page needed its own specific code.
2) The second relates to the growing popularity of 'social book marking' sites (see below for an explanation), each of which have different requirements. This led to many sites having a plethora of buttons; one for each service.
Social book marking sites are websites that store for you your list of favourite websites and pages. You do need to join the service (most are free) so that you have an account which holds the details. The features or approach differs but typically you can add a webpage, comment on it, see how popular that page is, who else has bookmarked it, share bookmarks with a friend - the list of options goes on.
Examples of such sites include: Del.icio.us, Digg, Facebook, Furl, StumbleUpon, Twitter…
"Add This" is a recent service, currently free, that is designed to overcome these issues. They provide a single button that can be used throughout your website which, when clicked, provides a list of all the major social book marking sites. The website visitor then selects the service they require. This list also includes the standard 'add to favourites' option. I have changed my book marking method on all my websites to use "Add This".
In addition, if you provide RSS feeds, you can get a similar button that works with feed readers. And, as a bonus, they also provide a simple report showing which pages have been bookmarked with which service. Below is an example report from one of my accounts:
You need to register with "Add This" to use the features. Once registered, the service provides some 'javascript' code that gets incorporated on each page of your website. If you can maintain the HTML side of your website, it is a simple matter of copying and pasting the given code into an appropriate location, otherwise your web developer can do it for you.
You can see book marking and feed reader examples on my photography website
AddThis can be seen at www.addthis.com