You must have heard what people said about how powerful a link from social bookmarking website is. Once a link is featured in the front page of del.icio.us, digg, fark or reddit, it will sent thousands of visitors overnight. But, is it that easy to appear in their front page? Some people will say yes, but most IT developers will say NO!

Just checked the links on their front pages, none of them is IT related (the closest topic is about Google and YouTube). How about java, php, ruby, AJAX and .NET related articles? People will less likely read and promote them to the front page since these social bookmarking websites have too general audience. These articles (many of them are really good) are buried deep in their pages.

Dzone is developed to tackle this problem. What is dzone? It is a new social bookmarking website that's specialized for IT developers. So if you have IT related article, you can submit it to dzone and then expect it to appear on the front page (yes, it's easier than in any other social bookmarking websites).

I will share what they did to one of my websites. Recently, one of my articles was featured on their website. Within 20 hours, they sent 200+ unique visitors to my website. I know, it's nothing compared to what other social bookmarking websites do. But please remember, this is an IT related article! I have tried to submit it to digg, fark, del.icio.us and reddit without any results. Below, I will share my experience using dzone.

Advantages

• Because it's a developer focused social bookmarking website, you will also get much targeted visitors.
• If your article is tech related, it's easier to reach the front page than in any other social bookmarking websites.
• This website has thousands of backlinks; including from javalobby, eclipsezone and jroller (they are regarded as three best java communities). Many search engines will surely put more attention on dzone in the next few months.

Advices

• It's specialized for developer; so if your article is not IT related, you can not submit it. But don't worry; there are some categories where your "less IT related" articles might be submitted to, such as: how-to, humor and reviews.
• If you monetize your website using PPC advertising (such as Google Adsense and YPN), don't expect much. Tech savvy (as your targeted visitors) do not click ads.
• It's a niche social bookmarking website, so its target audience is smaller than any other social bookmarking websites. Don't expect to get thousands of visitors from it overnight.