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10 Things I’ve Learned About Digg: Learning to Digg

28. November 2006, 20:24 UhrUncategorized, SEO, Learning to BlogRyan McCoy

Social networking sites are huge. We’ve all heard it. It has been pounded into our heads at every recent industry conference and Pubcon Vegas was no different. Digg is consistently mentioned as one of the most important social networking sites out there. So as I decided to get more involved in the blogosphere I figured I better learn to Digg as well. So I’ve compiled a list of the top 10 things I’ve learned about Digg:

1. Don’t try and game the system. The community is very self policing and you won’t survive long-term using these tactics.

2. Looking to land on the homepage? If you want to get a story to the homepage you need at least 30 diggs in the first 24 hours of submitting a story.

3. Massive Link Power. If you care about backlinks Digg can greatly help your cause. If you get a story to the homepage that has quality unique content you can get as many as 1,000 backlinks as other sites link to yours and the blogosphere discusses your content.

4. Build a network of friends. Other friends will help you to promote stories that are important to your shared interests.

5. Don’t vote as a block. This could be viewed as gaming the system and could result in your vote being diluted or you being banned from Digg.

6. Use descriptive titles. You have to give users a reason to click the story. A good headline goes a long way to get your content to rise to the top.

7. Personal perspective. Add some personal perspective to the story you are digging. Share an opinion. Be controversial.

8. Use the characters you are given. Huh? You only get 75 characters for the title, but you get 350 for the description. Use them. You don’t need all of them, but use more than a one liner. Regular Digg users will often pass right over too short of descriptions believing them to be spam.

9. Make sure you have a good host. You can literally get thousands of visitors in minutes if you get a popular article make it to the homepage. If you don’t have adequate bandwidth or have to make too many calls to your database, lookout you may be in for problems.

10. Learn what rises to the top. The most popular homepage items are lists, how-to-guides, stories on high profile companies (particularly tech companies), and breaking news.

Here are some good resources if you want to learn more about Digg: