We’ve talked about what the Digg Effect does to your site. Of course, many of you may be wondering how to get DUGG in the first place!
Now before I go any further, let me state for the record that there is a not-so-fine line between promoting the cream of your writing crop and bookmark spamming. One can give you some nice traffic and links, while the other could potentially cause you to lose all credibility.
So, the bottom line is: DO NOT SPAM THESE SITES. IT WILL ONLY BITE YOU IN THE BUTT.
OK, glad we got that out of the way. Back to Delicious and DIGG. The lovely thing about these two sites is that they are viral: not only do they send nice direct traffic, but the people who browse them often maintain blogs themselves–thus giving you many secondary link opportunities. Let me rephrase that: The readers at these sites may be even more valuable than your ‘regular’ readers, since they have the power to link to you, and thus send exponentially more ‘regular’ readers (via direct clickthroughs from their links, and the extra Google juice those links give you).
To get a post highly bookmarked at Delicious or highly DUGG at DIGG, it needs some momentum (i.e., several users need to bookmark it). But before several users can bookmark it, someone needs to seed it (i.e., be the first to bookmark it). The seeding is where you come in.
When you make that exceptionally killer post–you know, the one where you have the sensational exclusive, or the highly detailed 10 step how-to instructions that aren’t online elsewhere–you may have something Delicious or DIGG-worthy on your hands. This is the time where you may want to seed the post yourself, and see where others take it (the most likely scenario is that they ignore it). But if it actually is unique, quality and buzzworthy (and if you have a bit of luck), many other users may bookmark it, thus promoting the story, sending your blog a lot of direct traffic, and sending you a lot of secondary links (and thus traffic and Google juice).
Some tips on promoting your blog via DIGG & Delicious
There’s a good way to go about this, a bad way to go about this, and various terrible ways to go about this, so I suggest you sign up and experiment for a bit before doing anything drastic. Some other tips:
- Don’t only bookmark your own blog posts. Otherwise, people will look at your user history and see you’ve only joined to promote one blog! Spam City USA. If you’re going to use the communities to promote your blog, give back as well–bookmark other blog posts you think are worthy.
- Only bookmark your REALLY good stuff. The fact of the matter is, most blog posts are not Delicious or DIGG-worthy. Resist the urge, or, again, you’ll be called out as a spammer.
- If your stuff doesn’t gain momentum, don’t get discouraged–think about why. Write something even more compelling next month (not tomorrow), and try again.
- Write a compelling title. These things live in die by the title. Which one sounds better to you–Random blogging tips or The Seven Deadly Sins of Blogging? Well guess which one got DUGG and Delicious-top-posted…