Digging made easy - making the most of Digg to drive traffic to your site
Ranked #1,064 in DIY, #23,133 overall
What can I teach you about Digg that you don't already know?
You've seen the little boxes on websites, you've heard of www.digg.com, perhaps you've even already signed up for a free account. Some of you may have already dug your lens from the little Digg It! link squidoo provided on your lens. If you aren't sure what Digg is then you should start by going to the How to Digg tutorial lens by bigebiz. He does a pretty good job of going over the basics, so there's no need for me to redo what he has already done.
Once you've signed up with Digg and have a basic understanding about what it is, come back here to find out a couple of techniques to help you maximize the potential value it can provide.
If you find this lens useful, please share it!
I have a Digg account, now what?
The concept and indeed the use of Digg is really easy.
It is intended to be an easy way for people to share the interesting things they find on the web and it provides an opportunity for users to comment about what has been submitted, to "digg" it up or down.
The best sites make the cut, garner interest and get more and more diggs as they move up in "rank".It is very similiar to how your lens move up in rank here on squidoo, but instead of having many variables there is only one variable - how many people digg your site!
What follows are three easy steps to help boost your diggs and generate more traffic to your site
Step One - Make Lots of Friends
Adding friends on Digg is really, really easy. On everyone's profile is a little Friend button. Just go to a profile and hit the button - wasn't that easy?
Now to speed things up a bit, look at that persons friends list and what do you see? Yup, more of the little Friend buttons - click on some of them, too!
You really can't have enough friends! It is after all, what makes Digg, Digg!
You will occasionally find that you can't add friends too fast, Digg might think you are a "bot" and tell you to take a break for a little while. What I do to pace myself is I add 10 or 20 friends then I work on something else for a little while, then when I have a few minutes I might add a few more, or Digg one of my friends submissions. Not everyone of your new friends will hang around for the long run, so it is important to add friends whenever you get a few minutes. Some Diggers have 2,000 or more friends - that's a lot of eyes you could potentially get to your site!
Step Two - Digg something
Have a lens with great content, ready for the world to see?
Digg it by clicking on the Digg It! icon on your lens. A new window will open and you can give your site a title, description, and add it to a category - then just click "submit".
It really is that easy!
What's making the Front Page on Digg?
Here are the headlining stories on Digg. These are just a few examples of the kinds of content that "rise to the top" of Digg. Even if you don't make the frontpage, having your site dug deeper gets it in front of more eyes, potentially driving traffic to your site (lens)!
- 25 Open Source Mac Apps That Will Boost Your Productivity
- There are many applications that can help you work faster and efficiently. Though, not many applicat...
- 1 Dead In Disney World Monorail Crash
- The operator of a monorail at Walt Disney World died Sunday morning when two monorails crashed. Acco...
- World Wonders Added to UN Heritage List (slideshow)
- The Tower of Hercules, a sacred mountain, and royal tombs are among the 13 new sites recognized for...
- SW: TOR - Timeline trailer 3: The Return of the Mandalorians
- The Keeper of the Jedi Archives has entered a new holorecord. Continuing his investigation, Master G...
- Study finds beer not linked to beer belly | World News | New
- An eight-year study of more than 20,000 beer drinkers - 7876 men and 12,749 women - found that while...
Step Three - Shout it out!
This is the most important step. You now have friends and something to share, so ....
Share it by shouting it out!
Just click on the link and a comment window will come up. Just click on the little share icon and follow the directions to send it to your new friends list!
A word of caution - Don't do too many shouts or you will find yourself losing friends and with friends that aren't responsive to your shouts! Digg all you want, some of your friends will Digg your submissions anyway, but save your shouts for the things that you really feel have a chance to be dug deep!
Helpful Links (really)
- My profile on Digg
- Feel free to add me as a friend on Digg, this link will take you right to my profile!
- Autopinger is a handy little tool I use
- Autopinger allows you to submit your site to several different sites. Every time I create a new lens or update an old one I use autopinger to get the word out and the traffic flowing back. It feeds your link to many popular blog directories and if your content catches someones eye could lead to unsolicited links back to your lens! This link wasn't working for a little while, but is finally back up - and better than before!
- Ping-O-Matic
- A similiar service to Autopinger - another option to "get the word out" about your lens!
- Give your readers options to share your site!
- Did you notice the little button up near my introduction? That little button helps me generate traffic by encouraging my readers to share my site with their friends. If you want to see how it works, just click on the one up there - I appreciate that! This link will take you to the website if you like this neat little tool and would like to add one to your site.
- Follow this link if you would like to make your own lens!
- Squidoo is a really easy tool that helps you spread the word about whatever it is that interests you. If you enjoyed this lens and would like to try your hand at making your own, this link is a great place to start!
- Linkshare affiliate program
- Linkshare is an affiliate program that helps you generate revenue from advertisers for links in your website. It is free to join this program and you will find many opportunities through this program. This link will take you directly to the publisher sign-up page.
- Click here for free advertising with hits2u
- Another tool I'm trying out right now is called hits2u - they claim that thier free service will result in hits - watch this page's lensrank to see if it works because this is the page I'm advertising through them - but it is free, so at least worth checking out, right?
- Free Web Submission to LOTS of Search Engines and Directories
- Freewebsubmission is a great tool to get the word out fast - without having to go through the tedious process of submitting your URL one-by-one. It automaticaly submits to many different search engines and directories, including Abacho, Acoon, Alexa, Amfibi, Burf, Cipinet, EntireWeb, Exactseek, Google, Homerweb, Info Tiger, JDGO, Myahint, ScrubTheWeb, SearchSight, SonicRun, Towersearch, Walhello, WhatUSeek, and 0PN. It also has direct links to the submission pages of many, many more. It does require your e-mail and you will get e-mails from some that you have to manually verify after the submission process.
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Sound off if you've found this squidoo lens helpful!
AJ2000 wrote...
Nice intro to Digg! Digg got rid of shouts recently though. I'm still trying to figure out how to communicate with other members. I've been able to contact many through Twitter. If a Digg member is on Twitter they usually have link to their Twitter profile page on their Digg profile. And if you use other social media sites like facebook, myspace, linkedin etc. They may list those and you could contact them through there. I find Twitter to be the fastest and easiest though.
Posted July 02, 2009
Cumberland wrote...
Thanks for your lens. I was not familiar with how Digg works and this helps. I will be using some of your information and links. If I set up a Digg account, I will definitely add you as a friend. 5 Stars for introducing me to something new.
Posted May 19, 2009
Quirina wrote...
Thank you for this very helpful lens! I made use of your offer, you are now my first friend on Digg. Am curious to find out how Digg will work for me.
Posted April 28, 2009
The-Kelster wrote...
Thank you. Great advice. I am pretty new here and this was very helpful
Posted April 18, 2009
Website Traffic Guide wrote
Greatest tips to grow more traffic. Please share your experienced about website traffuic on our Site Traffic Blog Directory too.
Posted February 24, 2009
praise wrote...
Happy New Year!
Great lens, I added you to my Digg page and will lensroll and favorite this also. Visit my lens here on Squidoo and thanks.
Debra
Posted January 14, 2009
James43302 wrote...
Hi, great lens. I've added you as a friend on digg and gave you 5 stars. I also going to favorite this lens. My digg name is bizzyguy. Good luck! :)
Posted November 22, 2008
jigsaw2order wrote...
Congrats on a nice lens on Digg. I have added you as a friend so maybe we can exchanage some Diggs. If anyone else wants to join my friends network, my Digg profile is http://digg.com/users/jigsawguy.
Posted September 06, 2008
aj2008 wrote...
Very helpful lens - I am starting to follow some of the advice. Thank you.
Posted July 28, 2008
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Hands down, word-of-mouth advertising is the best advertising that money can't buy! Social networking sites are prime examples of this in action. Church of the Customer is a blog dedicated to word-of-mouth marketing and is a great resource if you have time to do some thought provoking reading.
