Brandon

Yesterday because of this article, I was Dugg all the way to the front page. Of course I liked it, but HostGator couldn’t handle it. Since then, I’ve learned a few things about getting a blog to the Digg front page, even a SEO/SEM blog. So here it is, How To: Get a SEO Blog to Digg’s Front Page.

Your title must be CLEAR.

If you want Digg to show you the love, your title must accurately reflect your content. Here is my recommendation, write the article, then write the title. If your title does not EXACTLY reflect the content and what Diggers expect to find in the content, you’ll never make it to the front page because you’ll get buried.

Your article must be CONCISE.

As I told a friend yesterday, nobody cares about you. It’s unfortunate, but true. Before this article, nobody knew my name. Today Google has referred 73 people searching just for “Brandon Hopkins”, all because of this article. However, that still doesn’t mean people care about ME, they just want good content. If I were to start writing about my soon to be born baby, I would start losing subscribers and traffic would drop. So my article (and whole site) must be concise and to the point. Drop the fluff and increase the usable content.

CONTENT is the MOST important.

Digg users don’t care how creative your title is, as long as it matches the content. My title was blatantly SEO (66 Ways to Build Links in 2007), but that didn’t make people bury it. Why? Because my content provided 66 actual linkbuilding techniques with examples. My content DID NOT have a bunch of affiliate links (none actually), it wasn’t written so that I could get more subscribers or make money. I just wanted the links that came with a well written and researched article. I also needed to prove to myself that I could make the front page of Digg anytime I put in some effort.

Your article must be COMPLETE.

As I began writing this article, I had planned on having 101 ways to build links, not just 66. When I got to 63, I was stuck. I spent the next 3 days working on the last 38 linkbuilding tips, but came up dry. Was my article incomplete? Absolutely not, I just changed the number in my title. The point is that my article, although not what I expected originally, was indeed a complete resource.

Stop trying to CASH in on the actual article.

Money may be your motive, but you need to keep it in perspective. My CTR right now through Adsense is less than .3%. Horrible. However, I don’t have an adsense block on that article, why? I know Diggers won’t click it, and they’ll actually be turned off by the blatant ad. In turn I believe that it is best to not add adsense to a Digg article. Keep it in your sidebar, or in your footer, but not contextually. Since this Digg article will bring you so much traffic and repeat visitors, you’ll be able to cash in at a later time.

CONTEMPLATE your article for a few days.

Don’t ever rush your masterpiece. Remember that you have spent many days working on this article, and I know you’re excited, but read it over a few times. Print it out and read it again. Have a friend read it. Make sure everything links to the right spot. Then sit back and re-read the intro. Most Digg submissions have the beginning of the article copied directly to the “Description” box. If you’re first few sentences don’t grab the reader, they won’t see your article. As I said, I wrote the whole article then contemplated for about 3 days trying to brainstorm, rewriting the intro (I had 3 good introduction paragraphs, and picked the best one) checking for mistakes, editing the title, etc.

So was it worth all the work? Well, not only is my article one of the few SEO articles that ever make the front page of Digg, I’m still on the Del.icio.us popular page (#3 currently with over 300 bookmarks), Technorati records 96 new links, and I’ve also seen over 12,000 unique visitors in less than 24 hours!

I guess it was worth the work! Buying 96 links at $10 per link, this article is worth $960. $960 divided by 5 hours worth of work is almost $200 an hour. That doesn’t even count the traffic and links I’ll still be receiving over the next few days and weeks!