Stop Writing for Digg!

Written by Deborah Ng from Freelance Writing Jobs on November 18, 2007

Look, I get it. You want to be on the front page of Digg. You write headlines and content geared around catching the attention of the major Diggers. The problem is, you’re alienating your readers.

Here’s the thing…

When you’re on the front page of Digg, if you make it to the front page of Digg, you get a day or two of good traffic, then the majority of that traffic leaves. What do you do, write more Diggables? It’s a lot of work just for a day or two of good traffic and it becomes a vicious cycle. Write for Digg, submit to Digg, solicit Diggs…why go through that every day for something that may or may not hit?

You want to know what really brings in the traffic?

Write for your readers. Don’t worry about writing Digg-worthy posts. Instead, learn from your community. Find out what brings readers to your blog and why they enjoy your writing. Write about subject that interests you and elicit a conversation. If you write with your community in mind, you’ll continue to build traffic at a steady increase, instead of a one day spike and drop from Digg.

Digg isn’t that important anyway

Digg doesn’t matter. There are other ways to bring in traffic, lasting traffic:

Visit other blogs and comment.
Offer to guest blog.
Visit forums and engage in discussion.
Write awesome content

To be honest, I’d much rather have an appreciate audience give me a few well-deserved stumbles here and there, than a day with a giant Digg post. Stumbles have the potential to bring in traffic for years to come maybe one or two a day – but that all adds up.

Diggs don’t last. Wouldn’t you rather have visitors who return every day than Diggers who don’t?

Share and Enjoy:

Written by Deborah Ng from Freelance Writing Jobs on November 18, 2007 | Filed Under Blogging, Promote your blog, Writing

12 Responses so far | Have Your Say!

Matthew Griffin | November 18th, 2007 at 4:00 pm #

I agree 100%. For a serious blogger the choice between 15 minutes of fame and a blog with real staying power should be a no brainer. When you’re constantly obsessing over diggs, you don’t have the time to develop a loyal readership. Great post!
Lucy Lastic | November 18th, 2007 at 4:59 pm #

I used to read a certain blogger all the time (I’m not naming names) and regarded him quite highly. Then one day one of his posts got Dugg, lots. I can’t even remember what it was about now, but the vast majority of his work was good and the post probably deserved it. It must have been something new to him though, because his post the next day was entirely devoted to asking his readers to Digg everything else he’d already posted. I was so turned off that I don’t think I’ve ever been back again.
John Leschinski | November 18th, 2007 at 5:12 pm #

What exactly are the retention numbers from the digg effect?
Garry Conn | November 18th, 2007 at 8:48 pm #

Good post.

I use Digg. But I don’t use it expecting to make it to their front page. I think I got more of a chance getting struck by lightening. However, the reason why I use Digg is the fact that my Digg articles that directly link to the articles that I felt were worth Digging end up getting indexed very quickly in Google. I am all about volume and longtail. I literally have thousands and thousands of pages in Google that source back to over 100 different blogs.

As each blog only has a very limited amount of traffic, you have to understand that globally across the board of all my blogs I am looking around 100,000 to 200,000 per day.

It’s difficult to run one blog and get it to an equally high level as all my blogs combined. I use Digg to just as yet another reference back to my post and or other posts that interest me and I feel like sharing with others. I have no expectation to get onto Digg’s homepage.

Great article, I enjoyed reading it.

Best Regards,
Garry Conn
Pachecus | November 21st, 2007 at 5:57 pm #

I agree with you Deborah… Don’t write for Digg, don’t write for Google, etc.. If you write a good content other people can enjoy it and share in their community… Thanks for this post.
Robert | November 22nd, 2007 at 6:42 pm #

Very good article - the “big” community sites like Digg or deli.cio.us are usless for small bloggers. You should focus on the quality of your posts - not aim for traffic only. (If your posts are good - traffic will come anyway).
Cheers
mr.lef | January 23rd, 2008 at 10:15 am #

Interesting article, I am new to Digg, and what I’ve experienced is pretty the same with what describes the article. Too much work for a non constant traffic.
Nataliya Yakushev | January 23rd, 2008 at 12:09 pm #

I agree that Digg is way overrated, but there are still of plenty benefits besides the one-two day of traffic spike. The long term effect of Digg hit may include so much needed link juice, visibility and SEO long term effect. So hey, I’d take a first page Digg place.. But not make it my ultimate marketign goal of course.
Franca Richard | March 15th, 2008 at 11:56 am #

It’s really difficult to say whether MFD is good or not, depends on the particular situation a blogger meeting with? For me, a new blogger with not so many reader, I think it’s neccessary to write for digg in order to gain a decent traffic, nice opinion here.