Why you should always use Digg
There are alot of Social Bookmarking sites available today which all provide bloggers with benefits, but today I am going to focus on Digg.com.
There are two main reasons why you should use Digg to bookmark your posts and they are:
- To drive more traffic to your site; and
- To give your posts a boost in PR (PageRank)
How does Digg.com drive more traffic to my blog?
When you Digg a blog post it appears on the upcoming pages at Digg.com where a lot of users will see it. Write a catchy title to make users curious enough to click on it, and make sure you Digg it in the appropriate category (nobody is going to click on a link about fishing tackle in the Television category – unless they really like fishing! 
)
When someone has been to your site and read your post, if they like what they see chances are they’ll Digg your post. The posts that a user has Dugg will appear on their profile page for all of their friends to see – and if their friends like what they see chances are they’ll Digg your post too! And so on and so forth!
When someone has dugg your post be sure to add them as a friend so that when you create new blog posts you can share them with them. The more friends you have, the more people you have to shout your new blog posts to!
How can Digg.com help my PR?
Page Rank is determined by good quality links to your site. Everytime someone Diggs your post a link is created to the page from the users profile page. It isn’t a direct link to your post on your blog, but it is a link to the Digg page where your link lies.
You may think that this is invaluable, but it isn’t. Any PR that goes to the Digg page where your link lies, gives the PR of your blog post a huge boost.
I was looking back at some posts on one of my blogs that were written a few months ago (before Googles Page Rank Update), and I was surprised to see some of my posts had a PR of 4! Given that the main page only has a PR of 3, and that I hadn’t done any link building on specific blog posts other than using Digg.com, I knew for sure that using Digg.com had 99% to do with the PR increase.
Conclusion
So there you have it: two valuable reasons why you should always use Digg. I’m sure there are more benefits to using this great tool – but I think those two reasons are convincing enough… what more could you want?
A Quick Note
This is my first post here after being approached by Kevin and would like to say I feel very honoured to be here. I have no idea if my posts will be useful to anyone, but it feels great to have the opportunity to write here and I hope, if this article is a success, to write a couple more posts in the future. Thank you! 
Written by Emma Selley from Web Design BlogPosted on June 12th, 2008 and filed under Social Networking
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24 Responses to “Why you should always use Digg”
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Good point!
I would suggest trying to find specific social sites that are related to your specialty. For example, my YTechie site is all about productive software development. I submit the stories to sites such as DotNetKicks and DZone.com. Since they’re much smaller, I frequently get a front page story. When that happens, I’ll often get over 1,000 hits a day just from those sites.
Hi Jason, thanks for your comment. That’s a very useful suggestion and one that I’ll persue in the future. Thanks!
A very great and interesting article. Very well done. Go on that way!
Emma, thank you for this short, very precise and very useful article. Everything what you have described works incredibly well in real life. I was amazed by my profile page on Propeller, where I’ve got PR5. That stuff is so very powerful, even though I need to admit that I don’t know enough about optimal use of that strong social account, yet (I just used it to create one strong back link to blog, recently).
Hi Emma- I’m not bigg with Digg, since my readers are not really that web savvy- and for that matter, neither am I. So I appreciate your recommendation. One additional thing that would make the post more powerful & helpful to me would be a paragraph with recommendations on how to put a “Digg this” thing (widget? plug in?) at the bottom of ones posts.
When posts can take me/other readers all the way to an action step, they’re even better– and easier to Digg!
You’ve actually written good about everything that I hate about Digg. Tongue twister?
But I’m serious. I’ve already written post-length observations of posts written here, I think its time I made them posts themselves. I’ll contact Kevin for a guest post about my views on digg. And I have a bundle of it, after 3 digg successes.
Ronny – Thank you!
Adam – Thanks for the comment. I’m glad you find it useful
Celia – You’re right – of all the things I should’ve included in the post and I forget to! Unfortunately the Digg site is down for me at the moment, but when I get chance I’ll come back and post info on how to add the widget/code to your blog.
Sumesh – I will look forward to reading your views on Digg!
Digg annoys me because of the comments. Every time I see something worthy of a digg, I read the comments first and all the negative people really turn me off from even being on that site. I guess I should learn and just stop reading them.
Anyway, on the other hand, if you can make a really witty and funny comment before there gets to be too many comments, you can really get things going. People will add you as a friend which means more people will see your diggs, etc. You just have to be REALLY careful about what you say. The Digg community (the ones that comment anyway) can be really nasty so you need to have thick skin.
Digg is quite the beast to master, as far as getting on that elusive FP. But i like where you’re going with it, as far PR and link building. One thing that is really upsetting me as of late, is the conflicting info on social media marketing and net marketing in general.
I’ve read accounts that in order to do well on Digg, one needs to have the Digg button on posts, so those on ones blog can digg it up. That without the Digg button on ones posts, the voting will go nowhere. But then i read somewhere else, where this is not true. It is getting harder and harder to know what is what, and how to do something properly with the myriad of info on the interweb, and its lightning fast changing nature.
I do have my reputable sources, but experts can at times, also be wrong. Thanxs for your tip on Digg.
Oh, also i have question. This has been asked before, but again, info changes overnight. I’m curious as to how YOU do Digg. Do you submit your own posts to Digg? Or have others do it for you? Do you share all posts with friends to Digg up, or only certain ones?
I have my style, but i’m wondering how you personally use it.
Thanks for the great article. I agree – Digg is very powerful. Digg helps with visitor traffic coming from the Digg website AS WELL AS helping your posts to easily get listed in search engines. It sometimes only takes minutes before a Digg topic is listed in the search engines – which is a huge advantage for the posts associated.
Sure Digg is great if you write a blog that fits their categories – but I write one about Walt Disney World news and planning and another where I write book reviews – I can’t see how my articles could ever end up on Digg.
Am I wrong?
Missy – that is a very good question. What I tend to do is always Digg my own posts, and this is for a number of reasons.
Generally, I feel that no one will Digg your post if it hasn’t already been submitted to Digg – all people really want to do is click Digg and be done with it.
Another reason is is because I can create a good title and description for what I’m Digging. I feel that is just as important as creating links for link directories. If someone were to Digg a post of mine that I hadn’t already Dugg I wouldn’t want them to create the title and description as it could be bad/unrelated/not-what-I’m-Looking-For etc. And I feel not only would that be bad for SEO purposes – but it’d also be bad because that title and description is a reflection on my site.
Mrs S – I’m sure there are a few good categories you could post your Walt Disney World News to. There is the “World News” category, and “Travel and Places” category. With the book reviews one you could use the “Arts and Culture” category. They may not be really specific to what you want, but you’re more likely to get visitors from these categories than any other, and if you don’t try, you won’t know
Missy – I forgot to answer your other question. I tend to shout my Diggs to all my friends sometimes leaving a note asking them to get in touch with me if they don’t like my shouts. That way if my friends don’t like my shouts I’ll leave them out in future shouts.
Ok I might be a bit dumb here. How do you digg your posts? How do you add a digg widget to your blog?????
Thanks
thanks for the sharp post on Digg. i like your ideas and will keep Digg’ing, even as frustrating as it sometimes is.
good job
Two more questions for you Emma:(by the way thanxs for the replies above)
1.) Do you always use different titles on Digg, than the blog post title, because of dup content?
2.) How many digg shouts do you tend to send out daily to friends?
I ask because as a busy blogger, i write for pay on 2 blogs, plus i have a small network of sites and blogs. So i am quite busy and always have something to do. And Social Media Marketing can be SO time consuming at times. I hardly ever get to all Digg shouts and Stumbles from friends, as at times, they can be too many.
How do you handle it all? Which do you belong to?
P.S. Your 1st article along with the replies, has been really helpful. Thanxs again. Maybe i will write something for Blogging Tips. Hmmm, i just might.
Has this post been Dugg? Where is the Digg button, let’s Digg this baby up.
In response to Cush and Celia – you can find all the info you need to integrate Digg into your site here: http://digg.com/tools/integrate – but if you’re looking for a quick Digg button try this adding this piece of code to your blog:
Missy, no problem
In response to your other questions:
1. I usually keep the title of the post the same so that it’s keyword relevant – although re-wording the title using the same keywords is probably just as beneficial. As long as it has some relevance to your post. In the description I generally just summarize the post in a couple of sentances.
2. Blogging is something I do in my spare time so I usually only write a couple of posts a week. If I did happen to write a couple in the same day I’d shout one to my friends on that day, then maybe shout the other the next day? I often get shouts from my friends but they also tend to be no more than one a day.
I look forward to reading your article if you write something on here
Oh, and you can Digg this post, but for some reason the button on this page doesn’t work correctly (I’ll let Kevin know so he can fix it).
The link to Digg this post is here: http://digg.com/design/Why_you_should_always_use_Digg
Hi, I am not a big fan of social bookmarking but I love stumbleupon. I dont like digg coz digg just provide instantaneous traffic which also increases the bounce rate.
Some say that certian niches works for digg but my niche does not work at all.
I have not been able to log into my Digg account for the past couple of days … I was wondering if I’ve been banned for Digging my own blog posts … anyone ever heard of that? Can you be banned for that? I read all over the net to Digg my posts … I guess I’ll have to break down and email customer care to see what the problem is.
Great article … Thanks! *SmiLes* Suzanne
Actually, since the Digg algorithm changed, you get almost no traffic unless you hit the HP. It doesn’t even matter if you make it to the top of one category’s page.
Because of the huge move to get content on Digg, it can be really effective to get articles posted on what social site is moving upwards. Its hard for other sites to build to Digg’s popularity, but so many people forget about level two social sites, that posting on them can be lucrative for links back.
Awesome and very informative article. I was not fully aware that Digg can have anything positive to do with our PR. I did realize that it is a great place to make new friends and read great articles. But now i know it is much more valuable. Like you said it helped your Pr and I believe that to be 100% true now after checking my SEO numbers after one post did well before I removed it, I jumped up 2 extra points in my SEO Grade. Thank you so much for the informative post and if you don’t mind I am going to go looking for you on Digg now and add you as a friend. Have a wonderful day and God Bless.
Josy & Darrin