How To Prepare for Climbing Mount Digg

January 5, 2008 by Collin LaHay
Filed under: Guest Post 

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This Guest Post was submitted by Patrick who blogs over at Piggy Bank Pie. He also runs the Piggy Bank Pie Writing Services which I use and highly recommend myself if you are looking for guest posts as well as ghostwriting. You can see the quality he puts into his work by reading this article alone.

Mount Digg

Climbing Digg to the very top and reaching the front page is quite a challenge. Thousands of bloggers are writing content each and every day hoping to print screen their browser showing their story on the top of the world. But sadly, very few will make it to the top. And just like climbing Mount Everest, reaching the summit of Mount Digg depends on multiple factors and steps you’ll need to go through.

In this article we will have a look at how you should prepare yourself for an ascension of Digg. In other words, I’ll give you some tips to help you make it to Base Camp. What? You thought I would tell you how to make it to the summit? No one can predict if you will ever reach the top, there’s just too many things involved.

Mapping Digg
The first thing you need to understand is the type of content that is popular on Digg. And if I can insist on something, forget your past experience with StumbleUpon. Digg is not SU, and the users think and react differently. Basically you need to know what Digg users are raving for. Fortunately, this part is fairly simple:

  1. Target a category: Go to Digg, look at the categories and find a subcategory that will match the post you have in mind.
  2. Read the targeted subcategory: Take a few days to read the headlines and stories that are making it to the top. Immersing yourself into Digg will allow you to understand the type of content that’s reaching the front page. Note them by topic, and pay a careful attention to the tone by which submitters are writing their description.

Brainstorming
Now that you’ve analyzed Digg’s content, it’s time to think about your story. Let’s use what you have collected in the mapping phase to prepare your post:

  1. What kind of topic did well in your subcategory? Get your list back and start brainstorming ideas based on your findings. The idea here is not to copy a story, but to inspire yourself.
  2. I’ve mentioned you needed to pay attention to the tone in the descriptions. Digg users are not writing and reading poetry. They are angry people, and they react to very specific topics. Therefore, try to come up with an idea that would inflame Digg users by simply reading the title of your post.

Writing Your Content
Digg users want top content, we all know that. But they appreciate getting their meat very well done. In other words, being rude and a little bit of bashing will be more than welcome. As an example, let’s review this post from SEO Black Hat that had a phenomenal success, it was dugg 5343 times :

10 Steps to Guarantee You Make the Digg Front Page

Before even starting his 10 steps list, the author is pouring fuel on multiple inflaming subjects in his introduction:

  • He compliments his Mac as the greatest computer in the world
  • He bashes on Wal-Mart and Microsoft and he’s being rude with their customers
  • He mentions he’s using Open Office and Firefox
  • He talks about Digg
  • He talks about global warming

What do you notice after reading the 10 steps? His introduction uses each and everyone of them before even starting the main topic of the post. So in other words, he’s proving his theory with a simple introduction (point #8.)

Basically, when writing for Digg, you need to present your facts, your content, in a way that Digg readers will enjoy. Here’s what a top digger named Muhammad Saleem had to say about it in a guest post on Copyblogger:

“Writing for Digg is actually less about substance and more about how you present the content—in other words, copywriting. This entails writing the same content that you would normally write, but altering it in a way that doesn’t take away from its essence while making it appealing to the broader Digg audience. This is the kind of content that both your regular readers and potential new readers will appreciate.”

Once you’re done writing your post, go back to Digg and read a few more stories to determine how your content fits next to these articles. Don’t hesitate to modify your text to diggitize your work. Writing for Digg takes time and practice.

Base Camp
At this point you are in a better position to prepare yourself for the ascension but still, Base Camp is far from the summit. Your next challenge is to submit your story the right way, and through the right channel. For that, I recommend reading this great article titled How to Influence Powerful Social Media Users for Traffic and Attention from Maki at Dosh Dosh.

Comments

7 Comments on How To Prepare for Climbing Mount Digg

  1. Guest Post on Mixed Market Arts: How To Prepare For Climbing Mount Digg | Guest Blogging, Guest And Ghostwriter Services - PiggyBankPie on Sat, 5th Jan 2008 5:15 pm

    2. [...] How To Prepare for Climbing Mount Digg [...]

  2. The University Kid on Sun, 6th Jan 2008 2:29 am

    3. Yeah, you could do all this work… or you could pay someone on DP 20 bucks to get you on the front page.

    Which dya think is easier? :)

  3. Mark Dykeman on Sun, 6th Jan 2008 11:13 am

    4. Interesting point about the use of copywriting to attract Digg readers. However, is that copywriting needed in the article itself or in the submission title and summary in Digg? I suspect it is the latter.

  4. reno on Sun, 6th Jan 2008 7:54 pm

    5. Nice article! I would love to climb Digg someday.

  5. Digg Effect Case Study by Collin LaHay | Mixed Market Arts on Thu, 10th Jan 2008 11:15 am

    6. [...] Summary: The Digg effect was massive, totally over 70,000 visitors and 90,000 pageviews. My RSS subscribers nearly quadrupled, and my blogs awareness skyrocketed. Digg is an incredibly powerful marketing tool, but you have to have a bit of skill, and a lot of luck. My Digg post was made exclusively for digg because I knew that it would be 10000x harder getting a blog marketing, link building, increasing website traffic, or internet marketing post to the homepage as a lot of digg users dislike them. If you want to get your posts to the homepage, you need to write a great article and plan everything out long before you hit publish. For some more basic tips, you can read How to prepare for climbing mount Digg. [...]

  6. Confession Of A Guest Blogger | Guest Blogging, Guest And Ghostwriter Services - PiggyBankPie on Thu, 24th Jan 2008 6:23 pm

    7. [...] posts on many blogs, but especially on John Chow dot Com, ProBloggers, Blogging Tips, SEO 2.0 and Mixed Market Arts. First, I have NEVER paid to publish a guest post. Second, I would NEVER pay to guest post. Third, [...]

  7. Claudia on Thu, 25th Sep 2008 4:42 pm

    8. would love to climb digg

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