Adjusting to the New Digg

Okay, it isn't that bad. It took forever to make it to the homepage (12 days) but once there, I realize that it isn't that bad. Here are the adjustments that I made:

1) Getting 30, 60, 90 Diggs isn't as easy as it used to be. Before, having a ton of friends and doing a ton of Digging was enough to ensure that you could get a bulk of Diggs to anything. Now that people actually have to click on to the page, there is a chance that they will read it, which means that spam submissions is out, for the most part. This is a HUGE plus for Digg users, especially those who hate the spam. Will it continue? Of course. But the chances of a spam submission getting more than the initial Digg is greatly diminished.

2) Shouts don't work for most. I've been tracking some of the "shout spammers" out there and it just isn't an effective way to get Dugg. Sure, you'll get some, but for the most part, you might as well email spam and get the same results.

3) Quality of submissions is ever more important. Catchy headlines will always play a major role in the quest to make it to the homepage, but the story needs to be a good one.

4) Keep it up. Like I said, I wasn't a power Digger by any means, but I used to be able to count on at least one story making the homepage every few days. Now, it seems that the gap is growing. As much as I want to dump the efforts, I just can't. If you are thinking about it, keep going. It'll happen if you stick with it.

5) Fans are nice, but most are meaningless. There are "Fans" out there who never Digg your stuff. Because there doesn't have to be the same gap in time between adding friends, many are trying the bulk friend approach. This may actually work, but you can't just befriend them and go. Digg their stuff, keep digging their stuff, and hopefully you'll get noticed, added, and Dugg.

6) The time it takes to make the homepage seems to have increased. Where before, 24 hours was usually the cutoff, there are more and more popular stories that approach 2 days before becoming obsolete.

7) Submit less. Before, submitting a ton of stories every day would land you somewhere with something on the homepage. I've examined some of the mass submitters and seen literally hundreds of submissions in a row without going popular. Submitting good stories is much more important.

In conclusion, I was completely against the new Digg. I've changed my mind. The quality is improving, and after all is said and done, that is really what will make Digg great again. It was getting too easy to post crap and make it the homepage, or at least get a ton of Diggs for it. Now, you have to submit good stuff to have a chance. This is a great thing for serious Diggers, and even a greater thing for those who read Digg for the news itself.

Digg SEO

Web 2.0 Tool

Automating your social bookmarking is an important aspect to using the various SB sites for search engine optimization. While using social bookmarking is becoming a valid method to getting pages ranked, it can also be a long process, one that requires you to fill your browsers with buttons and links.

One tool, the Web 2.0 Toolbar, is an asset that every SEO should incorporate into their arsenal. While it doesn't truly automate the process, it does consolidate many of the top sites into one toolbar, saving room and time.

Many use OnlyWire. It's another tool that submits to 20 or so SB sites. Luckily, the Web 2.0 Toolbar includes OnlyWire in its toolbar.

It also includes:
Digg
del.icio.us
StumbleUpon
Spurl
Blink
Yahoo
Newsvine
Reddit
Ma.gnolia
TailRank
Blogmark
Shadow
Furl
Simpy
and Rawsugar

While some of these are duplicates from OnlyWire, it allows you to vary the anchor text more often. Pound for pound, it's the best free tool that I've found for social bookmarking.

Social Media Marketing
Automotive SEO

Anchor Text: Switch it Up

From time to time, I check the bookmarks of SEOs who are using SB sites for link building. One thing I've noticed that is a big no-no -- you're not alternating the tags.

Anchor text is one of the most important indicators that Google and MSN use to determine what a website is about. Having the same tag, or anchor text, associated with a link on all of your SB sites will diminish their own effect, plus minimize the possible advantages granted for the link itself.

There is always a temptation to use onlywire or one of the other automated bookmarking tools. If you do use them, make sure to split it up amongst 3 or 4 different submissions. In other words, use the tools, but submit a site once with only a few SB sites checked, then resubmit with another set, and on and on.

Google doesn't like it when the same anchor is used constantly. They want websites rankings and link building to be natural. They don't want googlebombing or any other form of SERP manipulation.

It will take more time, but it is worth the effort.

Using Social Media to get Pages Indexed Quickly

Sometimes I laugh at the ads posted through banners and links on different web pages.

"We'll submit your website to 65 trillion search engines for $29."

Sometimes I just shake my head, not because it's such a scam, but because I know that people do it. That's their $29 SEO. The pay and go and wonder a few weeks later why Google has not indexed their page yet.

There are a few things you can do to get your pages indexed if your site is new. You can submit it to the search engines. This takes a while and by the time Google and the others get around to indexing submitted sites, you've probably given up on it.

There is the link purchase, where you buy a link on a PR 6 or higher websites. It works, but it costs quite a bit, especially if you're smart enough to search for relevancy.

The easiest way to get you pages indexed is to "AddThis" or whatever widget you use for social bookmarking. If you submit your site to Digg, Furl, Reddit, etc, you have made the second step towards getting your website indexed.

The first step? Be active and make friends on Digg, Furl, Redd1t, etc. There are many people who have these accounts on the SB sites, submitting their own work in a few seconds, and never exploring or making friends or anything that will actually help them. It is a time investment, but the rewards can be tremendous.

If you can make enough friends (and by friends, I mean those who mutually befriend you) by Digging their stories, the right people will befriend you and Digg your stories back. This is the key. Hoping that your one single Digg to your page or website will be enough is a stab in the dark. It may get indexed, it may not.

Friends allow you to get 10, 20, 30 or more Diggs on a story. If it gets 30 Diggs, Google will index it. If somehow it is able to go Popular, prepare for the storm of traffic.

A case in point is Portland Toyota Dealers. They are a new site that was having trouble getting indexed. Using my SB sites, I was able to get it indexed and start a nice flow of backlinks pointing to it.

If you do not want to spend a few hours per week with social bookmarking to help your SEO, you shouldn't spend any time at all.





Social Internet Marketing

An Outside View -- Social Bookmarking Sites Rated

In my attempts to rate and classify the best bookmarking sites and ability to be used in search engine optimization, I was searching to see how my blog was ranking on the subject when I found another site that was similar.

Mine (of course) ranked higher for the term that I searched, but this is more of a generic, loosely focused site that delves in depth with one article on the ideas and concepts presented on this blog.

While I want to be known as the expert on the topic and a pioneer in the field, it never hurts to give credit to those who have also worked hard to determine the validity of this before it becomes more of a trend.

So, I will submit my first external link to a site with which I am in mild competition. Those versed in SEO will balk at this, as there are many reasons to now want to link to a "competitor", but after reading this article and others on the site, I felt it was definitely a resource for readers of this blog.

There is no shame in accepting that someone else is also doing a good job.

To read their article, please click HERE.

Social Bookmarking SEO

Social Bookmarking and Blogging for Automotive

There seems to be a trend in the automotive industry that is gearing dealers towards moving their search engine efforts to blogs. Why? Because it works, has been for a year and now auto dealers, who are always a little behind on the technology aspect of marketing, are just catching on.

Websites like BlogProAutomotive are helping to spread the word about how blogging for car dealers is not just a fad, but also an important aspect of automotive SEO. The market is thinning and the competition is growing, so dealers need everything they can get to make their dealership stay afloat.

Social Bookmarking, the topic of this particular blog, is another area that auto dealers cannot afford to let slip. With sites like Digg, Ratepoint, Furl, Simpy, and del.icio.us offering quick and easy ways to make bookmarks, they fit into the common dealership mentality of "if it's simple, do it." Even smaller SB sites like 9Rules, Reddit, and Newsvine offer ways to market a dealership's services and products.

The real difficult comes in the idea of no being welcome. Most of these sites pride themselves on keeping relevant and only posting what people really want. Who wants to click on something they find on Digg, only to be taken to a car dealer homepage?

This is why blogging for dealerships is the best way. The automotive industry, in general, is not ready for social bookmarking. Not to be offensive, but they just don't have anything to offer people beyond their products. Blogs, unlike social bookmarking, allow people to post what they want. The explosion over the last couple of years of MySpace, Facebook, and Flickr make it possible for good search engine optimizers to make a difference without getting involved in "tricky" methods.

Social bookmarking is the fad that's here to stay in search engine optimization. Auto dealers need to focus on blogs instead of SB for now. This shouldn't be a problem until they start to catch on to SB sometime early next year.




Social Bookmarking Optimization

10 Tips for Getting Dugg on a Small Budget

There are 10 things I've learned about Digg over the last few months:

1) You need friends. Unless you are a respected Digg member, you can post a Pulitzer Prize winning piece, but without a few friends to Digg it with you to get it noticed, it will soon fall to the "under 10 Diggs hell" and lost forever.

2) Appealing to the 20-something crowd works, but it is no longer the only way to get Dugg.

3) Sex, drugs, and video games are not topics that will get Dugg easily anymore.

4) Humor works, but it has to be really funny.

5) You need friends. A video of an alien abduction will get buried if you don't get a boost of people to push it into the spotlight. Not a lot -- 5-15 friends are enough to get it noticed by the casual and hardcore diggers.

6) You must be FAST with national news. Constant, diligent monitoring of feeds is the only way to scoop a story.

7) Sometimes, scooping is not enough. You can Digg a story first, but if a "power-digger" posts the same story a few minutes later (and ignores the duplicate check), yours will get a few diggs, but not enough to make it.

8) Unknown blogs need a power-digger to get them popular.

9) Digging stories directly from other social sites is taboo. Digg it from the source.

10) You need friends. An story written by J.D. Salinger will get buried if you aren't respected and don't have friends.

* * *

The other technique is to pay for it. Contact someone who's stories always go Popular and offer them a hefty fee to submit your story or video for you.

Article commissioned by the royal automotive kings at Dealer Website Design.

Special thanks to the Digg community and creators for putting together the highest quality social bookmarking site in the universe.




Social Bookmarking SEO