Build traffic with Digg

In the previous post, we looked at how you can build traffic by networking with other blogs.

This post deals with how you can build traffic by having other blogs network with you. My main blog, The Necro Files, offers heavy metal album and horror movie reviews.

I have managed to build consistent traffic by using social networking sites. One social networking site that has not given me much traffic to date is Digg. I decided to solve this problem by writing this post.

• I investigate how Digg works.


• An explanation of the Digg algorithm.


• Suggestions on how to use Digg.


• Tips I found on how you can let Digg work for you.

Let's hope Digg works better for me after this research!



The right way to dig but not the right way to Digg, you dig?

How Digg works

Digg has an algorithm. It works by rating how quickly you get diggs. If you get diggs very rapidly, you are likely to get to the front page of digg. To get to the front page of digg, you need at least 60 diggs in one day. If you get 60 diggs in one day, you will keep getting traffic even after your story is no longer on the front page of Digg.

The Digg algorithm

1. The faster you get diggs, the greater your chances are of getting on the front page.
   You need to get 60 diggs quickly to get on the Digg front page. This is the crux of the Digg algorithm.


2. Digg has a ranking system. A digg from a Digg user with a high rank will count more than a digg from a Digg user with a lower rank.


3. The more comments and positive diggs you have, the more weight your story carries. This one is obvious.


4. Similar to Stumble Upon, a user who does not like your story may bury it. Again, if a high ranking Digg user buries your story, it counts more than a bury from a lower ranking Digg user.


5. Similarly, more buries are bad. The more buries your story gets, the less it's chances are of getting on the front page.


6. Digg also considers the ratio of submitted articles by users who digg your story. This means diggs from regular Digg users will be more valuable than diggs from less regular Digg users. I'm not sure how this differs from the Digg ranking, but Digg ranking probably has to do with how many stories you get on the Digg front page, and how often that happens.


7. Digg tries to balance the problem of powerful Digg users dominating front pages by considering the amount of Digg friends you have. If you have lots of Digg friends, you need more diggs to get to the front page than a user who has less Digg friends.

To me, it would be better to have lots of Digg friends, because the point of Digg is to build traffic. If you have enough Digg friends, you will not need to get to the front page of Digg to get traffic to your blog.

Suggestions on how to use Digg

The way to use Digg is to digg articles you like. Now, you might find Digg cumbersome because you need to go to Digg every time you want to submit a story. This is no longer the case, thanks to these two handy Firefox plug-ins:

• Digg me later adds a small bar at the top of articles linked from Digg. This allows you to digg the article directly from your current page without returning to Digg. Note that also you nead Greasemonkey installed.


• Smart Digg button allows you to see whether a page is already on Digg before you write a full 500 page submission with all the bells and whistles, only to discover it on Digg already. Quite handy!

How you can let Digg work for you

You need to add the Digg badge to your posts. You will notice that I have a widget called Syndicate Me. This widget is code that I got from AddThis. It offers quick and easy links to all the big social networking sites, Digg included.

Hint: I even added this to the email feeds of The Necro Files.

If you do not wish to add another widget to your blog, you can integrate Digg with your site. You add the following JavaScript code to your site:

<script><br />digg_url = 'URLOFSTORY';<br /></script><br /><script src="http://digg.com/api/diggthis.js"></script><br />
You put the URL of your post in place of URLOFSTORY. I've had some problems with this code on my site, because of the Blogspot platform that I use for hosting. It is less complicated to use AddThis and encourage your social networking friends to Digg your posts.

Now you have a comprehensive guide on how to build traffic with Digg. Digg it, if you will.

Some useful links

• Digg algorithm unofficial F.A.Q.


• Dosh dosh suggests 12 must have tools for active digg users.


• How to integrate Digg with your site.


• iStockphoto for the image of the kid shovelling snow.

Build traffic by networking with other blogs

In the previous post we saw how to market your cornerstone posts by using social networks, bookmark lists and recommendation sites. You may also exploit those networks in other ways, if you find blogs similar to yours.

How to network with other blogs

This is a step by step guide on how to network with other blogs.

1. Find a blog similar to yours


2. Comment on the blog


3. Link to the blog

You find a blog which is similar in size and status to your own. Observe the blog to determine whether the blog is updated as often as yours, whether the blog has good content and whether you would like to associate your blog with that blog. Commenting is always appreciated, and linking even more.

Find a blog similar to yours

This is done by using the social networking sites you should already belong to. I like to rate blogs based on the amount of entrecard credits it costs to advertise on them and based on their project wonderful traffic. If their entrecard advertising costs about the same as mine and if they get roughly the same amount of traffic, I know this blog has a similar status to mine.

While you may also try to interact with the huge blogs out there, it is a better idea to build mutually beneficial relationships with blogs of a similar stature. A huge blog like pro blogger has nothing to gain by networking with you. As an example, my main blog The Necro Files reviews heavy metal albums and horror films. I regularly interact with the following blogs:

• Karl Hungus


• the Vault of Horror

These blogs enjoy roughly the same target marget as I do. We each have something to offer to the other, and thus we enjoy regular interaction. A good guideline is to ask yourself: would you subscribe to the RSS feed of that blog? If the answer is yes, you have a networking buddy.

Comment on the blog

There are some great commenting scripts out there. I do not really receive lots of comments on my blog per se, but I do comment on other blogs regularly. Since you may provide a link to your blog in comments, this is a great way to spread the word about your blog.

Also remember that you may comment on social networking sites too. I tend to do this when a comment on my blog is not relevant to the topics covered on the blog of the person who left the comment.

Link to the blog

You want people to find your blog. The mutually beneficial way to ensure this is to help people find other blogs too!

• List a blog roll on your blog. This is a widget that has a list of blogs you enjoy.


• Write a review for another blog that is similar to your blog. A little bit of ego stroking never hurt anyone.


• Give a postive remark about a blog that is similar to yours in one of your posts.

Remember, always seek mutual benefit whenever possible. If you want something, you have to be able to give something in return.

Some useful links

• Dosh dosh explains networking within your blog niche.


• One cool site explains blogroll links widget for wordpress users.


• Pro blogger explains why you should join a blog network.

Build traffic to your blog by providing great content

Building traffic to your blog is the key to making money from your blog. It is not as simple as it sounds, because if you market your blog to your regular readers, you are preaching to the choir. You need to market your blog to those who are not on your blog, while still keeping the loyalty of those who are regular readers.

A useful site for Wordpress users

If you are using the excellent Worpress software for blogging, you owe it to yourself to visit One Cool Site. One Cool Site offers simple and clear advice on topics you might be puzzled by, like how to resize pictures without losing quailty. In fact, they even offer ten great tips on how to build traffic to your blog.

Great content is the key to traffic

It is not that hard to get a single post on Stumble Upon or on Digg. What is hard is to prevent your blog from showing a peak in traffic, which returns to 10 or 20 hits per day shortly after. You need to build consistent traffic.

The key to enjoying consistent traffic to your blog is to provide great content. We have already dealt with the format you should use, namely the inverted pyramid style of writing. We will cover how to write great content here.

• Write at least five cornerstone posts


• Market your cornerstone posts


• Network with other blogs


• Encourage other blogs to network with you


• Link back to your other cornerstone posts

I build traffic to my main blog, The Necro Files, by using tips from dosh dosh, ProBlogger and One Cool Site. This series of posts on how to build traffic to your blog is based on their advice and my own experiences using their advice.

Write at least five cornerstone posts

A cornerstone post is a post that teaches your reader something. Most how to make money blogs are based around cornerstone posts. It is a tutorial that is extremely useful.

This proves to be a problem for certain niche blogs that do not cater for readers who want to learn how to do something. My main blog reviews heavy metal albums and horror films. It is difficult to write a tutorial on those topics. Here are a few ideas for five cornerstones:

• write a series of posts on the same topic or the same product


• write a series of posts on related products


• write a series of posts which give information to your readers about your topic

I have written a few successful series, sometimes months apart. The idea is to use one of your cornerstone posts as a flagship to promote the other related cornerstone posts when

• you link from your flagship cornerstone post to your other cornerstone posts.


• you link to the flaghsip cornerstone posts of a different series

This solves the problem of getting one day of peak traffic and the next day very little. Readers who like your flagship post will want to read further, so they follow the links and browse around your blog. While you are publishing the cornerstone posts, one per day, you also create anticipation for the next post. This is a great way to win readers and create a buzz around your blog.

Some useful links for building web traffic

• The dosh dosh web traffic building tips.


• How to get internet traffic from web logs from the Internet Summit.


• Ten traffic promotion tips from One Cool Site.

Project Wonderful: easy way to put advertising spots on your blog

I recently joined Project Wonderful. Project Wonderful is an advertising network. You install the Project Wonderful widget on your blog. This widget hosts several squares of advertising spots. How many squares you want, the size of the squares - that is up to you. How do you make money from Project Wonderful?

Project Wonderful - how does it work?

Most advertising affiliates work with click-through rate or some other means of measuring traffic to determine your income. Project Wonderful determines your income from the amount an advertiser is willing to spend to advertise on your blog.

Advertising is sold on daily basis. The amount of money an advertiser is willing to spend acts like a bid for that advertiser. The highest bidder wins, and his ad is displayed on the square.

Each square may have individual bids. Bids pay for daily advertising, regardless of traffic and regardless of clicks. Highest bidder wins, Project Wonderful takes a percentage and you get to own the difference!

This is a wonderful way to generate income, if you'll pardon the pun. You can adjust the minimum amount you would like advertisers to bid on your site. My advice is to keep this initial value low - no more than $0.01 or $0.02 for a site that gets less than 50 hits per day.

Installing Project Wonderful

The Project Wonderful widget is a javascript widget. For those who use blogspot, follow my simple how to ad internet marketing programs to your blog guide.

The steps involved are as follows:

• sign up for Project Wonderful


• once you are a member, sign in to Project Wonderful and click on 'My Ad Boxes'


• way at the bottom of the page, you will find a link 'create a new ad box'. Click on it


• adjust the amount of rows and columns you would like in your widget. You can also set the size of the ad squares you like here


• grab the code, and put it on your blog


• it might be a good idea to upload a custom 'your ad here' image. Just ensure that the custom image is the correct size. In my case, the 'your ad here' image of my main blog, The Necro Files, is 125 x 125 pixels. I made my images with The GIMP. The GIMP is small, cheap and relatively easy to use. You can also use it on Microsoft Windows. Try it!

Advantages of Project Wonderful

• the minimum payout is only $10


• you can earn as little or as much as advertisers are willing to bid per ad


• once you have an account, you can advertise on other Project Wonderful widgets too

Drawbacks of Project Wonderful

The only drawback I can think of is once you have a widget on your blog, you can't adjust the minimum bidding amount while there are active bids. This is not really a disadvantage. It makes sense not to adjust the minimum bid while you have ads running. The only way you can do this is by stopping all the ads - which I don't want to do because those ads are already paid for.

Fortunately, you can easily add another Project Wonderful widget to your blog! I left the minimum bid at $0.00 for a widget with less than optimal visibility, and added a new widget with a slightly higher minimum bid.

Simple, fast and you can earn from day 1.

How To Add Internet Marketing Programs To Your Blog

In a previous post, How To Monetize Your Blog, I introduced the ways I use to monetize my main blog, The Necro Files. These include mainly advertising programs and affiliate marketing.

This post deals with using affiliate marketing.
I will give you a step by step guide in setting up one of my affiliate programs, namely BidVertizer.

Affiliate Internet Marketing Programs I Use

You will note some of the following ads on The Necro Files:

• Google AdSense ads


• BidVertizer ads


• ShoppingAds

If you want to sign up for any of these programs, just follow the links and see if you meet the requirements.

How do you put affiliate program links on your blog? I use Blogspot for hosting my blogs, so simply use the Blogspot authoring environment.

Using Blogspot To Display Affiliate Links

1. Sign up for your chosen affiliate program. In this case, it is BidVertizer.


2. Get the code from your affiliate program. Bidvertizer uses JavaScript code.


3. Add the code to your blog. In Blogspot, this is made easy because you add a new HTML/JavaScript widget and paste the code in there.


4. Publish your blog and you are done!

Adding Affiliate Code To Your Blogspot Blog

Even with a well-designed interface like the Blogspot dashboard, it is sometimes confusing for new users where to click. I made some screenshots of the procedure for adding affiliate code to your Blogspot blog:

1. Sign in to your Blogspot account.


2. Click on Customize.
   


3. Click on Add a Page Element. You need to click on this in the section where you want your affiliate ads to appear.
   
   Also note that you may need to adjust your browser settings to allow Blogspot to show you pop-ups.


4. Click on HTML/JavaScript.
   


5. Paste the code from your affiliate program into the Content text area.
   
   You do not need to supply a title, but it does make it easier to edit the code later. If you don't supply a title, the widget will just indicate it is HTML/JavaScript.


6. Click on SAVE CHANGES.
   


7. Publish your blog and you are done!

It's that easy.

Beyond Affiliate Marketing

Realistically speaking, affiliate marketing offers you about 1% of your traffic in click-through. The reasons why this is so low is that affiliate marketing links are often impersonal, readers can identify the ads easily and avoid them and often the links are irrelevant to the personality of your blog.

We can conclude two things from this lesson:

• you need to generate traffic to your blog


• you need to diversify sources of income on your blog

You generate traffic by marketing your blog. We will deal more with marketing your blog and diversifying your sources of income in future posts.

Note: This post contains affiliate links.

Useful Internet Marketing Links

• Four Ways To Make Money From Single Blog Post Pages


• Ten Alternatives to AdSense.


• Wikipedia page on Affiliate Marketing.