Using digg and Netscape to get traffic

In the last couple of months more and more bloggers have been catching onto the power of digg and Netscape. Bloggers have realized that if they get their blog on the homepage of digg or Netscape thousands of visitors will flood into their blog within minutes. So the question is, how can digg and Netscape be leveraged for traffic, and what results can you expect from them?

Submission

Submitting your content/story to digg and Netscape is a good way to start getting some exposure. Once you submit your story people "digg" (vote for) your story if they like it, the more people that "digg" your story the more exposure you will get. At the current moment, with digg you need roughly 51 votes within 24 hours to get to the homepage. Netscape on the other hand is time based, if you get 10 votes within 10 minutes you will probably get your story on the homepage.

Here are some things that can help get your stories to the homepage.

Catchy titles and descriptions usually do better then dull titles and descriptions.
Digg and Netscape promote up-to-date information. Stories that contain old news usually don't do as well as fresh news and information.
Stories that benefit readers usually do better, such as how to guides and top 10 lists.

You can try submitting your story to digg and Netscape and see what happens. In many cases you will not make it to the homepage and usually when people naturally submit your stories, it tends to have better results. If you want to increase your chances, you should think about adding digg and Netscape buttons within your blog posts and RSS feeds.

Comments

Most people leverage digg and Netscape by trying to get their story on the homepage, but not too many people leave comments. Both digg and Netscape have a comment feature and if you leave comments with links to your website it can drive hundreds of visitors especially if the story you left a comment on makes it to the homepage. If you decide to leave comments and link to your website, here are some things to keep in mind.

Just don't leave comments so you can link to your website. Provide valuable information to the community. If your comment cannot benefit the community then don't leave it.
If the link to your website will not benefit the community, then don't link to your website.
Try to also link to other related sites within your comments and not just your own website.
Most importantly do not spam.

Results

So if you get on the homepage of digg or Netscape, what should you expect?

Many months ago, Guy Kawasaki got on the homepage of digg for his blog post on The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint which drove over 10,000 visitors to his blog.
Derek van Vliet wrote a blog post about social bookmarking etiquette and it got on the homepage of Netscape which drove 3000 visitors in 1 day.

If you are looking to boost your traffic you should try to use digg and Netscape, but just be careful and do not try to cheat the system. These sites are community driven as well as based on algorithms so if you attempt to game them, the community will fight back. There has already been some noise about certain high traffic websites getting a good portion of their traffic because of numerous digg homepage stories. Only time will tell how this social news space evolves and how these websites evolve to prevent gaming of their systems.

Enjoy the post? Here are some more that may interest you.

Meltin' Posts, September 19, 2006: “Wanna get dugg?” — Once upon a time it was the slashdot effect to be responsible for traffic spikes in websites’ stats. Now all its about digg and Netscape. A very good post by Neil Patel explains how to get more exposure and get “dugg” exploiting these...
Net, September 21, 2006: “Using Digg and Netscape to get traffic” — Here is a good post on how to Use digg and Netscape to get traffic to your blog. Neil Patel has been looking deeper into what is takes to get on the home page of Digg and Netscape. Here are
Hosting All Inclusive, November 5, 2006: “Tipps f?ɬ�r mehr Blog Besucher” — Ihr Blog ist fertig gestellt und die ersten Beitr?ɬ�ge mit n?ɬ�tzlichen Informationen, von denen Ihre Zielgruppe profitieren wird, stehen auch schon im Web. Tage vergehen, Sie ver?ɬ?ffentlichen weiter, doch die?Ǭ�Kommentare bleiben aus und auch Ihre Besuch...

Lee, September 19, 2006

Great post, I'll certainly add this to my armory for getting traffic to our site..

Alex Iskold, September 19, 2006

Neil,

Great post - thanks!

Any specific tips on making it to the home page?

Thanks,

Alex

Edward Donnelly, September 19, 2006

Great post, I had no idea that their homepage content was selected this way. Now I understand the constant request to digg things. Thanks,

E.D.

Neil Patel, September 19, 2006

Alex,

Stories submitted early in the morning PST usually do better then stories submitted at night.
Look for trends. Right now YouTube is a hot topic on digg.
The title is the most important thing about a submission. A lot of diggers don't read the stories, they just digg based on the submission title.

You can use these tips to help improve your chances of getting on the homepage, but the best way to get on digg is to write great content. For example you wrote a great post on The Social Bookmarking Face Off and it got on the digg homepage this morning.

Tony, September 19, 2006

No question the "comments" section works.

I can second that -- got a huge spike in traffic after a URL got listed in Digg a few weeks ago with the Circle-digg controversy.

Cheers t @ dji (it was this link anyway: http://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2006/08/25/a-brief-history-of-digg-controversy/)

Henre, September 20, 2006

Great Post thanks. Being from South Africa I find it somewhat difficult to target SEM to dedicated local audiences. I guess it will be years before South Africa will possess such tools.

John K, September 20, 2006

What if your site does not contain articles? I've tried adding links to my site on both Digg and Reddit (spurl as well, but that got me zero hits) and while I did get some traffic - I'm afraid to keep submitting because its seems like all I'm doing is shamelessly promoting the site. Which, I'm not I don't think.

So, does this technique only apply to blogs and or news sites?

Neil Patel, September 20, 2006

John, you don't need to have articles to submit your site to digg or reddit. As long as there is something unique about your site, you should be fine.

If you submit your site a couple times and see nothing happening you may want to make some changes to your website and then try again.

Steve Olson, September 20, 2006

I've submitted several posts to Digg and I haven't had much success. I've come to the conclusion that I need to learn to write better titles and come up with better content. Thanks for the tips Neil,

Steve

Livinghahal, September 20, 2006

Great tips. But, it depends if you want random traffic or targetted traffic.

Sometimes you are not targetting Netscape and Digg's readership.

Spud, September 20, 2006

Great post. I have just recently started using Digg & Reddit and have had some increase in traffic. I forgot about Netscape so will give them a go.

Smart Boards, September 20, 2006

But the problem is that if I have an e-commerce site, no matter whatever material I provide community will take it as advertizing and marketing. In that case how could I get to the first page.

Neil Patel, September 20, 2006

Smart Boards, if you add a resources section or a blog to your site you can write news and information on electronics. Digg users like to read that kind of stuff.

greg, September 21, 2006

with digg you need roughly 51 votes within 24 hours to get to the homepage.

Can you verify that?

Neil Patel, September 21, 2006

Greg,

Usually tech stories need 51 diggs to make it to the homepage and sometimes it is less for other categories. The amount of diggs needed also depends on who submits the story and who diggs it.

I cannot verify this information, it just based on my observations.

Sleek, September 22, 2006

Thanks for the great tips! Digg does help increase the traffic. The only concern is getting the right traffic. Probably, targetting the appropriate posts will get the appropriate traffic to our sites.

http://www.sleektools.net/sleekview.html

Brent Franson, September 26, 2006

Great post. It is nice to get some information on getting listed at Netscape. Great content will always rule but if nobody reads your copy it doesnt matter. This post shoudl make the front page at Digg!

michael addicott, September 29, 2006

very nice, thoughtful post. my experience on digg was 11,000 visitors in one day to my site cognitivelabs.com when I got on the first line on the front page. I have barely posted on netscape. Also, another suggestion is bulletin boards. I had thousands of visits from http://ncaabbs.com.

Someone ran a competition asking if you were fast enough to play for the Memphis Tigers, linking to our site.

kennedy & kate, October 5, 2006

We'll it defintely works! I came thru via digg. :)

-kak

paul, October 11, 2006

Great post. My experience with digg was 10,000 hits in 1 day and I am still getting an extra couple hundred hits a week from the May 2 story. I posted a graph and a more detailed discussion of the effect on my blog the next day.

AdminPick, January 15, 2007