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How to get on the front page of Digg

I was recently researching how to get stories up on Digg. I should come right out and say that I haven’t practiced this information and am sharing it for encouraging experimentation on your own. This post will cover what you can do to maximize these factors. Additionally, I will share a few things you need to know about preparing your site for a spike in traffic from Digg.

At its base, Digg relies on the votes of its users to determine the relevant popularity of a submission. However, not all votes are created equal. If all of the votes were equal, the system would be too easy to exploit and the quality, as well as the traffic, would go down.

Manipulating your way on to the front page of Digg

The funny thing about gaming Digg is that it’s a bit like gaming a search engine. In the early days, manipulation was easy. Now, you think you’re gaming the system, but their algorithms have actually trained you to make quality content. Be that as it may, how does one properly game the Digg system?

You can start by creating your own Digg account. If you already have one, you’d likely be better served to start a new one with a fresh credit history. Start by watching some of the top submitters and voting inline with them before the submission makes it onto the front page. Then, pay attention to other names that are voting inline with the top submitters, but is not a top submitter themselves. Now vote inline with them only on stories that you actually think could be front page material. You can automate this process by subscribing to the submissions of these Diggers and then using ZapTxt to notify you via a text message when a new vote or submission appears. Once you’ve built up some reputation, now you’re ready to start submitting your own stories. Start with the best links in your arsenal. Make sure they haven’t been submitted before! You could message some of the people you have been following that are not on the top submitters list and tell them to check it out (don’t tell them to vote).

To help you with your follow-up votes, you could turn to your networks. Send out a message to your friends on Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Facebook, MySpace, and wherever else to check out your story. I recommend using TinyURL or a similar service to make your link fit on limited character messaging services like Twitter.

Once you’ve got a bit of reputation for your own Digg account, you can slip in some submissions of your own for self promotion. I can not emphasize enough that your own submissions need to be high caliber or it will not work.

If you want some more tips, check out the Digg algorithm unofficial FAQ.

If you make it onto the “Hot in All Topics” on the popular page, then it’s only a matter of time before you’re on the front page.

Preparing for the Digg spike

Well, I hope that helps you on your quest for a spike in traffic from Digg. If you are gunning for the front page, be sure your hosting is ready for that kind of traffic. It’s common that a site will go down from the large spike in traffic that comes from a front page story. It’s also not uncommon to receive a huge bandwidth bill if traffic exceeds your monthly limit, which can happen in a single day from a front page Digg story. Negotiate up front with your hosting company because you’ll get friendlier pricing on or even free bandwidth by letting them know to be prepared ahead of time.

If you want some more tips, check out the Digg algorithm unofficial FAQ. And, as a bonus for reading until the end of this post, here’s a link that contains very valuable information about How to avoid being banned by Technorati.