StumbleUpon has just released a new toolbar-free version, but until now it’s only available to certain users, including me. So, if you don’t see it, don’t panic, probably they are currently testing it and it will soon be available for everyone.

The new version features a star rating for websites and a button you can place on your website where users can vote you directly. The button also shows how many votes the page has. Take a look at it:

Finally, they seem to have understood that people don’t like to spend time and are lazy, so they lost a lot by requiering them to install the toolbar. Now the toolbar is in a web version and it makes things easier, even if it’s not so feature-full as the install version. Check it out here, it might work for you too.

The website layout has also changed a lot and it offers everyone to vote a website directly from the review page, also it shows websites relevant to it.

The profile page has also changed, but not very much.

In conclusion, they seem to have done a great thing with it and the membership will definitely grow at a much faster rate that it was until now.

What do you think about it ? Do you see it already ?

We all know that Digg’s algorithm is very complex and they are changing it frequently, so that spammers cannot get their stories popular. Digg states that all the content is only promoted by users and they have nobody implied in the process, but this doesn’t seem to be true.

I have been an active Digg user for a while and I know a lot of other users, including power users and others. Also I read a lot of blog posts about Digg and other’s thoughts. I will try to share with you what I’ve learned until now and try to make you understand the algorithm, at least a part of it, because only they know it exactly.

Along with the algorithm, I will try to share with you some tips that will get the story dugg and to prevent it from being burried.

1. Headline
   It’s very important to write a headline that will attract the users to click on the story and visit the link. Try to make it attractive, but offer the users an idea of what the story is about. The headline depends on what category you submit the story in ( e.g If you submit it in comedy, then make it funny ).
2. Description
   Try to write an excerpt of the article in the description, so if the user isn’t convinced from the headline to click the link, to make him do it.
3. Thumbnail
   Digg now offers you the possibility to attach a thumbnail to the story. If you submit your own website, try to edit the photo to fit well in the thumb size.
4. Category
   If you submit the story in a wrong category, it’s doomed, so think well before submitting.
5. Time
   Don’t submit your story at 3AM, because nobody is using Digg at that hour and won’t be using it in the next 12 hours at least. Your story has to be up and fresh when Digg is most used and that’s starting at 5PM. There is an advantage if submitting at an hour Digg is less used, because you have lower competition, but also less votes. Before submitting it, check what part of the world it’s headed too and make sure they are awake and aren’t at work at that time.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of factors that prevent a story to get popular and I’ve figured a part of them. There are some you can deal with, while others don’t depend on you.

1. Flamers
   There are a lot of users that don’t do anything but burying all stories and posting flaming comments. Unfortunately you can do nothing about it, except submitting something that will seem perfect for them.
2. Headline, Description, Image, Category
   If you write a wrong headline or description, users might not be interested in your story and don’t even check it. Or worse, your story might get buried. Also if you submit in the wrong category, fans of that category won’t find what they were looking for and will probably bury your story.
3. Time
   If your story doesn’t get popular in the first 24 hours after submission, chances to get popular are almost null.
4. Website
   If the website is poorly designed or full of ads, it might disturb some users and leave without voting. If it’s really disturbing, it might even get buried or marked as spam.
5. Content
   The story has to be very well written, with no mistakes or typos and to say clearly what it has to say. Also pictures are very important and attract the users.
6. Moderators
   Even if Digg states that there’s nobody implied in the process, there are stories that have lots of votes and comments, being really interesting, that don’t get popular. What else could keep them from hitting the front page ?

From my experience, a story doesn’t have to be only voted positively and some buries might also help. Many votes, comments, buries and positive/negative votes on comments make a story controversial and this seems to help it a lot get popular.

Still there are stories with a lot of votes and comments that stay in the upcoming page for hours and don’t get popular - some get after many hours, some don’t at all -, in my opinion, that’s where moderators are implied. Let’s take an example: The story in the screenshot below was first in upcoming for many hours and has 332 votes with 97 comments, being submitted 23 hours earlier the sreenshot was made. This example is a lucky one, because the story got popular finally. The strange thing is that while it was just staying there, upcoming, about 20 stories got popular, some with three times less votes than this one and lesser comments.

Maybe you noticed that power users need more votes to get their stories popular. That’s because Digg’s algorithm tries to keep users away from exchanging votes and tries to offer everyone equal chances.

Now it doesn’t only count on the number of votes, but it also depends who’s the voter. If someone is voting your stories frequently and doesn’t vote many others, their vote counts less or doesn’t count at all. So you need to get your story voted by a variety of users.

Power users need more votes from two reasons. Having many fans and many stories submitted, there is a high chance that the same users vote some of their stories and this reduces the votes’ value. Also having more fans it means more chances to get their stories popular and Digg requires them more votes for this, while users with less popular stories, fans and friends need less votes.

One more thing that might keep power users from getting their stories popular with less votes is because fans’ votes might also count less.

Though this is no brainier and I didn’t offer you any secret way to suck Digg’s traffic, I hope it will help you better understand Digg and avoid making mistakes.

Please share your thoughts and opinions !

ReadWriteWeb has written a very interesting post about Mixx. Now it’s one year old and traffic seems to grow really fast, but still can’t be a liable competitor for Digg, receiving less than 5% of Digg’s traffic.

Still, it seems to be on the good road and might grow, especially that Digg is full of spam stories, flames and unsatisfied users.

I do have websites with traffic based on social media, others based on search engines and others combined. I have been doing a lot of research and comparisons between all of them. Of course it’s hard because of the niches, but I do have some that are on the same niche that are some based on search engines and some on social media.

I will try to point the advantages and disadvantages of both traffic sources, so we figure what’s the best option. Of course all traffic is good, more or less, but let’s see what should we concentrate more on.

1. Quantity

• Social media traffic is much more easier to get and stumble can bring thousands of visitors from only a few votes on one page. Also a Digg front page is not so hard to reach, if you write quality content and it can bring tens of thousands of visitors. You only need to build strong profiles on social networks and the traffic will come, if you respect the quality guidelines.
• Search engine traffic is usually less favorable to be compared with social media, because you need to have a very well optimized website, with many quality inbound links. The content also must be good, as in social media’s case, but you also need to write it seo-friendly. Also the website needs to be old and established, with many pages and the inbound links need to come on a constant basis.
• Conclusion: Social media can bring more, easy traffic than search engines.

2. Quality

• The visitor that comes from social media usually doesn’t know what he will find on your page, especially on StumbleUpon, so the conversion is really low, because he might not like your page and close it. Also social media users are looking for news, entertainment and don’t intend to buy anything, so it’s hard to convert them into clients. All stats show that the CTR generated from social media is much lower than search engines.
• Search engine visitors are very targeted and the chance to find on your website what they are looking for is higher. The chance for those visitors to buy your product or click your ads is much higher, so monetization chances and possibilities are better.
• Conclusion: Social media doesn’t offer quality traffic and isn’t relevant, search engine traffic is better.

3. Monetization

• There aren’t many ways you can monetize social media traffic as well as search engine traffic. Due to the quantity, the better option is to use CPM ads, that pay for every impression and not for click, sale or lead.
• Search engine traffic can be monetized in a lot of ways. If you have a website targeted on products, like a review blog, you can easily place affiliate ads and get a sale commission. Also chances for the user to click on the CPC ads are much higher.
• Conclusion: social media traffic has more limited monetization options, only working good with CPM ads, while search engine traffic being better on CPC and CPA ads, that pay more.

So search engines bring visitors really interested in your website, while social networks bring visitors that will read a bit and then leave. But you have to use social media, because all traffic can be monetized in one way or another and you have to waste nothing. One more advantage of social media is you get your website noticed and this can bring readers and a lot of inbound links, that will help search engine traffic.

The following is a guest post by Tibi Puiu, a professional blogger and social media consultant, who can be found writing down at Lost Art of Blogging.

As marketers and bloggers, we should all be very opened minded and inclined to new things. Exploration is the keyword here. If you want to be successful, in any activity you might want to follow, it’s very very important you always look around you, analyze and experiment with your work and surroundings.

In the past the easiest way to get in contact with the latest trends and so on, was to follow as many conventional media institutions as possible, from newspapers, to radio, to TV; but now with the development of the internet the world has become a smaller place and by far the easiest way to stay at top of the game with the latest, in any field, is to be active in social media.

Social media has been around for a long time now, bridging the gab between consumers and establishments (websites), but it’s only been recently that it managed to explode on the mainstream. If you’re a bit unfamiliarized with social media and all it represents, I’d recommend you first start reading my introduction to social media. If you need a few reasons why you should start extensively using social media, then I’ll just lay them down for you bellow. You’ll get converted in no time.

1. Traffic. This is probably the main reason why you should start using social media. It’s widely known that social media has the power to bring obscene amounts of traffic to your blog or website, infinitely easier then waiting years to establish your website and spending thousands on SEO services. A first hand example is the notorious digg effect, which describes the period of time in which an article from a blog or website gets popular on digg. The traffic that digg can send is tremendous, powerful enough to shatter most servers (around 100k uniques). Try building this kind of traffic the old fashion way.

Read the full story