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 !

For the last few days, StumbleUpon has continuously banned accounts and a lot are complaining that the traffic has went down. I have a lot of friends that were power users and got their accounts banned for different reasons or for no reason at all.

I have also noticed a decrease in traffic from StumbleUpon, but i can’t tell for sure if it’s because of the algorithm or because my websites have been down and flagged as unavailable, due to my servers issues. I will be able to tell more exactly in the future, when I’ll be sure I’ve got rid of that flag.

Lately, Stumble became the best social network, from my point of view, being easier to market than Digg and sometimes brining more traffic. Unfortunately, Stumble isn’t such a good link bait as Digg, but can still bring some quality, related links.

As you might already now, Digg has screwed it’s algorithm really badly from it’s last updates and has hired moderators that won’t let anything pass to the front page, if they don’t like it. That’s why a lot of users left and some of them joined and started using Stumble. Now, Stumble seems to have taken Diggs example, by screwing it’s algorithm.

There truly are a lot of accounts that ruin the system and have to be banned, but in my opinion, they have to focus on aggressively spamming profiles, haters, flamers and others that do a lot of bad and less on those that do promote their websites, along with many others.

With this I have to say Social Networking has reached a crisis point especially for Social Media Marketers, but for regular users too. Some new idea has to come out and I’m curious when this will happen. Considering this, it seems nothing can’t stay clean, but also this was already known. When something gets big, it has more and more issues, because everyone tries to profit.

I would like to read your opinion about this.

1. Choose a good product

The first thing when you want to start doing affiliate marketing is choosing one or more products to promote. Put yourself in your visitors shoes and think if you’d buy a doubtable product. Well, I’m sure you won’t so make sure the products you sell are trusted so you will definitely get a higher conversion than a low quality product.

Do not try to sell products that over exaggerate on features that don’t meet, but choose products that are good and useful and point the features.

2. Don’t lie

Don’t lie about your product. If you’ve read the first point and you will follow my words, then you will chose a good product, but you have to only point it’s features, not lie or exaggerate because the visitor will then go to the product page, see you lie and leave, without converting into a sale.

3. Point the advantages

Your visitor is a potential customer that has to be convinced about the product you want him to buy. So point the product’s features and advantages clearly, tell him why he has to buy it, but as i’ve stated before, be honest. A happy visitor is more possibly a potential buyer, so make him happy, tell him what he wants to hear with honesty.

4. Present your product

Affiliate marketing isn’t about putting a link on a page that says “Buy MacBook Air Here”, you have to tell him what you are about to sell him, tell him advantages, disadvantages in a clear way and also show him pictures. You know, one photo can mean more than one thousand words so he has to see what is it about.

5. Build a landing page that converts

Affiliate marketing can be done through many ways, but almost all of them need a landing page. The landing page is an important factor in convincing the potential buyer to become a buyer, so you have to make sure you offer an easy navigation, simple, good looking design that your visitor will trust.

6. Focus on quality traffic, not quantity
Not everyone searching for a product is really interested in buying and to be more clear, only a few from those searching for a product are going to buy and the others are only curious. So you don’t have to focus on the amount of traffic, but on it’s quality. And in affiliate marketing quality is equal to targeting, so you don’t need social networks visitors here, you mostly have to focus on people looking to buy.

The best traffic for affiliate marketing comes from the search engines and you have to focus on some keywords, the most common is “Buy <<and here comes your product>>”. It will probably be hard to rank well for this keyword, so you’ll have to try long tail keywords.

7. Track your results

Affiliate marketing is about tracking and tweaking, so you have to track every visitor and it’s every move and click. You have to see what converts better, what ad sells most, then try to modify your placement, design and texts. Then track and see what happens, until you get to a satisfying conversion rate. But you never have to stop tweaking, because your landing can’t be perfect and there is always an improvement to make, you just have to find it.