Digging Made Easy

If you’re a normal visitor of the NSBL you know that I started a new job 3 months ago. Since then I’ve had to keep myself busy and the only way I could find to do that was starting this blog. Anyways, ever since I started I’ve been trying to figure out how to hit the front page of digg. Why? I don’t know really. I guess it’s just a confirmation that I’m not retarded and actually have some amount of writing skill. Well last week my What Every One Ought to Know About Parasites article went prime time.

So it took me the better part of 2 months and 6 previous articles to get the big digg. Here’s my previous attempts in reverse chronological order (first article is listed last):

• Best Shark Fishing Picture EVER!
• Fence Plowing: Vandalizing in 2007
• Corollaries of the 7 Deadly Sins
• The Anatomy of Fear
• Blogging - Know Your Audience
• Check Out These ‘Dirty’ Pictures!

Of these 6 articles only 2 actually received natural diggs on their own. The best shark fishing picture ever was actually the closest I came with 22 diggs. I really think this article deserved a shot on the front page but I just didn’t have the necessary info to make it happen. So how can you make it to the front page of digg?

The Idea

Most people suggest you have to write about something new. Simply not true. You just have to present your idea in a new way or with a captivating twist. My suggestion is to find something that you can have fun writing about. Parasites were interesting to me for two reasons. My son had a potential symptom and a good friend (weighting ~160lbs) ate more food than i thought humanly possible. I use to tease him nearly every day about having a giant worm growing inside of him that would sneak out at night and attack his then finance while she was sleeping.

The Title

There are lots of titles out there that are naturally appealing to the human nature. Use one. Change it a little and make it your own. I referenced 10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work when I titled my article. Notice #10

The Content

You don’t have to be an award winning novelist but you need to be at least a decent writer. Just being a good writer isn’t enough though. Diggers want to see or hear something that is out of the ordinary. You’ll need to include at least 1 type of media in your article that is captivating or intriguing be it a picture or video. Also what I think set my article on fire was “wit”. Here are a couple of examples from my article: “knife-in-the-butt” and “put a clear piece of tape over your anus while you sleep”. When I finished writing this article I was smiling. I actually had fun writing that article even more so than any other article on my blog thus far.

Writing a good article just isn’t enough though. Check out these three articles:

• 15 Ways to become a Digg Power user in only 48 hours
• Get ‘er Dugg - A Comprehensive Guide to Going Viral on Digg
• How to Get Digg Frontpaged

I’m probably still not considered a digg power user but I think following the steps outlined in that article are directly responsible for my article getting ~850 diggs and ~20k visitors. A popular article that surfaced a couple months ago was Anatomy of a Super Digg. I highly recommend you check that out as well.

Good Luck!