Category: Business Ideas, Theory
Blog Traffic Week #1: Getting on Top of Digg, Reddit or Del.icio.us is EVIL
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More and more often people are ultra concerned with getting TONs of traffic. Getting Digged, getting Reddited, most popular on Del.icio.us, boingboinged or as Seth calls it throwing it out Digg bait for traffic.
These are all identical to taking steroids. You get a quick, ultra good feeling but at the end of the day you end up with man boobs. That is NOT what you want, trust me.
Many people talk about their results and traffic from this experience. Here are some stories:
Douglas Karr writes about his Digg Effect
Darren Rowse on getting to the front of Del.icio.us
And so forth…What most of these people don’t mention is a week later. Their traffic is back to normal and they are desperate like a crack head for another high. I have had this a few times with my Michael Arrington of Techcrunch is a Millionaire and more recently The Guide to Avoiding Small Talk. These posts each generated over 20,000 of hits in 1 day which was a great feeling. Do you know how many of those people came back the week after? Maybe 1% of them.
Have you ever seen a story on the front page of these sites and checked it out? Yes, you have. After you briefly viewed the post how often have you gone back? Never.
So what does this all have to do with Blog Traffic. Focus on your customer, focus on the right person and not on the easy win. What does that mean?
1- Partner. Get linked to by another site that is in your area of interest. For example, if you are a technical evangelist a Scoble link could do you well. If you are a marketing puppy then a link from Guy is golden. A Seth link is like a marketing gift from god. His link to my site established the snowball effect which translated into tons of the right traffic.
2- Write about the right things. I won’t go too much into this cause you have heard it all before. I admit I am bad at this because I have so many interests. But tackle one thing and it will succeed. Similar to my friend Eric who is doing 52reviews.com, he writes a business book review a week. He ONLY talks about book stuff.
3- Respond. If someone comments on another site and they have something smart to say, get them. Go to their blog, email them and track them down. Find the places your “ideal” readers are and start waving your hands in a polite way. If someone comments on your blog make sure you say thanks. It is the easiest thing to that so little people take advantage of.
4- Adjust. If you start generating a lot of traffic, adjust your site. Put some links for them to subscribe to your RSS. Add a welcome message so they feel like they are home. Thank them for visiting.
I hope I put some interesting thoughts in your mind. Update: I realized it’s late and I am a hypocrite by asking people to Digg this article. Instead, if you liked this article please write about it on your site and let me know or email it to someone.
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noah kagan wrote Blog Traffic Week #1: Getting on Top of Digg, Reddit or Del.icio.us is EVIL on July 31st, 2006 and there are 20 comments. There will be one more after you add yours, though. Read more posts by noah kagan.
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20 Responses to “Blog Traffic Week #1: Getting on Top of Digg, Reddit or Del.icio.us is EVIL”
July 31st, 2006
7:57 am
Blog Traffic Week #1: Getting on Top of Digg, Reddit or Del.icio.us is EVIL at Okdork.com…
A piece on why getting top on any of the popular social media sites is evil….
July 31st, 2006
8:02 am
What is your obsession with man boobs?
July 31st, 2006
8:13 am
hey! you dork!
heeeeeeeeeee
I’m back, been back many times.
You’ve been bookmarked for over a year.
Why?
Content baby, the quality of the content, thats
it. period.
Keep the good content flowing and I’m there.
wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
http://www.westcoaster.ca
July 31st, 2006
8:14 am
susan you are the greatest commenter an online writer could ever ask for. you are making the comments similar to woot.com where people try to be the first commenter. good luck;)
July 31st, 2006
8:36 am
Great post man, definitely helps. I try to stay away from using digg etc to get traffic for my blog. I’ve tried and it failed. I am working hard to get more traffic to my blog, and will definitely work on some of these techniques.
Btw, just finished breakfast with the Office Depot CEO and posted about it, it was really interesting.
Take it easy man.
July 31st, 2006
8:40 am
5 - Be awesome
July 31st, 2006
8:44 am
paul, never ask that question again=)
noah, that is easy for someone who has such an awesome name.
hey everyone, if you enjoyed this post please email it to a friend, digg it, post it around the office or call a long-lost friend because that makes me feel good as well:)
July 31st, 2006
9:09 am
Good post!
I like how all your blog posts are always positive and pointing towards improvement! This post just reminded me of how important it is to not just be a spotlighter but to gain recognition through strategic ways that would give longterm survival and exposure…
But we all know you’re just trying to get to the top of the charts with this post anyway….
hypocrite….haha!
July 31st, 2006
9:11 am
Monica, thanks for your kind words and the swift kick to the ass. you are so right about the hypocrite so i changed the post and adjusted the ending. thanks for keeping me on the right path. its late and i had too much kimchi today. you know what i am talking about:)
July 31st, 2006
9:22 am
In light of the glut of Noah’s on this blog, I have decided to change my name to Moses. Just an FYI.
July 31st, 2006
9:25 am
Yesterday my site was “digged” and made it to the front page. This was the first time it has ever happened, and saw 12000 visitors to my site which normally gets about 50 a day so that was a huge increase. I know it’s going to go back around normal levels in a week and I can’t wait, it’s a bit overwhelming to have a personal blog get 580 diggs and 12000 visitors in a single day, not something that I was expecting to happen (I didn’t even know it was submitted to Digg). I am curious to see the increase this will cause my blog in the coming weeks though, if 1% of the 12000 come back I would say that’s pretty damn good because that will effectively more than double my traffic.
July 31st, 2006
9:42 am
Haha! Thanks for the link, but I find it pretty ironic that the link to my site isn’t about book stuff at all. Actually 52reviews is about resources for risk-takers (entrepreneurs), which does include my main constraint, writing one book review a week, but it also includes a whole host of other material, such as productivity systems, blogs, podcasts, profiles of other risk-takers ;). My goal is for anyone that considers themselves an entrepreneur to find all my content relevant, timely, and hopefully, somewhat humorous (i need to use more pictures of man-boobs in my posts, I know).
Also, it’s not just digg, reddit, or delicious that can cause this spike of traffic. One of my posts about GTD was linked to from 43folders, and I had 50000+ hits in one day. 15k visitors. After that first day, it didnt last long. So posts from top blogs can have the “digg” effect also.
August 1st, 2006
8:52 am
Noah, I found your site when Godin linked to your “The Guide to Avoiding Small Talk”. Since then, I check it at least once a day, and I’ve read some of your archives. Just wanted to post here and tell you to that I’ve sent other people here or e-mailed them posts you’ve written. I enjoy your fresh point of view and your redoubtable sense of humor. Keep up the good work
August 2nd, 2006
10:48 pm
[...] Read the rest of the series on how to improve your blog traffic: #1 Getting on Top of Digg, Reddit or Del.icio.us is EVIL #2 Excuse me, Who are YOU? #3 Get em While They’re Hot ul#related_posts { list-style: none; margin: -5px 0 0 0; padding: 0; } #related_posts li { margin: 0 0 4px 0; } [...]
August 3rd, 2006
3:37 pm
Hi Noah,
I’m definitely going to follow up on my post. The hits are actually a little higher than they were before the “Digg Effect”; however, I totally agree with you! This isn’t necessarily the traffic or exposure that I would want for my blog.
One note you forgot to mention, though, is that I’m posting my ‘tests’ on my site and being honest and open about the marketing impact. I’m not a guy that’s looking for that “ultra good feeling”, I really am trying to explore and discuss impact of social networking on marketing.
Warmest Regards,
Doug
PS: New stats are coming soon that show the trend after the high was over.
August 4th, 2006
1:52 am
[...] Read the rest of the series on how to improve your blog traffic: #1 Getting on Top of Digg, Reddit or Del.icio.us is EVIL #2 Excuse me, Who are YOU? #3 Get em While They’re Hot #4 Titles = Life or Death ul#related_posts { list-style: none; margin: -5px 0 0 0; padding: 0; } #related_posts li { margin: 0 0 4px 0; } [...]
August 4th, 2006
2:26 pm
I belong to that 1% of returning Digg traffic that you mentioned. I feel special. Or wait. Maybe you should feel special. :p
August 4th, 2006
10:05 pm
[...] When I posted a funny video about Bill Gates and Napoleon Dynamite, my intent was to see what impact that Digg could have on exposing my blog to others. As well, my intent was to show the after effects of the “Digg Effect”. Noal on Okdork is keeping me honest on this one. [...]
August 15th, 2006
6:27 am
[...] Getting dugg, redd, scaped or slashdotted won’t drastically increase your audience. Don’t be a one hit wonder. When was the last time you listened to U Can’t Touch This? [...]
July 20th, 2007
1:12 am
[...] dugg, redd, scaped or slashdotted won’t drastically increase your audience. Don’t be a one hit [...]
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