How to Get to the Front Page of Digg

Social news site Digg.com can generate buzz for a website or blog. The key to making this happen is getting your story on the front page. Unfortunately, as Digg gets more and more popular this becomes harder to do. Here are some steps that will help you get to the front page.

Content, Content, Content

The presentation of your content is most important. A bad headline will make readers skip over any newspaper story. So it is with Digg. A good headline, above all else, tells the story. Find a succinct way to get the information in the story across in your headline. Many use an inverted pyramid style. The most important elements come first, the least important element last. Matching the tone of the story is important to. You don't want to be funny in a headline about a celebrity dying, for instance. Above all else, make sure your headline is accurate. Nothing will get a story Dugg down faster than a headline that contradicts or presents a biased view of the story's content.

Always present the original source for a story. Everybody hates blog spam and the link to the original article will probably be posted in the comments anyway so it's best to just link to the source to begin with. Keeping in line with this a story should have engaging content, something useful or funny that the community will discuss and support with their Diggs.

The abstract that appears below the story should not contain any personal commentary. In fact, if you are linking to a video or a picture it's often times better to leave the abstract field blank and let the description speak for itself.

It is important to make only a few submissions a day and concentrate and increasing their Diggs. Too many stories and you'll start to look like a spammer.

Marketing your submission

The most engaging story in the world has little chance of getting on the front page if only a few people see it. Therefore, it's important to develop a community of friends that can Digg your story and give it that initial boosts. The best way to develop a friend network is to invite your real life friends to join Digg. Digg makes this easy with a function that will compare your e-mail address book on GMail and Yahoo Mail against their user base, and then sends out invites to anybody who hasn't already signed up. You can also find friends by participating in the comments for stories you are interested in. When you find a poster that is similar to yourself try to add them as a friend.

When you have a good network of friends it's relatively easy to get your story Dugg up. Some friends will be watching for stories their friends post and Digg them immediately. You can also use the "shout" feature to let your friends know about the story. Simply click on "Share" from the comments section of your story.

If you use social networking sites you can post bulletins to your friends and have them come Digg your story as well. It is ill-advised to create additional logins and Digg your own stories as Digg's technical staff is quick to catch the subterfuge.

Following these steps should make it easier to get a news story to the front page of Digg. It's a great way to increase traffic on a site and get your brand out there.