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You have heard the rumors about Digg. About how great it is and it’s one of the more popular Social Networks that creates backlinks to you Blog or website and has the ability to bring loads of traffic to your sites.

If you already know a little about Digg then go to part 1 of Digg Tactics for beginners here.

According to Alexa (which ranks websites by number of visitors who come to the site every month) it bounces between 200 to 235. That means it’s in the top 250 most visited websites on the entire web.

Out of all the BILLIONS of websites out there Digg.com is among the top 250! I just checked it using Visitors Ranking Site Compete.com (where it’s ranked #20 most visited site!) and this translates to 33,433,760 visitors per month. Wouldn’t you like a slice of those coming to your blog?

Also, it’s reported Digg has 24,000,000 account holders and over 5,000,000 of those are active on the site everyday.

So it’s clearly a place you need to be and your quality stories need to be. The numbers bear that out becuase it’s simply to big an opportunity to miss.

Thisis a looonnnggg blog post but stick with me because it’s going to be worth your time.

But How to Digg is still one of your questions.

Before we Get into How to Digg, we need to know what Digg is.

So What is Digg?

Digg is a user driven social content & news website. Ok, so what the heck does that mean? Well, everything on Digg is submitted by the community (that would be you and other Digg account holders). Digg is free to sign up for and use.

After you submit content, other people read your submission and Digg what they like best. If your story rocks and receives enough Diggs, it is promoted to the front page for the millions of visitors to see.

What can you do as a Digg user? Lots. Every person can digg (help promote), bury (help remove spam), and comment on stories… you can even Digg and bury comments you like or dislike. Digg also allows you to track your friends’ activity throughout the site — want to share a video or news story with a friend? Digg it!

Digg offers many tool to include the Digg buttons right to your sites so that others can Digg you as well.  It is recommended however that you Digg a few of your post every once in awhile to get the ball rolling and traffic coming.

How to Digg – Step by step – Step 1

First you need to create an account. To join Digg go here

You will be asked to supply:

A Username
Valid Email Address
A Password to access your account
Your Birth Date
Answer the Are You Human question by typing in the provided Picture Letter or numbers
Finally Agree to the terms and conditions by checking the box

You will receive an email to the address you provided to complete your registration process. Click the link in the email and you are a new Digg Registered User. Confirming your email that you really did sign up is standard industry practice and helps keep spam out of your inbox.

How to Digg – Step by step – Step 2

Login with your username and password. Create your profile. You can click on Manage profile to make any changes at any time.

Your Profile will ask for basic information and let you control certain setting on how you want to use Digg. In your profile you will see boxes for the following:

Real Name
Location
Instant Messenger Client
Instant Messenger Screen Name
Website
Email for Password Verification
Let other people search for me by my email address
New Password Leave Password Fields Blank to Keep Your Current Password
Verify New Password

Viewing Preferences
Set Default Comment View
Set Comment Threading View
Open Links to External Pages
Enable Profanity Filter

You can also upload a picture or icon image. I suggest you do so to make you stand out as a person and not a computer bot. It helps in this environment to have a picture of image that represents you.

How to Digg – Step by step – Step3

Manage Topics

From your profile bar you can manage topics you want to see information. These topics are also the categories in which you would define your own digs.

Technology
Apple
Design
Gadgets
Hardware
Industry News
Linux/Unix
Microsoft
Mods
Programming
Security
Software
Tech Deals

World & Business
Business & Finance
Political News
2008 U.S. Elections
Political Opinion
World News
Offbeat News

Sports
Baseball
Basketball
Extreme
Football – US/Canada
Golf
Hockey
Motorsport
Soccer
Tennis
Other Sports

Science
Space
Environment
Health
General Sciences

Entertainment
Celebrity
Movies
Music
Television

Gaming
Industry News
Playable Web Games
PC Games
Nintendo Wii
PlayStation 3
Xbox 360

Pick a few topics in which you are interested.

How to Digg – Step by step – Step 4

Blog Settings

One of the powerful tools of Digg, is the feature to Post to your own blog on any feature story in Digg. It helps you with conent for your own blog and creates a nice trackback link.

In order to set this feature up you go to your profile page and click on the Blog Settings Tab.

The Digg Feature for Posting to your blog supports the following Blog Systems:

WordPress
Live Journal
Movable Type
Blogger ( Old Style)
Blogger ( With Google Login)
Type Pad

You will need to pick the style of blog you have. Add the username and password so Digg can interface with your blog.

How to Digg – Step by step – Step 5

Go to Digg Tools and buttons to help you get Diggs to your sites.

There are plenty of options to choose from and each option come with the java code to place on your website of blog.

Or you can choose the popular Digg Button that keep count of amount of diggs.

How to Digg – Step by step – Step 6

How to submit to digg.

There are several way to submit a post to Digg.

You can go Directly to Digg and fill in the blanks to submit your Digg item here. Or if the see a Digg Submitt button on many blog post or pages you can simple click the Java Script Digg Button.

You will be asked several questions:

1) Where Is The Story From?

Enter the URL of the Story

Enter the Url and then Click Continue

You will be asked to supply a Title:

Story Title (Please enter a descriptive title for the story you’re linking to.)

You will be asked to supply a Story Description

Story Description (Write your own description of the news story.)

You will be asked to pick an appropriate category

You will be asked to Type in the Letters provided to prove you are Human.

You then have the option of a Straight Submit Story or Submit Story & Blog It.

If the item you are digging is from your own site or the site that you also set up as a blog, then chose the first option, Submit Story. If the item you are digging is from a source not your own, then you may want to Blog it as well to increase the content on your Blog. If so chose Submit Story & Blog it.

Your Title and Digg Description will appear in the Upcomming Stories Tab in the News Section of the index page of Digg.com The Title will be hyperlinked to the source page of the article or blog post, etc.

That’s the basics of How to Digg.

More Intermediate Digg Tactics

When you go to Digg News you will see two tabs, Popular Stories and Upcoming stories. The upcoming stories consist of all Digg posts from each and every member based upon the most recent post. Popular Stories are those that have received a significant number of Digg Users voting or Digging as well that particular story.

Popular Posts receive the most amount of click thru’s. If you write a headline and description that grabs attention you are more than likely to attract a positive Digg Vote from other users. This method has been described as LINK BAIT.

Getting traffic and links to your Blog for Free:

The Art of Link Baiting

Blogging today is as much more a part of community, social book marking and web 2.0 than ever before. The smart Blogger writes in such a way to attract visitors. They provide good content, then utilize social book marking elements such as Digg to invoke visitors and traffic.

Link Baiting is a term in which the headline or title and content of your article attracts enough attention to get free links to your post. It is written in a way to get other Bloggers to track back, link back, comment and Social Book mark your post.

A Track Back is a free link. A Social Bookmark from another user is a free Link. A comment ( non spam) to your Blog is free content. A Plus added Digg to your post will attract more attention, more visitors. These are all the benefits of writing Link Bait posts.

Link Baiting is considered White Hat SEO. Many of the Top SEO are offering link baiting campaigns as part of their normal SEO Services. They don’t come cheap. A Link Baiting Post is a viral traffic generator.

How to Link Bait:
1) Write a good Blog post
2) Write a quality Title that will attract attention.
3) Submit your Post to Digg.com
4) Notify Digg Friends of your new post
5) Submit your post to other Social book mark spots ( Onlywire.com is excellent)
6) Participate in Comments to your Blog. Keep the conversation going.

Types of Link Baiting Content and Headlines:

1) Controversy
2) Authority
3) Humor

Bonus: A big list like “57 Photoshop Tutorial Resources Even Your Grandma Could Use” is likely to get lots of attention and links to it. Think up big resource lists and make sure they’re easy to use because that’s what people want.

To get the next part in the Digg series and start using these tactics to get more visitors to your blog then go to part 1 of Digg Tactics for beginners here.

Leave any questions or suggestions you have in the comments section. Also, post any Digg experiences you have and tell us about posts you gotten onto Digg so we can take a look. Maybe we’ll even Digg your story!