Dreamsubmitting Blog

1. Adding too many friends – as you probably already know Digg now undervalues the votes of any one who is on the submitter’s friends list. So the days of having 1,000 friends and getting a story to the front page within minutes are gone.

2. Using a boring title or description – this is even more important than it was before as Digg now places much more attention on getting random Diggs. The best way to convince users to Digg your article is with a title and description that not only catches their eyes but also encourages them to read the articles.

3. Only submitting content from one domain – this was bad with Digg before they made the new changes, but it is even worse now. You need to submit content from dozens of different domains if you want any of your submissions to get attention.

4. Not commenting on articles – now that having a huge friends list is a bad thing, the best way to get yourself noticed on Digg is by your activity. This includes making good submissions AND making frequent comments on articles.

5. Only Digging popular articles – to get your account attention you need to Digg articles when they are still deemed “upcoming.” It’s also a good idea to comment on these articles because if it becomes popular your comment will be at the top.

6. Sending shouts for every submission – if you send shout outs for every submission you make then it will look like you are only using Digg to get traffic. You should try to submit regularly and only send shouts every once in a while.

7. Only submitting in “boring” categories – with the old Digg bloggers often suggest to submit an article to an obscure category as a way to get it more attention. The opposite is true now, you want to submit your content to popular articles so they can get as much exposure as possible.

8. Not adding any friends - even though Diggs from friends will not make an article popular, they still can get it listed prominently in the “upcoming” section. So having some friends is still important, but just don’t add too many. I would say it’s probably best to stay under 100 friends.

Tag and ping is the hot blog promotion method of the moment. You’ve probably heard about it, but may not know exactly what it is or how to do it. When done right, tagging can bring your site tons of targeted traffic from very active visitors.

The tag and ping concept has its roots in the social bookmarking explosion. More of these sites are being created every day, taking some of the market share away from search engines. The key difference is that social bookmarking sites organize their listings based on the votes of actual people while search engines organize their information automatically according to their own algorithm.

The first step is to sign up for a Technorati account, of course. Next, you need to login to your profile and claim your blog. After entering the blog URL, Technorati will verify that you are the blog’s real owner. They currently have two methods of doing this. You can place a small bit of code somewhere on your blog’s home page or simply input your blog login and password. (Because of privacy concerns, Technorati claims that they do not store this information anywhere.)

Once you’ve claimed your blog, you can set up your profile information, with a customized description and up to 20 tags of your choice. Your blog will be listed when people search for these tags. Like any search engine, you’ll probably be listed lower for the more competitive phrases until you get several incoming links for those keywords.

As you’re writing your blog posts, think about which keywords you would like to “tag” on that page. One of the major differences between tagging and regular SEO is that you can tag several keywords on the same page. Unlike search engines, social bookmarking sites will list your page under different keyword topics.

The goal of these social types of sites is to help surfers find quality sites that are relevant to their search terms, so you can get listed under many different tags. The tag word itself does not have to be used on the page, but you should try to stick with related terms so you don’t get flagged for spamming.

Now you need to add tags to your blog posts. Wordpress has a few useful plugins to help with the tag code and there is similar code available for Blogger as well. With the Wordpress plugin, you can add [tags]keyword, keyword[/tags] while you’re writing the post and you’ll get a list of tags at the bottom. You can also add the [tag] code to words inside your post and they will be added to the list of tags.

When publishing your posts, make sure Technorati is in your ping list and your posts will be automatically be listed under the tags you selected. When surfers search for those keywords, your blog will be listed in the results. If they like your blog, they can vote for it and increase its popularity. Try to focus your tags on the tightest niches possible to get the most narrowly targeted traffic.

As new alternatives to search engine traffic appear, they create new opportunities for clever marketers. Technorati is just one of the vast numbers of social bookmarking sites that have been launched in the past year. Keeping current with these new marketing avenues will help you stay a step ahead of your competitors.

One of the hottest sites to come out of the Web 2.0 phenomenon is Squidoo. If you are not building sites to Squidoo, you are missing one of the quickest and easiest ways to build free traffic for your website or blog.

Squidoo is a cross between a blog, a mini site, and a My Space page. Squidoo calls the sites “lenses” and the people who produce the sites are called “lensmasters.”

Squidoo lenses are very easy to make, even if you have not ever built a website or blog before. You can have a lens up and running in as little as 15 minutes.

Squidoo lenses are made up of “modules”. Squidoo has dozens of modules to choose from. There are modules for making lists. There are modules for You Tube videos. There are modules for Amazon and Ebay auctions. With a little knowledge of the module system, you can have your lens built in no time.

Squidoo also offers you a chance to make money from your lens. Squidoo makes its money from affiliate advertising with Google AdSense, Amazon, Ebay and several other sites. They keep track of the earnings of each module and split the profits with you 50-50. You can also donate your profits of your module to charity if you wish.

Squidoo is very lenient about allowing you to use third party advertising on your lens. You can promote your own website if you wish or promote your favorite affiliate product. Savvy network marketers often use Squidoo lenses to promote their products and recruit new reps.

Squidoo lenses often rank very high on Google, so it’s a great chance to build some backlinks to your primary company website.

One of the best ways to use Squidoo to build traffic to your primary blog is by using the RSS feed module. You simply load the RSS feed from your blog and the Squidoo lens will update automatically as you update your blog. (more…)

Of course the colossal media attention that Facebook has received - and it’s absurd valuations - coupled with the increasing number of member has certainly been a pull for all sorts of businesses to harness the platform, but the question is? How are they? And how are you - and your business - harnessing Facebook pages?

Have you just reactively just thrown up a Facebook profile without really thinking strategically about what you really want to gain from it? And are you aimlessly collecting friends with no real clue as to how to get these members to your website?

The Facebook business pages go in some way to organize the range of business that currently have traditional profiles by offering an easy to manage template where business owners can include their address, logo and contact details – and best of all they’re free and easy to set up.

These pages are, in my opinion, far sleeker than the “teenage” bedroom walls of traditional pages – with the added difference that “Friends” are in fact “Fans” who are available to post reviews, comments, photos and comments about the company.

But benefiting from Facebook pages is not about just throwing a profile up, so before glancing over the ‘how to’ guide, ask yourself, “why do I need a Facebook page?” Is it for increased visibility? And if so, how do you propose to attract and keep these customers? Or is the objective to be more customer-centric by listening to their recommendations and criticisms in order to add value to your business? And if so, do you have the resource to manage this strategy effectively? (more…)