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Digg is a social media aggregator (see “Social Posting for Search Optimization – Lesson 25”). It enables you to post links to web articles, blogs and/or videos you want to promote. People who find your content "vote" it up - the more votes your content receives, the higher it rises in the Digg "hierarchy." Digg has taken a lot of criticism recently, and some wonder whether Digg is dead or, at the very least, dying.

While interest in Digg has waned over the past two years, I believe they will soon be getting a second wind and eventually be a force to reckon with. Some believe it is actually a very strong site that can greatly enhance ones position in search engines. According to Keywebdata.com, Digg is the number one social media site for SEO because “when a Digg post is submitted Digg pings Google and Google sees it immediately as an incoming link from a valuable, powerful internal page.” Google sees an article that gets votes on Digg as relevant to the title, keywords and key phrases in the article and often, within days, Google references the content adding the article to their ever growing database of websites and giving it a boost in SEO.

Even with the recent decline in interest in Digg, they still get a large amount of views every month, according to Google’s AdPlanner, Digg gets around 21 million page views a month. That’s more than Mashable.com (17 million) and many other comparable social media sites. The 21 million page views a month is only from the U.S., worldwide Digg gets around 49 million page views. While this may not seem like a lot, Digg offers many advantages over sites like Reddit.com and Stumbleupon.com that will allow it to rebound in the future. For one, Digg makes it easier to share information on Twitter and Facebook with convenient buttons right underneath the articles. Reddit offers the same thing, but only if you’re a member. Secondly, depending on what you’re looking for, Digg might be more likely to have better information. Lets say that you want to know more about SEO; if you look on Digg your 6.5 times more likely to find better information according to Google AdPlanner, while on Reddit you are only 5.7 times more likely to find better information.

Another important fact is on Digg you’re much more likely to have one of your links get a strong enough vote response enabling your content to get to the Digg homepage as compared to Reddit. Getting your content on the homepage can lead to viral exposure and thousands of hits on your content, ultimately doing wonders for your SEO.

If you want to disseminate your content via an aggregator, a strategy that can help simplify your social media efforts, help with SEO and gain potential major exposure, familiarize yourself with Digg and consider adding it to your social media arsenal.

- Alan N. Glazier, OD, FAAO
Author: Searchial Marketing: How Social Media Drives Search Optimization in Web 3.0
Founder/CEO
Shady Grove Eye and Vision Care
Rockville, MD

Twitter Handle: @EyeInfo
Blog: http://www.youreyesite.net
Website: YourEyeSite.com

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