ContentRobot

Have you noticed while your are reading online you see a prompt to “digg” this story?

We have one on the bottom of each of our full page posts that looks like this: Digg

What is Digg?
It’s is a technology news website that combines social bookmarking, blogging, and syndication with non-hierarchical, democratic editorial control.

All digg’s content comes from its users, who scour news sites, blogs, and other online sources for interesting tidbits. The participatory technology site lets registered users post links to new stories and “digg” (or vote) for their favorite pages posted by others.

By communal review, popular stories go to the homepage and lame stories turn get “buried.” Users can report a story that they believe is irrelevant, doesn’t pertain to tech, or is a duplicate entry.

However the biggest benefit users see, when they come to digg and read stories, is that they know that often they’re reading them before they get picked up on the major news sites.

Some of its best features include:

Digg: You can choose to digg the story, blog it, add comments, report it as spam, etc. Every time you digg, submit, or comment on a story it is bookmarked and stored within your user profile.

Submit: You can submit stories in 16 different categories which include; deals, gaming, links, mods, music, robots, security, technology, Apple, design, hardware, Linux/Unix, movies, programming, science and software. Digg now even features a handy browser toolbar option for easy post submission.

Search: Do a keyword search and bookmark that page, digg will work nonstop to looking for stories with that keyword that have been dug to the homepage or have a certain number of diggs. You get instant, relevant content directly to your browser.

Digg Spy: Use this fun tool to show a scrolling list of the stories people are digging (or dissing) in real time – true democracy in action. You’ll see what have just been submitted to Digg, the pages people have just dugg or commented on, and the pages they’ve “buried” or removed from the queue due to irrelevance or duplication.

Bottom Line
When you stumble across a cool website or news item, you can submit it. Or digg it and/or comment on someone else’s submission.

Digg is boon for blog owners because it brings them more inbound links and more eyes to your site. Anything to get involved in the blogosphere and put your stamp on your area of expertise is something worth pursuing. You digg?

Steve Pavlina has written some great ways to build a high traffic blog. His strategy isn’t based on tricks or techniques that will go out of style, but providing genuine value and letting word of mouth do the rest.

I’ve excerpted his 10 best suggestions for building a high traffic web site:

1. Create valuable content.
He suggests imaginging yourself in from of an outdoor concert stage before an audience of a million people. What would you say to them? Remember that strong content is universally valued, and quality is more is more often important than quantity.

2. Create original content.
While it takes more effort to produce original content, your site becomes the “final destination.” Then, your visitors will often stick around for a while.

3. Create timeless content.
He suggests thinking about how your work might influence future generations in addition to my own. What advice can you pass onto your great grandchildren? We forget yesterday’s news, but we remember those things that have meaning to us.

4. Write for human beings first, computers second.
Don’t let the prevailing search engine strategies intefere with your desire to deliver genuine value and creating timeless content. Your traffic can grow because people tell other people about this site, either online or offline.

5. Know why you want a high-traffic site.
Do you know your site’s purpose? Is your work driven by this purpose? If you do succeed by building a high-traffic web site and are in the privileged position of being able to influence millions of people, what will you say to them? Don’t forget to honor those readers with your best.

6. Let your audience see the real you.
Getting people to know you makes it easier for them to understand the context of what you write. His attitude is that it’s perfectly OK to fail or to be rejected publicly - trying to appear perfect is nothing but a house of cards that will eventually collapse.

7. Write what is true for you, and learn to live with the consequences.
Being honest is more important to him than being popular. He doesn’t treat any subjects as taboo or sacred if they’re relevant to his site’s subject (personal growth). Truth creates trust, and trust builds traffic.

8. Treat your visitors like real human beings.
The human-to-human connection between Steve and his readers matters to him. Real human beings helping real human beings is ultimately what traffic growth is all about (think links and referrals). If you align yourself with the intention of genuinely helping people because you care, you’ll soon find yourself with an abundance of traffic.

9. Keep money in its proper place.
Money is important, obviously you have bills to pay.
He sought to earn money for the purpose of increasing my freedom. By paying close attention to how he earns money and not just how much he earns, he keeps money in its proper place.

10. Focus on genuinely helping people, and the rest will take care of itself.
One of the great benefits of focusing on helping others is that it gets fear out of the way. Without fear you become free to just be yourself. You’re able to take intelligent risks and remain detached from any specific outcome because the journey is more important to you than the specific stops along the way.

In sum …
Do your best to help your visitors out of genuine concern for their well-being, and they’ll help you build your traffic and even generate a nice income from it. It’s as simple as that.

You can read Steve’s full article here. He started his web site from scratch and build its traffic to over 700,000 visitors per month in about 15 months — without spending any money on marketing or promotion.

What is the best way to gain a following of dedicated readers? It’s CONTENT. Here’s some great content techniques we’ve found throughout the blogosphere.

1. Write Original Content
Make sure what you post is at least 25-40% of your own thoughts. Write what about the topics that matters to you and own them without being an “information repeater.”

2. Write Quality Content
Master the art of story-telling while you find your “voice.” Write in a conversational, accessible, friendly style. Have fun and show your emotion along with your knowledge.

3. Write Well
Make sure you are using proper punctuation capitalization and following basic grammar rules - a great way to show respect for your readers.

4. Keep it Simple
Keep your posts and paragraphs short. Strive for succinct posts that pump pertinent new information into the blogosphere and move on. Keep it short and sweet so visitors can pop in, read up, and click on. (Once in a while you can do some long form writing every now and again.

5. Be Unique
Provide first-hand accounts or data, original research, surveys, original ideas, original graphics or photos or artwork, and you’ll establish your uniqueness.

6. Be Valuable
Help your readers by (a) entertaining them, (b) teaching them, (c)informing them, (d) giving them a ‘take-away,’(e) saving them time, or (f) providing deep insight about what something means.

7. Be First
Give first-hand accounts, on-the-spot photos, initial thoughts and reviews can usually attract a lot of attention.

8. Get the Facts
Do your research, using both online and offline sources. Invest time to learn as much as possible about what you’re going to write about. Spend much more time reading and researching than you do writing.

9. Publish Regularly
Simply, the more you blog, the more traffic you’ll get. Go for at least one post a day, better if you can do even more.

10. Share Your Content
Be sure to syndicate your blog and inform other blogs about your posts.