We all wonder how they do it. Articles with 2500 DIGGs and counting. Well in my research I found out a few things that I'll share with you. Even though it's not rocket science it does take a bit of ingenuity to get on the coveted front page of
DIGG. Just on a side note - did you know that an article with 2500 DIGGs can receive as much as 85,000 unique visitors ? Really, that's more than most websites see in 5 years. So the question is how do you get DUGG on DIGG? Well you have to write compelling articles or show a wow video. The wow factor is what gets you DUGG and the first thing that people see is your title. The title gets you in the door and the content keeps you there. Let's talk titles.
To write an effective design blog title you need to consider these 5 things:
- An Interesting and popular topic.
- Something that is fairly current
- Useful guide or list of interest (using numbers like top 10, 50 most)
- A reference to a Popular source or tag, i.e. Google, iPhone, DIGG, Twitter
- And great content, of course
Your goal is to use as many of these as possible. So first you choose a topic of interest. Say your topic is ‘writing an effective design blog title' and you want to tell your subscribers how to do it. You can easily call it
Rules For Writing an Effective Design Blog Title.
The problem with this title is that it's not very imaginative. You'll find many articles with similar titles talking about the same thing, which may not prompt the reader to stop and click. So your next thought after you've selected your topic is to relate that topic to a current event everyone's interested in like the presidential election, Senator Obama, etc. or a popular product or service; that could be Twitter, DIGG, the iPhone, Steve Jobs, Google, Apple, Facebook, etc. So now that you're equipped with a topic and a popular tag, let's try it again, how about:
How to Write a Blog Title that Shows up on Google Search Results.
This is a great title because now you're using your topic along with a popular search tag, i.e. Google. Now you have to consider the ultimate goal of your title which should be reflected in the content. Even though you're writing to attract readers, it's important that you do not mislead them... so as a pro design blogger your goal is to write great articles for your readers to enjoy and also use your articles as a vehicle to drive more traffic to your website. One way of getting more traffic is putting your article on websites like, you guessed it DIGG so how about this for a title:
How to Write a Blog Title That Shows up on DIGGs Front Page.
Perfect. We've incorporated at least 4 of the 5 things that needed to be in the title, your topic, a how to statement, linking it to a popular tag and of course, great content. Now if that doesn't work for you... at least I got you to read my article ;) Just Kidding - you have 3 options.
- Call your friends up and have them DIGG you :)
- Try again with another article
- Or post a video with the title " This Is Just Too Freakin Cool."
Like I said it's not rocket science. But seriously, if you have some advise that you'd like to share about writing a great title please share! CHEERS.
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