The Effect Your Post Title Has On Being Dugg

Let’s start off with me being completely honest and saying I digg my own articles. I don’t digg useless articles, but I do digg the useful ones or the ones I’d think others would find interesting. In fact, I wrote an article on socially bookmarking your own content titled Bookmark Yourself and Don’t Feel Guilty About It.

NOTE: If you have no idea what I’m talking about, visit Digg.com.

Here’s a list of post titles and the numbers of digg’s they received, sorted from most diggs to least:

• 9 - 10 Flash Design and Development Tips Part 2
• 8 - 10 Flash Design and Development Tips Part 1
• 8 - Why You Should Validate Your Website
• 7 - 10 Web Design Quick Tips - Part 2
• 7 - 10 Web Design Quick Tips - Part 1
• 7 - Why I Design on a PC Instead of a Mac
• 6 - 10 Web Development Quick Tips Part 1
• 5 - There are people selling t-shirts to ruin Harry Potter 7…
• 4-1 - Every other one of my articles I’ve dugg

Captain Obvious Says…

I’m not a doctor or anything, but if what you’re looking to do is to get lots of diggs, there’s clearly a link between the post title consisting of a list and the number of diggs it receives. This has been known for some time, but now I have a tiny amount of data that can back it up.

Please note I’m ignoring the quality of the articles because I don’t remember putting forth any more effort in the articles that received more diggs then the ones that didn’t quite make it.

Keep in mind, I don’t have a high sample rate but if someone had the time and/or knowledge, something could be done with the digg API.

What Digg Users Like

• Lists - D’uh. Lists tell the user exactly what to expect in terms of content length and subject matter
• Broad Subject Matter - This is often a technical article that’s been diluted to appeal to the masses

What Digg Users Dislike

If you had a look at all my article that didn’t make the top list, you’ll have the article subject matter that didn’t make it:

• Web Usability - Often a topic for advanced developers, this won’t appeal to the general digg population
• Search Engine Optimization - This topic is a dime-a-dozen on digg and most might figure that new articles reiterate facts
• Technical Articles - Let’s face, your average user doesn’t go into the nitty gritties of perfecting JPEG optimization, regardless if it interests you

That’s all for now. Hope that helps with your quest to get users from Digg.

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