Social Marketing and Social Bookmarking and how to do it right are many of the questions asked of Chris Lang, what did they ask Chris Lang you say?

I participate in 20 different social marketing networks. That is what I do to learn what social marketing questions people have about social sites. Then I am able to add content to my Wickedly Evil Social Marketing Tactics eBook and what I need to add to my social marketing process. Here is a collection of questions and my answers.

Mike Lang asked….

“I use Social Marker as a tool to submit to array of Social sites which most times includes Digg. My content is at least 90% original and I’ve guess I should consider myself lucky so far as I haven’t been banned…but I could be an accident waiting to happen! I’ve been through a few “Google slapdowns” but wasn’t personally affected….yet!”

Chris Lang replied….

Mike, I believe that Social Marker is one on the worst tools to use on social sites, or any automated social bookmarking submission tool. Let’s look at it from Google’s perspective and let’s agree that Google prefers a natural progression of linking to your blog. Let’s also agree that Google does not find lots of sites linking to yours with exactly the same link text in a very short amount of time natural. Both pretty much taken as fact today, right?

Why would anyone use an automated site, to submit the EXACT same title and description to all the bookmarking sites from the same IP address with a timestamp on the post within minutes of each other?

From the Google Webmaster Guidlines:

“Don’t use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service.” (they are talking about Google here, not social bookmarking but I believe it applies)

“Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, ‘Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?’ ”

Need I say more?

I predict that the next Google slapdown is going to be over social bookmarking site abuse. We shall see in October…..

Daniel Pyle asked….

What is the best way to avoid being buried at Digg.com?

Chris Lang replied….

It is kind of hard to tell why you are being buried Daniel without the exact blog post. I looked over your links in your profile and pretty much everything I saw was pretty commercial, as is much of mine.

It is your content that is being buried, SEO, email marketing and anything critical of Digg will get buried. Why, because most Digg users think anything that has to do with promotion in any way is only there to spam Digg. They would rather read about the world’s largest hole than something of substance. Google “Digg mafia” or go back to the end of the Digg thread and you will see many SEO sites have been banned from Digg.

There a 14 other sites that return Google link juice, if you are getting buried on Digg then you should quit using Digg and move on, you are beating your head against a Digg stone wall.

Angie asked….

Golly, if you want an absolute newbie, then that would be me. I virtually have NO IDEA about social bookmarking, so if I can understand your book, then….

ANYONE can… So my question would be: what is social bookmarking?

Chris Lang replied….

Social bookmarking sties are user oriented sites like Digg.com, del.icio.us and StumbleUpon. After joining, you can post articles that you find interesting and then other users vote on the value of the item.

What makes this powerful for blogs and their search engine results is there are 15 sites that count the post as a link to your site or blog (same thing). The more votes you get, the more Google sees this as a valid link.

I teach strategies that I developed myself, that help you to build a huge friends list that is more apt to vote on your posted item positively.

Joseph Ratliff asked….

Well, if there is one thing I could ask and get answered about using social bookmarks specifically: When I submit a site/article to del.icio.us for example…how can I best maximize the traffic “mileage” I could get with that link?

Chris Lang replied….

First of all you should be using an email form to capture email addresses for a newsletter list. I would not use any service but AWeber. They get the email to the inbox, not the spam folder.

Put your form at the top right of the page and a timed DHTML popup overlay on the page. Even if the popup does not pull a subscription the form in the top right gives them a second chance before leaving the page. I get about 50 / 50. Better yet a squeeze page is where you want them to land, I get a 50% signup rate on the squeeze page.

Next I would be pitching my RSS feed, I have seen many bloggers put a link at the end of every post to “subscribe to my RSS feed if you liked this” and them the RSS feed link.

That is what your friends list is for. Your friends list should be highly target users that submit like content and blog like content. This returns 2 very valuable things.

They will vote on your content positively, be more apt to read it and opt in to your newsletter list and link to your content from their blogs. In the book I give you the best strategy to build friends list fast and find the most targeted users without even trying. I won’t give that one away here though.

JTF Mulder asked….

How do you manage all your data, friends, contacts, etc? I belong to numerous social networks and services. I have friends and contacts all over the internet, but I don’t always have their email address. I do not know their interests when I am offline.

Chris Lang replied….

I choose who I am going to move from social sites to my personal contact list. Everyone else can be managed through the Social Site interface. I find my contacts based on informed content they produce that is targeted to my niche, (blogging, social marketing, email delivery and SEO). You have seen a few of my personal contacts because I brought them here. PotPieGirl, ttlFantastic and Mert Erkal.

There is so much more you can do with close contacts that you convert from social site friends to off site personal contacts. Ever notice that I advise you not to submit your own content on Digg? Ever notice that I do not even have a Digg account? Ever notice that I can get 100+ Diggs in a day for anything I want to rank well?

Seth Garrison asked….

“If you use social bookmarking sites incorrectly you can seriously damage your Google rankings.” What did you mean when you said this?

Chris Lang replied….

So social bookmarking if done wrong can actually hurt you. Social marketing is about being social, so be social on social bookmarking sites, don’t just submit you own content and expect that this will bring you results. I also predict that the Google slapdown is coming. If you are submitting your own content and then shouting this to your friends list to get them to vote on it, then you are spamming Digg and since Digg votes can easily influence Google rankings you are only doing this for your own benefit in the search engines. That alone violates Google’s Webmaster Guidlines.

Sandy Abrams replied….

I have no idea about any of this. I think social networking is meeting people online and developing a relationship with them with the ultimate goal of furthering our own businesses. Assuming that that is correct, I have no clue as to how to go about it, what to say, who to talk to, and what I need to know about all of it.

Chris Lang replied….

My eBook is about social bookmarking. Your web page is submitted to say Digg.com. The site users vote on it. Get allot of votes, rise very quickly in the search engine rankings for the terms you targeted. Only if you get allot of votes, like 100 Diggs (that is what they call a vote on Digg) do you see major results in the search engines.

I teach you how to build a targeted friends list of 300 to 1000, that will vote on your blog posts well. I can get 100 to 200 Diggs on any post and I don’t even use Digg. I don’t even have an account.

So you think, that if I get 1000s of Digg visits I am going to profit from this? NO. Do you think that because of my Digg strategies the traffic that searches “how to get more diggs” that I am Google top ten under, converts? YES. Does that make sense?

In the book there is 3 different canned emails that you use on these social sites. Each is used for different situations on different sites. A little customization and you are ready to go. This is only going to work for a few years, then it is going to lose it effect.

The people and sites that have built a huge following are going to be set up pretty well. The people that use these tactics 2 years from now are to going to have way less success.

Look at how easily you could get email signups 4 years ago, offer the crappiest free eBook that was as old as dirt and you would still pull a 30% signup rate to an email newsletter. Now, you have to work your butt off to get 10%.

It is going to be the same way with social bookmarking and networking sites. What works like a charm now is going to be what everybody is doing in a year to two years. The winners will be those of us who built a huge following now and continued to move ahead instead of using the same old tired tactics.

bonline247 asked….

I haven’t read your first book so forgive me if you’ve covered some of this. If I have a website and I want to increase its SEO standing by adding a blog and social marketing (blog is domainname.com/blog) how important is keyword optimization for the main site pages?

Also, on the main site home page, I plan on adding video and the amount of actual copy will be minimal. Do you know how this affects ranking? If I have a blog and other pages that are keyword maximized should I be concerned with some main site pages that have very little copy because the focus of the page is on the video?

Thru social marketing should I send people to the main site or the blog first?

This might be in your book but if it’s not I would like to see a step by step plan - i.e. Day 1 - Sign up for accounts at Digg, Twitter, etc. Day 2 - blah, blah, blah (maybe this would be a separate product)

Chris Lang replied….

This is something that you can definitely move up in the search engines using social bookmarking site tactics.

Natural search engine rankings are going to prefer text on the page, 300 to 500 words. Now, if you can get 100+ Diggs for the page you are going to see substantially better rankings. Video seems to rank longer that text blog posts in Google for some reason. It may be the parent site page that ranks well if you are using something like YouTube.

It does not matter where you start, join one social site, build a targeted friends list. Don’t just submit you own content. That is a negative indicator in Google. I have proved that.

Blog posts are the only thing you should be submitting to Digg ect, and the content should be newsworthy. Blogs are about fresh content, that is why Google ranks blogs differently that static web pages.

I use the 8 to one theory, 8 pieces of good content submitted by myself and 1 of my own blog articles. DO NOT just submit your own stuff. It has been proven that a social marketing site profile with nothing but posts from the same domain is seen as a spammer indicator by Google.

PotPieGirl asked….

I have a question about social marketing. I’m taking myself out of the race as a candidate for the free book (already bought it, already read it, already love it).

I understand a lot about social marketing, and I am also very social by nature. That part is not difficult for me. What is MY biggest challenge is the time factor. There is only one of me and there is only so much time in a day. I run a company. I have clients. I have a blog where I give info away for free. I have TONS of email that all deserve my personal and thoughtful response. I read others blogs and try to comment when appropriate. I have kids and cats…and a hubby that gets a bit tired of seeing my head at the computer. And MOST importantly, I love to golf =)

HOW do you decide where to spend your social time? Can you give some good time management tips for social marketers? I tend to target the social sites that I a) enjoy and b) help me keep my ear to the ground on topics I like to blog about.

Chris Lang replied….

Here is a real gem, go to the local university and talk to some marketing professors. Get yourself an intern that will work for free just to learn the IM business. When I was building websites for 3k to 5k a pop, I had 2 to 3 clients going at a time and we knocked out a 2 sites a week,. clients drove me FRAKIN (Battlestar Galactica reference) crazy. I went and got myself an intern. Answered the phone, handled email, sat in on presentations to see how they are handled and took notes on everything.

Rocque asked….

“I target the social sites that bring me visitors and more importantly sales. You have the 12 I started with in the book, I have three new ones. Out of those since I am in Internet marketing I concentrate on 6 that fit me and my market. That is plenty plus I have to make snappy comments around here, that is a burden I am just going to have to bear though.”

“That makes the book sound even more tempting. To have someone tell you where not to waste your time, now that is worth $40.”

Jessica White asked….

I read somewhere that for getting a backlink from Digg, SU, Delicious you need to at least have more then 30 to 50 Diggs then it could yield you a backlink, however, I’ve seen many backlinks through Digg with just 2 , 3 diggs. Would like to get answer about that.

Chris Lang said….

It was probably me that wrote that, not to many people know that. You are confusing backlinks with the social site showing up in the results. A backlink is when Google counts the link from the site, as a vote for the sites popularity. More links, better ranking in Google. However Google only gives credit to links in social bookmarking sites when you get a fair number of votes. More votes, more validity in Google.

It is in the code, social sites can tell Google not to give any credit to their link to your site. That is why the 15 sites that Google does follow in my eBook are valuable and I am not going to give them away no matter how many times people ask me.

Dorothy Scott asked….

My question encompasses both social bookmarking and social media and blogging. RSS? I have read many explanations that give a great general understanding of what RSS is. OK-now what? It is my understanding that all of these social site have rss feeds built into the profile. What does one do with that to help build authority? How are the accessed? For Blogs does the index page’s feed cover the whole blog? What about the feeds for the individual posts? How are the located and what does one do with them? I would like a step-step guide that shows the whole RSS picture and explains how to capitalize on it.

Chris Lang replied….

I added a “blog marketing” hour long video on my new Social Marketing Viddler Group, it is just what you need. Covers RSS right at the beginning and then moves on to the rest of how blogging can benefit you. Concentrate on the online readers, Google and Yahoo take about 60% to 80% share of RSS feeds read.

Eren asked….

Is social marketing more for making friends and gaining exposure than for targeted traffic to our webpages?

Chris Lang replied….

Both, it depends on what you are selling. If you offer services that are one on one, like consulting then I would think networking is your focus. If you offer a direct response product like an eBook, then targeted traffic is your goal.

You have to remember that I do something completely different that either. I use social bookmarking to rise in the search engine results. Nothing more. Here is the only place that I really do networking. By using social bookmarking to move up the Google results, I can target the exact phrase and traffic that converts. That is what my eBook is about, backlinks, something different than most anybody else offers.

Rocque asked….

Hey, tell me how you find time to have offline friends? I abandoned them when I got lost in the desert. I think I might break Moses’s 40 year record for wandering around here in circles though if I am not careful. Who hid the milk and honey anyway and why do I always have to look for it?

Chris Lang replied….

I have decided to abandon all socializing for one year, to get my business on solid ground. I have a few close friends and good time buddies and I do get away from time to time. Also the last thing I need is to get mixed up with a relationship that could crush my creativity and focused, happy online nature. The last relationship I was in went south on me and took two years out of my life. This in not the time to take a chance on this happening again right now. You have no control on who you fall in love with, and it would be just my luck for me to find the wrong person right now. 100% business right now.

Rocque asked….

It seems that what started out as social bookmarking is turning more into social networking. I believe areas that should be addressed are how many social bookmarking sites a person needs to belong to. How you should represent yourself on those sites should be addressed. Which sites are the “find a date” sites and which are the sites for people who just need some help to become better at getting traffic and sales (unless you want to find the person of your dreams on the internet).

What if you are ugly? Should you still add your photo, or use the one from the picture that came with your picture frame that you purchased at Wal Mart?

I think the bottom line is that we all need more visitors, more income, and have less and less time to devote to just one more social site. So show us the tricks! Show us where to go where we do not waste our time. Plus for me personally show me how to get a working account at Sphinn where I do not get banned. (they really do not like me there)

How do you handle all the spam messages?

Should you pay to be a member of any of these sites?

Should you or should you not have a MySpace account?

How do you get friends fast? Do you accept everyone? Do you request from everyone?

Well that is just a few of the things I am covering in my book. No I am not writing one (yet), but who knows what the future holds. Ok…humor…really…I am funny (well I think I am and that is what matters).

Chris Lang replied….

First off I replied to this on my blog since it is too long for this page: Social Marketing for the Antisocial.

Here is the answer to your question. Buy my book, learn and USE everything in it. Then as you use these strategies, you will come up with your own ideas. You are more than smart enough to figure out your own set of techniques that fit other marketers like you.

I am a tech expert, I am not a people person. You need to write the “Social Networking” version of my eBook and if anyone can do it, it is you, Rocque. Right now is the exact time to launch a social site product. There is little competition and no one, as we see here knows allot about it, except, me.

Social Bookmarking - Is it valuable to search engines and why

By: Paul Mihai Pavel

Social bookmarking is the habit or practice of saving bookmarks to a web site and “tagging”. Social bookmarking sites are a popular way to store, classify, share and search links. Social bookmarking started as a method for Internet users to keep bookmarks that can easily be accessed online and shared with other users in the Web. These bookmarks are given tags to label as well as organize them and the tags illustrate a glimpse of the main content for easier access.

In a social bookmarking system, internet users save links to web pages that they would like to remember and/or share. These social bookmarks are normally public, and can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private domains. Only the allowed people can view these social bookmarks sequentially, by category or tags, or via a search engine.

The search engines are looking beyond the incoming links from social bookmarking sites to gauge their value to their search indexes. The external metadata compiled via user generated descriptions, tags, titles and classification is incredibly valued by the search engines, as in the same philosophy as anchored backlinks, descriptive content about a web site defined by the users of that site who are not associated with the marketing or coding of that site, can be extremely powerful in judging the importance and relevance of the content and tags which are used on that site.

Social bookmarking brings to the equation something that search engines can’t compete with the human touch. Just as the internet has millions of pages, so it also has millions of users, and if even a fraction of those users share the sites they’ve found interesting, useful or just plain bizarre with each other, there is suddenly a vast resource for anyone searching the web to tap into.

Social bookmarking allows you to share your bookmarks with other Internet users in a collaborative sort of way. Normally, social bookmarking takes place on sites where the users can create an account to add their bookmarks to. It’s also helpful to do it on sites that allow you to insert keywords for the types of bookmarks you add. That way, they all can be organized and set into categories that other users can easily search through.

Social bookmarking is a grassroots process that allows users to establish the value of a specific web page, article, podcast, or video. By bookmarking an item, individuals are casting a vote to endorse that specific resource. The idea is that social bookmarking gives a resource credibility; the more users who bookmark a specific item, the more valuable the resource is considered to be. Social bookmarking is all about the collective voice. Most of the social bookmarking networks increase the profile of items that receive a lot of bookmarks. It probably won’t be long before the major search engines begin to include social bookmarks as a part of their ranking algorithms.

Once you become a part of a social bookmarking site, you become a member of that community. You and all the other users are there for the same thing and you can help each other out in finding sites that will benefit all of you. It also makes searching the Web so much easier and quicker. Another great thing is that once you’re part of a site, you can access it from any computer and any browser. That way, you’re never limited in seeing the social bookmarks you’ve been waiting for.

So, the question, “Should you give any attention to social bookmarking?” And the answer is, make your site worthy of bookmarking. Bookmarks appear to web spiders as links to your page, and that makes them very valuable SEO tools. For some search engines, the more bookmarks that lead back to your site, the more “votes” you get! Links which are bookmarked by lots of users on social bookmarking web sites are effectively been “voted for” In fact Google has already started to feature StumbleUpon Reviews in its search results.

On the web-site side, be sure to include the code snippets provided by social bookmarking organizations that allow users to tag your site easily. Then, maintain it all. Don’t just forget your account completely. If you do, eventually it will disappear and all the advantage of having one will go as well. Instead, continue using social bookmarking. Over time, the rewards will be increased traffic to your web site.

Social bookmarking sites help you find great content on the internet. These websites allow users to post content that they like. They also allow them to list and share this content with other users. You need to become a member of these sites first. Some of them are very particular about admitting the right people to their sites, but generally it is quite easy to sign up. The best part is that these sites are free for all internet users.

Social bookmarking leverages the popular social software phenomenon of tagging. Users can apply tags, or keywords, to the bookmarks they save. In social bookmarking, tagging creates a grass-roots taxonomy for the shared bookmarks. Users can search by tags to find bookmarks relevant to their interests. Taxonomies created through bookmarking are called “folksonomies.”

The majority of Web users nowadays are familiar with the term bookmarking — formally known as social bookmarking. Every time you save a Web Site to your list of favorites, with the intent of visiting it again in the future, you are actually bookmarking it.

Social bookmarking is also a way of bringing additional traffic to your site as there are many users who look at the ‘what’s new’ page and decide what to click on. An easy way of tackling social bookmarking is to use Onlywire or Diigo, both of which submit to multiple social bookmarking sites. Once you’ve signed up, this will submit to all the sites except reddit and digg.

Social bookmarking is a way for people to store and organize bookmarks of certain web pages on the Internet with help of metadata. Social bookmarking is done by saving your links to particular web pages that you want to remember or perhaps, share with other users. Social bookmarking is an all-out phenomena and is growing at a sonic boom clip. Understanding social bookmarking gives you the ability to reach millions of users you might otherwise miss. Properly utilizing social bookmarking gives you an additional edge in more traditional search engine marketing.

The author is the owner and CEO of the newest social bookmarking web site: http://www.socializewith.us

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WordPress SEO is a big subject but start with these coding weaknesses that WordPress sets by default

I am a WordPress SEO guy just because I have to be. I do love SEO and Wordpress but I am not a WordPress SEO expert. However, there are a number or weaknesses in WordPress that hurt your Google standings from an SEO standpoint. These do come from WordPress SEO experts, I just happened to write about them.

This is the kind of web 2.0 search engine tactics for blogs that come with Wickedly Evil Social Marketing Tactics.

#1 The WordPress title tag code sucks

Harsh, but the only way to put it. The way your WordPress title is currently set up adds a bunch of worthless navigational based words into the title tag or ends up keyword stuffing the title tag by repeating your blog title on subpages. Worse yet on every subpage. Google sees this as keyword spam.

Use this code to fix it:

<title><?php if(is_home()) { echo ‘ENTER YOUR HOME PAGE TITLE TAG HERE’; } else { wp_title(”) ;} ?></title>

Replace your WordPress title tag code in your header.php file. Make sure you leave the single quotes ‘ ‘ around your home page title tag text. Now the text you enter will be in the title tag only on your homepage.

But on your articles standalone posts pages, (called a single in WordPress) the only thing that will appear is the title of the blog post.

#2 WordPress uses <h2> tags for the blog post title.

These should be <h1> tags.

Open your index.php page and your single.php page (depending on the theme) and look for this.

<h2 class=”storytitle”>

<a href=”<?php the_permalink() ?>” rel=”bookmark”><?php the_title(); ?></a>
</h2>

This is the title of the post. It should be in <h1> tags so that you are telling search engines that this is the most important text on the page since <h1> tags denote the largest font size.

It should be something like this.

<h1 class=”storytitle”>

<a href=”<?php the_permalink() ?>” rel=”bookmark”><?php the_title(); ?></a>
</h1>

#3 Wordpress uses <h2> tags to create your navigation labels, like archives and catagories.

<h2> tags should be reserved for the second most important words on the page, I use them for sub headlines.

Change them to <p> paragraph tags and control how they look with CSS classes. If you do not know how to do this then just style the individual labels. They are found in your sidebar.php file.

#4 Use nofollow or remove redundant links in the sidebar and the footer.

NoFollow does not mean that search engine spiders stop and do not continue to the link target. It only means that you are telling Google (thru Googlebot) especially that you do not want to pass on link juice (I hate the term PageRank) to the link at the other end. This is especially important to administration page links, a contact page, site map, privacy policy, terms of use page, copyright page, Wordpress admin links and of course the Wordpress.com link.

There is a finite amount of Google link juice you have to pass on to other sites, why waste it on links that do not need it or do not warrant it.

Well that about does it for a Wordpress SEO tweak article. If you do not want to FTP each file up and down or just do not know where they are in the couple hundred files that are a Wordpress install do this.

Log into your WordPress control panel and go to “theme editor.” From there you can click on the file name on the right hand side of the page and open it in the textarea. Then you can change the items I mentioned.

Do yourself a favor and back up that file if you are not familiar with HTML. Right click the file text when you first open it, click “select all” then right click the highlighted blue text and click “copy.”

Now open WordPad in Windows and paste the code into the page. Then save that page as the file name you opened in the “theme editor” in WordPress. Save it to the desktop. Now if you really FRAK (battlestar galactica reference) up the code up you can always replace it with what you started with.

If you are totally lost in this article consider hiring a WordPress guy like me to do this for you. Or you can just contact the author of your theme and he should be glad to get the extra work.

This is my social bookmarks hub where I add my best social marketing finds, plus this social bookmarking site creates backlinks that Google loves.

Social bookmarking has been around for awhile. But there are social bookmarking sites that create backlinks to your blog. Most social bookmarking sites do not allow Google to give weight to the links back to your site. However I know of 16 social bookmarking type sites that do bring backlinks and this is my favorite.

If you do not write articles about social marketing, social networking or Internet marketing join this group anyways just so you get the daily email that Searchles sends out with a synopsis of any group that you are a member of. This way you will get one daily email with my best links in it and MY friends links as well.

Want to promote your blog and create backlinks to your site at the same time? There about 1000 other groups you can join where you can rate, friend and network with others of like interests.

Warning: DO NOT SPAM Searchles

Do not sign up to Searchles and do nothing but submit your own content. No salesletters allowed! That goes for any social site.

If you cannot get any of your Internet social friends to submit your content for you then at least use my 8 to 1 tactic. 8 good solid on topic articles and 1 of your own. And it had better be on topic if it is your own. If you submit you own blog post, wouldn’t it be kind of embarrassing if other social marketing site users accused you of spam?

There may be times when you do get accused of spam on any social site. However if you truly believe your article has merit for the topic that you submitted it under then at least you can defend yourself with dignity and honor. Not 2 words associated with many social site participants huh?

Social Marketing is my Group on Searchles and this is where I post all me best items that I do not have time to blog about. Sign up, join the my group and then look around, there is allot for you here.

Or… Things to do when Microsoft Buys Digg, either way it is a good thing, IMHO

MrBabyMan hates the idea, the Digg top 100 surely hates the idea and the Digg Mafia REALLY hates the idea. Let me go on record right now saying that I LOVE the idea, especially if Microsoft aquires Digg and uses Digg to finally become a viable search engine. Microsoft you say? One reason and one reason only. Competition is good for the health of the Internet.

If Google buys Digg they will have a full circle strangle hold on Internet search. Google owns search, 70% as of the last estimate. They own web analytics. They own RSS feed readership, 40% worth. They own RSS analytics, Feedburner. They are the only search engine that uses unique indicators to rank blogs and Blogsearch.

Then they use these items to gather data on how to rank blogs. Digg would simply round out this full circle and give them full access to use social bookmarking to further rank blogs and news items by readers voting habits. I have seen evidence in my own testing and others that Google is weighting Digg votes more and more, if only a little bit.

Let’s start with WHY I love the idea of Digg being bought by either.

This is how I see the future of Digg no matter who buys, Google or Microsoft. Call it Diggsoft or Diggle, I don’t care. A Google buys scenario means I make allot of money, I know more about this than almost anyone. Microsoft buys, I still make money and we all profit by having an Internet monopoly broken.

#1 Digg votes become a positive indicator to the parent search engine and I can quit spending so much time trying to convince the huddled masses that things are about to change fast. I see a Digg button right next to our search engine listings. Enough said?

#2 Digg, Blogsearch and Google Websearch become one as the default search result. I would guess that Blogsearch and Digg will maintain separate identities but I am seeing blogs rank in Websearch for no other reason other than they got allot of Diggs.

#3 Digg comments become valuable too and could even be displayed along side a search result. Think of mousing over a link under a search result and seeing the comments on Digg be displayed in a DHTML overlay. I already theorize that the number of comments on your page or a Digg page that links to your blog post is a positive indicator to Google. Few agree, but I find it a positive indicator and if I was writing an algorithm to rank blogs or any dynamically created web site, I would certainly rank interaction high.

#4 Google will buy Digg so they can display AdSense along side the posts, that is how they will monitize digg. Currently social sites use display ads mostly. They do not convert and they do not load fast, and you can hardly sell adspace these days. AdSense does convert because it is highly targeted, plus Google has been testing Digg in their algo, they just need to kickout the Digg top 100 and the mafia, same thing.

#5 Chris Lang dances on the Digg Mafia’s grave and the crowd goes wild. I do not see the bullshit that is Digg continuing after a major purchase be Google or Microsoft. There are many little clicks within Digg that go around burying posts and accusing a sites of spamming Digg. This has got to go. Many say that Digg would have sold long ago if not for these childish antics by little punk kids.

It got me banned for life as KeyWebData.com when I was writing articles critical of Digg. I was saying NOT to submit your own articles and NOT to Digg your own items after they appear. How can I be spamming Digg when everything I teach both in public posts and my social marketing ebook is against using anything but naturally occurring submissions?

The bottom line

Digg is going to be bought. Social bookmarking is going to become part of everyday life and how we use the internet. Whoever buys Digg the other is going to go after the next best. Delicious is owned by Yahoo, another reason Microsoft values Yahoo. The search engine that emerges from this strangle hold that Google has on the Internet with social bookmarking as PART of the results will emerge as victorious (Diggle) or at least a hot contender (Diggsoft).

How 100+ Diggs got Malathy Ranked #1 on Google

My friend from the SMC forum, Malathy, asked in her blog post how to get more Diggs and why she did not get Diggs on her blog. She was ready to give up and seriously doubted that social bookmarking sites would be of any use to her.

My response is pretty simple here, the same thing my ex-wife used to say: “It would work better if you did it right!”

“Oh poor me, I didn’t get any Diggs so I will put my tail between my legs and feel sorry for myself. I won’t buy Chris Lang’s book because no one likes me and the other kids at Digg don’t want to play with me” was pretty much how I saw her blog post.

So I decided to get her ranked #1 on one of my best search terms. Even out ranking my own blog for this term. WHY would I knock my self down the Google ladder under one of my favorite search terms? Just to prove I could do it!!!

Did Chris Lang succeed?

Day one June 19th, 2008. Malathy is submitted to Digg under “How to get more Diggs”

The problem is that she never used the phrase in the title tag or in the blog post body so I had quite a challenge. I LIKE a challenge. I got her submitted to Digg under the phrase and used some of my Wickedly Evil Social Marketing Tactics to try to get her 100+ Diggs.

Only whitehat, naturally occurring tactics were used and I did not spam Digg in any way. These are the same things I teach. I did not use social bookmarking submission software and different users submitted her to other networks after finding her posted on Digg.

This is the reason for building large friends lists on social sites and participating by leaving comments and sharing high end content that is not just from your own blog. It is HOW social sites are supposed to work. Then, when you want to get something ranked highly, your friends will help you. They do this because you are not a social site spammer, posting for only your own content for your own gain.

UPDATE: Day one: 9:14 AM Arizona USA time.

Right now, a Sphinn post for your blog Malathy, is #2 for “how to get more diggs” on Blogsearch. You are #1 in Websearch for “Think again before submitting to social bookmarks”, so we know that Google has been pinged and you are in the Google index.

I am doing what I do to get my content traffic. Watch what happens as the day progresses. Part of your problem is your title tag sucks, if you had used a term that is searched you would be getting traffic already. Instead I am now trying to get you ranked under a valid term that is not in your blog post. Just makes it more interesting!

UPDATE: #2 later the same day:

The Sphinn post is now #11 under Websearch for “how to get more diggs”. If you had researched your keywords and used a phrase that had traffic I could have ranked you well under that, but since you did not, I am having to wing it here.

UPDATE: #3 Day 2, June 20th, 2008

Malathy is now #3 under “how to get more diggs” in Websearch, with five blogs linking to the article and 108 Diggs, nothing more. Scott you asked how heavily Google weights Diggs? They must weight them fairly well for her to take to number 3 when I can’t even get there myself.

UPDATE: #4 Day 4, June 22nd, 2008.

111 Diggs and 11 Digg comments. Malathy is #1! The #2 and #3 listings are tired old articles that have been there forever. Both articles are from 2006. Now the Digg item about Malathy has moved into #5 and I am in #4. Below that at #7 is a Sphinn post about Malathy and then Digg Follies at #8 is a blog post about Malathy and the test ranking. 5 out of 10 results in the top 10 point to my blog in one way or another. That is what social sites can do for you in niche terms.

UPDATE: #4 Day 17, July 5th, 2008

Malathy’s post is STILL number one, beating out the two tired posts that won’t die, my own post at #4 and the Digg item at #5.

Considering the only thing that blog post has going for it is the voting habits of the readers: 19 comments on her post, 12 comments on the Digg post and 118 diggs, that’s it. Everyone below her has 00 to just a few diggs. Yes, I think Google gives weight to the number of comments on a post too. So far, I am the only one saying this, so don’t flame me, it is just an idea of mine.

Malathy did not even use the term in the page. I did. Look in the comments, I could not get her to rank under the term “how to get more diggs” and no other decent keywords were there either.

The Bottom Line

I finally contacted Malathy and asked her if she was able to buy a copy of Wickedly Evil Social Marketing Tactics and she replied that she lives in India, has a large family and was currently saving to buy it. I sent here a copy with my thanks for allowing me to use her blog post as a case study. It was the least I could do.

Before any of you complain that social bookmarking does not bring you traffic from the search engines you need to actually research keywords that you can rank under.

How can you say that you did not get any traffic from the search engines when you did not use a term THAT HAS TRAFFIC?

Do you think that Digg votes are going to magically bring your site out the the Google dungeon and ALL your search terms are going to move up? NO, you get credit for Diggs for the terms on the page that got the Diggs.

What got her there? 118 Diggs.

#1 for the term: 118 Diggs. (Malathy)

#2 for the term: 0 Diggs.

#3 for the term: 4 Diggs.

#4 for the term: (me) kicked off digg by the Digg mafia.

I am also theorizing that Google is going to buy Digg and is altering their algorithm to weight Digg more heavily. I also feel that Google is about to slapdown sites that are doing nothing but submitting their own content and then shouting it to their mutual friends. I am going out on a limb here, but I think we are going to see more and more of this.

Look at the bottom of a Digg page. There is a link UPDATED! Add Digg to Google. That is real new. I am seeing different results when blogs get more Diggs across the board.

I am currently working on a case study that may explain more about Digg and how it may or may not affect blog rankings so stay tuned to KeyWebData.com.

Imagine Google to buy Digg? Digg integrated into Google search, or Blogsearch. Digg buttons next to every search result? That’s how I see it!

Rumor mill (blogs) are on fire again about Google buying Digg.

Most recent and best documented article on Google to buy Digg

Okay, if this happens Google will integrate Digg with Blogsearch. We have already proved that Google will rank blogs better by how many Diggs they get.

There just happens to be one guy that knows more about Digg than anyone else except MyBabyMan, the #1 Digger. You know that obnoxious guy, Chris Lang?

That know it all that sells a book about how to get more Diggs. The guy that got a nobody blog ranked under “how to get more diggs” (that’s her at #4 outranking me) when it should have never been there? Yeah, that guy.

The Google to buy Digg rumors have been going around since the first of the year. Imagine how many Diggs you get being right next to your link in Blogsearch or in Websearch? Imagine your Digg comments being visible in Google search. Imagine that if you spam Digg you spam Google. Imagine that if you get buried on Digg you just got buried on Google? Imagine your Digg profile as your Google profile? Imagine that submitting nothing but you own content, like I have been talking about for the last six months being a negative indicator to Google? Imagine Kevin Rose on the Google board of directors? Maybe I shouldn’t have made so much fun of Kevin?

Kind of makes you want to buy that little report about social bookmarking before it doubles in price after Google buys Digg, don’t it? Or is that too blatant of a promotion or too wickedly evil? Maybe just the best advice you will ever get for $57.

The bottom line

If Google buys Digg then my 85 page book is immediately priced at $97. Don’t mean to be a greedy bastard but Google buying Digg would triple what my book is worth to you.

The conversation continues, who is right? We both are.

If you missed the first round of comments between Dave Rosenthal and myself, Chris Lang, read it.

Before you read Dave’s next reply, I want to point out: I get a 50% opt in rate to my newsletter from my social bookmarking sites. I get a 20% sales rate from my newsletter subscribers. If you sell any product on the Internet you can do the same, you just need a some wickedly evil social marketing tactics.

Dave Rosenthal Replies…

Good, this is a nice opportunity to confirm you truly believe in this method. I think it has merit too-but I also think there’s a MUCH easier way to get pinpoint accurate traffic via ranking.

Now Chris, you know I didn’t say “How can you say that Digg traffic is crap traffic.” Many people DO say that, but I said “writes the KIND of piece that is going to get dugg like some crap.” (By the way can I suggest you link to the original so people can see my exact wording). With the meaning being digg has a very specific readership, all the Social Networks have a “flavor,” and it has been shown time and time again that certain kinds of pieces get dugg. The only way to circumvent the standard norm is for one of the top people to proclaim a piece diggworthy. You can target relevant people all you want, but if ceiling fans aren’t what the top guys are into that’s the end of that story. And backlinks don’t really come out of this strategy UNLESS it’s a digg like story-this week it was something about a 13 year old, and it was a FALSE story but a perfect example of what gets dugg.

The fact that you sold books IS proof. It’s proof that people are grabbing at things in a chase for money. No offense to you or them because I’m in there too. But you and I know the truth; people are trying to crack this internet money code. Somebody comes out with a can’t miss formula and it’ll sell. When you’ve got 20 testimonials of people who used your strategy (step by step), and only your strategy then let’s sit back and look over the facts. But people buying nails, wood, and a hammer doesn’t mean they’re going to have a new deck at the end of the day.

As for “owning terms” be careful what you wish for. There are people who can take it. And you could do a Google booboo yourself and Google can take it from you too. Never say never…

As for some kind of competition. I’m not sure my point was clear. I didn’t say “any” term. I said “but I assure you I can write a piece and have it show up in Google on the first page in the number 1 position 5 minutes later. But it has to be a very specific wording, AND it might not stay there AND it may or may not have anything to do with the rest of my site AND that post is not going to raise the rest of my site to page one position 1 for whatever my site is about”.

Getting ranked is not hard for just some random term-maintaining that rank IS the difficult part. You pick your own term and take a screen. I haven’t written anything for my blog this week because I’m building ebay sites. But whatever I end up writing about I’ll take a screen as no.1 and you take your screen. Or I’ll send the Google search string. It’s not hard; you can do it, I can do it. I don’t think it’s much of challenge because my statement wasn’t about choosing a deeply embedded power term like “make money online.” In fact now that I look up at your post you said the exact same thing “The thing is that major terms are hard to get into.”

But the fact that you’re getting ranking, traffic and conversion from a digg-based phrase proves my point. I said “So I think your method has a very specific use. I’m not sure yet if a) it’s going to generate relevant traffic that will b) turn into revenue for anything more than a few digg skewed industries.” And that would be you.

Like you said, it’s good to have somebody play conterpoint. People didn’t believe I could take a site from 2.5 million in Alexa to 146K in 3 months with the same traffic but I showed ‘em. People didn’t think I could turn 10 cents a day into 100 dollars a day with Adsense in 3 months but I showed them too. So I look forward to the results of those 7 buyers. I can wait. I think you and I are in it for the long haul.

Thanks for the shout-out Rocque!

Chris Lang says…

Dave, I think you missed my point and that was that after Malathy said social bookmarking does not work for her, I proved it could. By pure chance this converted into sales for me.

Malathy’s site has 0 PageRank, 7,183 incoming links, most of them from other sites on Blogger with 0 PageRank.

Plus I did this with a blog post that did not use the term “how to get more Diggs” in the title tag or anywhere on the page.

This made it even harder for me, but I did what I said I would do. This is definitely NOT how it is done.

This is definitely how I tell my readers on my blog and in my book “This is NOT how to do this.” I simply set out to prove that even though she had been doing it wrong, that it could be done right with very little to work with.

I said that:

• I could get Malathy 100 to 200 Diggs (I get her 100).
• I could get her ranked #1 (we made it to #4).
• I would prove that social bookmarking sites work for you if you do it right.

I brought home everything I said I would, that is all I set out to prove.

She got 11 comments, most of her posts have none. I got her a couple hundred visitors to the post. She was posting her own content to Digg and getting O Diggs. I believe that Google sees that as a negative indicator. She has 102 on this post now.

As far as future testimonials go, they will be posted on the salesletter page in the weeks to come.

As far as a competition for rankings goes, I still say we have to both sign up to a new blog on Blogger. No age of domain, no incoming links, no current RSS subscribers and a term that has no competition. Our two blogs current blogs in a competition is apples and oranges. It cannot be compared.

I can help you too…

Also I am looking for a site (must be a blog) that has a product, a current PageRank, a newsletter and all the correct pieces in place. I will take that site to the top of a term they target and it will convert if they have the pieces that are required in place. This will be my next test. Testing and results bring me sales, I figured that out on Friday.

The bottom line

The strategies I used work real well on sites that use them the correct way, build targeted friends lists with like interests and submissions, and not just Digg spam.

I use 15 different social sites that I actively participate in, post valuable content to and comment and rate others posts, that is how it is done right. My book simply teaches you how to get more positive votes and turn your friends into subscribers and buyers.

Where is the Digg spam in that? BTW I do not have a Digg account, either.

In my ongoing quest to educate my blog readers and social bookmarking site friends on what is social bookmarking spam and what is NOT consider this:

After suggesting that a blog post by my friend JohnT was spam one of my social marketing group members said this about a post:

“The Google Ad Sense is all over it. This tells me the article is posted to get more pageview from this site as supposed to really educating others about social marketing. Wouldn’t u agree?”

I replied “NO! Just because AdSense is all over a blog does not mean it is spam.” Bad taste maybe, but not spam.

Look at the top of TechCrunch, see that banner ad? How about those 16 ads down the side bar on the left? What is the difference between that and AdSence on a lowly unread bloggers blog? NONE! Why does TechCrunch write articles? To make money from advertising. I see no difference in that over AdSense.

You could get someone’s domain blacklisted with the social site when you click the spam button on someone. It only takes a few accusations and the site is thru there. This happened to me on Digg. Just because some little ahole on Digg cannot understand what I am writing about they clicked the spam button on me.

What happened. BANNED by Digg. That is what happened. Keywebdata.com will never be listed on Digg again. I did nothing wrong, I just happened to write an article critical of Digg, so the little bastard accused me of spam. He cost me traffic, a friends list of 400+ that I spent months building and got all my posts deleted. This has happened to many, just because they wrote articles about email marketing or SEO.

To some Digg idiot, they think any email marketing article is written by a spammer. BAM, spam button clicked, site banned.

To some other incredibly stupid Digger, an article about SEO must written by some one out to spam Digg and Google. BAM, spam button clicked, site gets banned.

Write anything critical of Digg, BAM, spam button clicked and site banned.

BTW, SEO, email marketing and most Internet marketing articles do no do well at Digg.

Bloggers do have to make a living from blogs, I do. But I have my own products that I sell from my sites. I am lucky. The blogger here is not even making probably $20 a day from AdSense.

Only submitting your own blog posts? YOU are a social bookmarking spammer!

I don’t care if you don’t have a lick of advertising, not one affiliate link and don’t sell a damn thing on the Internet. YOU ARE A SOCIAL BOOKMARKING SPAMMER! Simply because you are submitting ONLY your content only for your own gain, whatever this is.

If you follow who is submitting what, you would know that that is not JohnT’s blog. I have over 3000 friends on 20 networks and I can follow who is submitting what.

Not all 3000, but before you go and click the spam button on somebody maybe you should look at their profile. If all the links are to the same site, that is spam in itself. If they post a wide variety of different links from different blogs, then that right there should tell you that they are not spamming Searchles.

Your spam button click got the post removed on many other Searchles groups. For NO reason. I watch my group closely, I know who the participants are and follow their posts. Heck, I invited most of the members there.

The bottom line

Stop clicking the spam button when it can cost my friends in my group dearly! Or leave my group. No problem.

If you think it is spam, then don’t even give them a low vote, ignore it and move on.

No votes on a social bookmarking post say to Google that the sites sucks. That actually hurts the site more that having the link removed.

Yeah, Chris Lang is HAPPY

10 years on the Internet.

10 years of failure.

$6,000 invested in video email. Didn’t sell. Couldn’t give it away.

5 software languages.

Came up with the idea that out did FeedBurner.

They sold to Google for $381 million.

I figured out how to sell my leading edge eBook today.

$280 in sales is five hours.

One of the best days in my entire life.

Why?

Because I sell an honest product that will help bloggers perform better in Google.

Priceless!

My thanks goes out to all who helped me get here, you know who you are!