Todd Malicoat is an independent marketing and business consultant from the SEO school of thought . He's done strategic consulting for companies large and small, and built and sold several sites of his own.

Neil Patel and Todd Malicoat know a thing or two about Digg. As active members of the Digg community (in addition to their roles as leading SEO consultants) they’re afforded a unique perspective on the market. Having recently met with Neil and Todd at Search Engine Strategies, WebProNews had the chance to sling some burning questions.
How can businesses take advantage of Digg; if at all? For those already in the game, what’s being done correctly? Incorrectly?

Like search engines, Digg is controlled by custom algorithms. Hailed as “user driven social content,” its front page is (theoretically) populated with the most newsworthy of submissions; those having been “dugg up” by the community. In its purest form, manipulation of this system would be easy; hence provisions to control black hat hooligans and spammy shenanigans.

On your quest to reach the front page, Advantage Consulting’s CTO, Neil Patel suggests avoiding “crews” or “circles” for reciprocal “digging.”

“I think, right now, what a lot of people are doing wrong is that they’re joining Digg crews, or groups. They [the algorithms] can notice patterns. If the same people are digging each others stories it’s not going to be as effective. [By doing this] instead of needing (let’s say) 30 votes to get to the front page, you might need 50…”

Stuntdubl.com guru, Todd Malicoat is quick to point out apparent sophistication in Digg’s algorithms… offering our key to success.

“It’s really fascinating to see how quickly the digg algorithm is evolving compared to search engines in the past. They’ve really caught on to a lot of the things that took Google, Yahoo and MSN a long time to catch on to… Just within the social spheres… they’ve identified what’s natural and caught on to that a lot quicker.”

Natural, eh? Founded on ideals of democracy, Digg owes it to their users to remain as natural (or seemingly natural) as possible. In short, just like SEO, it’s all about visibility rather than manipulation (on the white hat side, of course).

Patel’s closing advice urges us to consider why one might possibly get to Digg’s front page. It’s as simple as supply and demand…. yet, like many other aspects of social media, some get it terribly wrong.

“They’re taking their website and services and trying to get them all on Digg… submitting everything… they’re trying to monetize on it instead of saying, ‘how can I benefit the Digg community?’”

is increasingly becoming a social media portal that SEOs are going to have to acknowledge as an opportunity to generate links, drive traffic, and increase search rankings. The Digg community is intelligent, so content quality is a major factor in obtaining links, but from a marketing point of view, attention-grabbing titles are equally as vital. Todd also talks briefly a1bout paid blogging, the potential ramifications of services such as PayPerPost and ReviewMe, and how the dilemma of editorial ethics is not unique to just the blogosphere.

avoiding costly penalties. This knowledgeable panel points out that obtaining a natural, organic pattern of linkage requires more than just a simple assertion of “good links” vs. “bad links” to your site. Social media is also becoming a driving force in generating an increasing volume of links. Lastly, webmasters need to be mindful of the true issues when it comes to SEO/SEM and not focus so much of their time on concerns that aren”t as important in the long run.