Taking advantage of the web traffic using social networking can bring your website or blog, has become a blog topic in its own right, and there are many places on the web, which will supposedly give you the "low down" on hitting the top spot. But the truth is, there is no secret formula.

It takes a well written article of course. But thats only the half of the issue.

If the natives who use Digg don't know you, or don't like your "genre" perhaps, chances are you will receive just a few, cursory Digg's from people who have a common interest, but this will often stall at around 4-6 Digg's (votes),leaving you (and your story) desperatley wanting.

And speaking of "genre's", finding out what network prefers what topics, will give you a great insight into getting your own writing on the front page, and any time spent checking out the favoured topics on Digg, or Propeller (nee Netscape), will be an investment in time which will pay back in spades later.

If you get it right of course.

There's no point posting cannabis related stories on hi-tech social network "Slashdot" for instance, as no one will read it.

Get it wrong too often, and you will end up posting material on the network, which is destined never to see the light of day, as happened to me on digg-like network "Reddit".

I was posting my news stories fast and furiously, only to find out later, that my account had been flagged as a possible spammer, and everything I posted ended up in a sandbox somewhere within the bowels of the network, never to be read by the readers I had written the material for. DOH!

Of course what makes this worse it that no one actually tells you you're flagged.

It can be weeks or months before you actually find out you have been flagged, by which time you can have wasted a lot of time and effort, so it pays to keep checking how your stories are performing.

Breaking wind
Changing the subject ever so slightly for a moment, did you ever sit in a room and then all of a sudden, a bad smell hits your nostrils? Its a natural reaction to look around you, with "that look" on your face as if to say "dude, was that you"?

The thing is, when you DO look around, only to find you are alone in the room, and you suddenly realise that smell is actually emanating from you it can come as quite a surprise. Especially if its an alien odour, not your normal, easily recognisable gaseus mix?

Man, what have you been eating?

I often think children are a little like farts. You can tolerate your own..just.  But anyone elses are horrendous and need to be avoided at all cost.

In case you're wondering where this is leading (as I myself am as I sit writing it =), its all about hitting the top spot right?

So I'm sitting at my computer with less than two weeks to Christmas and, I "smelled the smell". When I looked around to where the smell is coming from I realised I haven't published any writing in a couple of days, but the web-traffic figures are climbing, and I mean climbing fast.

In the blink of an eye my web stats are telling me I have over 2000 visitors on site, but try as I may, I can't work where the "smell" is coming from and it took me a few days of "pulling my hair out", to work it out.

Public Relations
Whilst I waited for my cannabis/marijuana news website (http://cannazine.co.uk ) to be accepted as an accredited Google News source, I was publishing my "google news"

via a network third party "PR" websites, and whilst using these sites had provided myself and my website with a fair amount of new traffic, I have since worked out that for every web visitor that followed the news link from google news to my PR company website, and then clicked a link through to my own website, I reckoned there must be at least four or five web visitors who didnt follow the link and visit the Canna Zine.

So for every visitor I had I reckon the PR site I used had 4 or 5.

The mind boggles when you think back to the 2000 visitors I had on my own website.

I spent a long time pouring over my stats, to see if I could get a clue where all the traffic was coming from, but the only real "out of the ordinary" fact I could see, was my hits on the root directory of the website (http://cannazine.co.uk/ ) where climbing through the roof, looking for all the world that the entire population of the UK had just typed my web address into their browser, rather than just following a hyperlink, which would have shown up a lot earlier.

I soon realised the only way I would get to the bottom of where all this traffic was coming from, was by copy and pasting the first paragraph of the article into google, surrounded by "quote marks" and looking for a "perfect match".

This method of disambiguation is a great way of finding out which websites are carrying your material, and in this instance I hit "pay dirt".

Right at the top of the search results, was an address on the illustrious "High Times " website, and at this stage the fog started to clear...and how!

On following the link into the High Times website, there, before my very eyes, was an article I had written, called "Giuliani wrong on marijuana ".

Apparently the High Times news team had spotted the article on google news, and "aggragated" it in their own news. Which is very cool and I would like to say a big thanks to the HT team.

A High Times reader had seen the story on High Times, and "Dugg" it. It helps in this instance that the kind souls at High Times actually provide a "Digg" button at the bottom of the article , and did people ever hit that button.

Over 1900 diggs later and the tide started to abate somewhat and a day or two later, it was all a distant, but enjoyable memory which ended up registering an altogether none-to shabby "1910 diggs".

The motto to this story?

Getting your material published on the front page of any social network, can be a massive help to a website struggling to gain a foothold in a busy market.

But rather than concentrate on attempting to manipulate the social networks, you should really just concentrate on your writing and in time, good material, like cream in a jug of milk, WILL float to the top.

On the back of this story, I wrote to Google News and explained how much traffic I had lost as a result of not publishing news in my own right, and needing to use third party "PR" websites to get my stories published on Google news.

The good people of Google News wrote back concurring with everything I said, and promptly invited me and my website to become an accredited Google News source, which comes into play at the start of 08. Result!

And as a result, next time I "smell the smell", I should be able to recognise it as "one of my own" a lot quicker.

Red Dragon

PR.Canna Zine

PR.Canna Zine is the first-in-the-world news agency dedicated entirely to global hemp and cannabis issues. If you have a story you would like to see published on Google News, on MSN news, on Yahoo news plus many more, this is the place to post your news, and we'll do the rest on your behalf.