How to Really Get on the Reddit Frontpage (and make money from it)

Reddit is a popular social news website with user-submitted links that may be voted up or down by their users. Websites voted up to the frontpage usually receive a great deal of traffic and can easily see over 10,000 visitors within the span of a day.

A portion of these visitors is likely to become your feed subscribers or they might even convert well on recommended affiliate links.

Being on the front page of Reddit may also cause your website to go viral on other social websites like Digg, StumbleUpon or del.icio.us, sending you ever more links, traffic and potential audience.

It’s no wonder why social media marketers, bloggers and online entrepreneurs envision getting to the front page of Reddit as an important part of their product, site and brand promotional strategy.

Like the illustrious Digg, Reddit is capable of generating a great deal of exposure for any website that is voted up to its frontpage.


Reddit and the Lure of Sheer Traffic

I’ve been a big fan of Reddit for quite a long time and it is the only social website that I read everyday without fail. I’ve seen thousands of websites rise to the frontpage of Reddit and fall away when their time is due.

I’ve seen crappy websites submitted and duly ignored in the ‘new’ section as Redditers vote it down without even caring to leave a comment.

I’ve came across Reddit users being called out for repeatedly submitting material on the same topic. I’ve written a comprehensive guide to Reddit a few months ago and also talked about how marketers use Reddit to generate web traffic.

Many have written about ways to game social websites like Reddit or Digg for viral traffic and some of their suggested methods do work, while some may not. A website’s success depends on a variety of factors, including luck (or karma, as Redditers might say) and there doesn’t seem to be a surefire way that works 100% of the time for Reddit.


A Detailed Case Study of a Reddit User

Two weeks ago I came across a link on Reddit’s frontpage that was rather interesting, particularly because the link pointed to a Reddit user’s profile instead of an external page. I’ve taken a screenshot so you can read the title of the submission yourself.

Herein lies the secret to hitting Reddit’s frontpage and profiting from it. According to the comments left, this particular Reddit user has been doing three main things:

1. He created multiple blogs on Blogspot and used them for Reddit.
2. He hijacked sources, stole content from other sites and put them on his blogs.
3. He submitted these articles to Reddit in order to make money from them.

Intrigued as I was, I decided to methodically examine the user’s profile to study the degree of success he has achieved so far.


Four Ways to Make Money from Reddit (and other social websites)

After doing some research, I’ve decided to summarize this particular user’s tactics in the form of four parts, according to his specific submissions and websites.

Bear in mind that I do not support these methods because I don’t agree with their ethics. I do however think this case study allows me to bring out some points you can take away to legitimately promote your own online businesses or website.


1. Use Multiple Domains/Websites to Increase Frontpage Potential

A look at the Reddit user’s profile shows that he created multiple websites and wrote articles on it to be submitted to Reddit. He alternated his submissions by using a different domain for each submission.

This makes it less likely for others to accuse him of submitting his own content repeatedly, although a look at his profile will certaintly reveal that that is the case.

Here are the websites he submitted over the last 3 weeks:

• Technowirenews.blogspot.com
• universearch.blogspot.com
• wierdoddities.blogspot.com
• marchecoursier.blogspot.com
• technobusiness.blogspot.com
• coolpicturesworld.blogspot.com
• funkystories.blogspot.com
• strikerdiary.blogspot.com

Note that they are all blogspot blogs and each of them were structured in exactly the same way while using the same type of ad networks. A look at the page source reveals that all the blogs were running the same publisher ids for the ads, hence showing that the blogs possibly belonged to the same person.

Multiple domains and websites can increase your chances of getting to any social website’s homepage. In this case, this Reddit user is spreading out his content sources in the hope that each specific website will take turn to go viral.

Some social media marketers, webmasters and SEOs take this one step further by setting up a bait and switch manoever, whereby they will create a domain and website specifically for a linkbait.

After the linkbait has hit the frontpage, the entire domain will be 301 redirected to the intended master website, which collects all the natural links from the social website and other sources to the linkbait domain.


2. Stuff Your Website with as Many Ads as Possible

All of the user’s blogspot blogs utilized a large number of ad networks, in particular Chitika, Kontera, Auction Ads and Adsense.

The format used for all of them is roughly the same: an Adsense Rectangle (the most lucrative ad unit) is placed above and below the post, Kontera is used for inline text links while Auction Ads and Chitika units sit prominently in the sidebar.

A Reddit button goes beneath all blog posts in order to acquire some on-site votes. This ad placement is obstrusive and ugly because it was set up with the obvious aim to profit through ad revenue.

All the blogs were started in June 2007 and each of them have rather weak link profiles: it is likely that the blogs receive very little search engine traffic. The user doesn’t seem to be focusing on building an audience but rather, is more interested in making money through Reddit and secondary visitors alone.


3. Hijack Links and Content because People Don’t Know Better

The person who submitted the profile of this errant user also offered some examples of plagiarism (one of them including an article stolen from Copyblogger). I went through the guilty user’s submissions and easily spotted quite a few others that were taken from other websites.

I know this for sure because I do a fair bit of stumbling everyday and have come across these pictures on Flickr or other originating websites. All of his posts do not credit the original source as well: To the casual observer it probably seems as if they were unique content.

Some of his posts also include content lifted from news sources without any credit for them. This method of link jacking allows him to put out media/content he has come across elsewhere and claim it as his own.

Only hardcore social web users or news followers would know if the articles submitted were authentic or stolen. Most of the other users don’t know and don’t really care. They’ll vote, stumble and digg it all the way to the top just because it seems interesting to them.

This is actually one-up from the old practice of scrapping full content and republishing it on a blog for search engine traffic. Instead of doing that, this user hijacked content and submitted it to social websites to generate ad clicks.

4. Use Pictures and Short News Articles

Let’s take a look at the user’s frontpage stories. The following links are samples of some stories which have reached the frontpage over a period of 3 weeks:

• (PIC) Best Dog Suit Ever. By a Longshot
• What the heck is e-mail? (ad from 1977)
• Picture This: Space Station, Seen Clear From the Ground
• 72 year old ex-Marine beats the crap out of 27 year old pickpocket
• The baby on Nirvana’s Nevermind album is 17 (Pic)
• [PHOTO] – Brilliant Shot of the New Expanded ISS
• Progress from egg to chick (in 20 pictures)

You can clearly note the formula for success here:

1. Use an intriguing picture you found somewhere and a reasonably OK title.
2. Quote, hijack or rewrite a news story. Don’t link to the source.
3. Submit it to a subreddit when applicable (in this case science.reddit.com)

If you’ve gotten a story on Reddit frontpage before, you might have noticed the nice increase in karma, which is some sort of a quality score used to measure your personal editorial power when it comes to submissions.

The karma gained after a successful frontpage story serves as leverage for future submissions and can possibly make it more likely for your other submitted articles to be voted up as well, although content is still the ultimate factor here.

The Purpose of Understanding These Methods

Why am I writing about these shady tactics in the first place? Because they work. While the above practices are counter intuitive and self-destructive for any blog with a sliver of social reputation, they have worked for this Reddit user.

His articles have reached the Reddit frontpage. They have each received tens of thousands of visitors, along with a bunch of links and some money from the ads displayed.

This is something to consider. I’m not suggesting that you should steal content like because that would be completely wrong. Don’t do that. Instead, understand that these sort of content works for most social websites like Reddit, Digg or StumbleUpon.

Understand that the number of ads you display does not hinder your ability to be voted up to the homepage of any social website Although, one can safely say that the number of return visitors will be considerably lower because of the heavy ad placement.

Practice Responsible Social Community Mining

I am also writing about this because this method of making money relies purely on social community mining. Not on search engines like Google or Yahoo, nor on networking with other similar sites in your niche.

Just simply the consistent targeting of a large community that can grow your site by sending it traffic. For example, a website that has received an almost universal love from the Reddit audience is XKCD, a webcomic by Randall Munroe.

Every new weekly panel from XKCD will, without a doubt reach the Reddit frontpage and one can say that Reddit has gradually developed into a consistent traffic source for XKCD.

The Reddit user in this case study makes the mistake of focusing on short-term profit and over-promoting his own material. He would have developed a strong website audience and readership, had he done the following instead:

1. Reduce the amount of ads to signal emphasis on content.
2. Use a unique blog design and credit sources whenever applicable.
3. Push for feed or email subscriptions whenever each piece hits the front page.
4. Submit many other interesting links on top of his own submissions.

By meshing well with the community, you set your website up for the long run. Spamming any social website with repeated self-submissions/promotions will cause your domains/websites to be blacklisted by community members and you might be even called out as a spammer or thief, which is what exactly happened in this case.

Long Term Perspectives are Important for Community Marketing

This Reddit user lost a valuable traffic source because he didn’t have a long term perspective or growth plan for his websites and partly because he over aggressively pushed his websites onto the community.

Remember to focus on an appropriate social website by using the type of content that makes them tick. However, don’t forget to protect this valuable traffic source by regulating the amount of self promotion you do.

Strive to build a good reputation within the social community and your niche because when you’ve build a real audience, others will promote your website on their own initiative, without any need for efforts on your part.

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