Viral blog posts provide you with massive spikes in traffic in a short period of time. But, before we look into how to create a viral blog post, let's take a step back to the early days of the internet.
In the first few years of the 21st century people were starting to realize that they could find the answer to almost anything simply by typing phrases into search engines like Google. This new online search innovation was in its infancy and it was reasonably easy to get onto the front page of Google if you knew what you were doing.
Fast forward a decade later, and now we are drowning in a massive ocean of information, articles and blog posts. Because the barriers of entry are basically free, millions of new blogs (or websites) are created each year in the hope of generating tons of traffic and in most cases people want to – make money blogging.
Statistics suggest that at the time of writing there is close to seven billion web pages online. That is a lot of webpages! Out of the seven billion web pages how many of those pages do you think contain highly useful information that solves problems? If all of the low quality junk webpages on the internet got booted off, how many webpages would be left still standing?
The reality is that probably less than 3% of these sites created ever end up amounting to anything out of the ordinary. By out of the ordinary, I mean sites that are getting thousands of page views a day, and are giving their readers exactly what they are looking for.
A large percentage of these sites are started, but never get any more than 2 or 3 blog posts added to them. Some last a few months and fizzle out into nothing. Then there are others that do last the distance, but very few of them could be regarded as being a resource of useful, high quality information.
This abundance of information overload creates a situation where only the outstanding, really high quality posts end up getting noticed. But just creating brilliant content is not the only part of the puzzle that you need. If no one gets to see your stellar content, then it is just wasted effort.
The bar has been raised considerably over the years to stand out from the crowd. In order to get noticed you need a plan to get results.
My personal plan to achieve viral blog posts is as follows:
1. Write long posts and put a lot of effort into them (much better chance of a viral blog post)
To create outstanding content you will generally need to write quite long blog posts that are chocked full of useful information. No longer can you write standard 400 word posts and expect to get noticed.
Obviously it is not just about the blog post length, but also the quality. For people to bother reading a long post it has to keep them interested to stay on the page and continue reading. It is vital to get the right balance between quantity and quality to get the desired effect.
Having said that though, it is almost mandatory to write a long post in order to cover a topic in detail. Â If you can think up at least five strong arguments for the point of your topic, it is simply a matter of splitting them up into sections and writing a mini essay on each point (similar to what I have done in this article).
How many words should you be writing for a post? Well I don't think there is a set number of words for an ideal post, but usually between 2,000 and 3,000 words should cover a topic in detail.
Most of you will probably be thinking that 2,000 to 3,000 words is a lot of work, and too much hassle. But, in order to make it into the big time you need to be doing those things that most people consider to be too hard.
Don't settle for ordinary, because ordinary never gets outstanding results. And 400 word posts are in most cases exactly that – ordinary.
2. Include other forms of content (video, images, audio)
It's true that just plain text is boring. A top quality blog post always includes at least two different forms of content.
Text is without doubt the most popular way that bloggers communicate with their readers, but the authority bloggers all use a mixture of text, images, infographics, audio and video.
Images are the quickest and easiest way to compliment text, but it is important not to be uploading 10 mb high-resolution images because all this will achieve is an extremely long page loading time.
Images need to be crisp and clear, but the file size needs to be kept as small as possible. There is an awesome plugin called WP Smush.It, which automatically compresses the images on your server and will help to make your pages load faster.
Infographics are still images, but the difference being that they are just what their name says – information graphics. These are an awesome way to emphasise particular points in your blog post, or to show statistical comparisons.
Video is a great way to keep people on your site for long periods, providing you create good videos that people want to watch. If you are not keen on putting your face on camera, then simply create a PowerPoint or Keynote slideshow and record your screen while speaking about each slide.
There are plenty of cheap screen recording software programs out there, but don't substitute cheap with poor quality. A poor quality video, whether it is the sound or the picture, will do you more harm than good.
And you can always convert the video into audio, and turn it into a podcast if you wanted to.
The point here is to mix it up a bit and use different forms of content on your site. Surprise your visitors and entertain them at the same time.
3. Make sure your information is factual
One of the worst things that you can do is create a blog post on a topic that you are not knowledgeable about (or have not done your research properly). It is OK if you don't know everything about your topic, but it is not OK to publish blog posts that have information that is incorrect or not factual.
It is no good thinking that you know what you are talking about, you MUST be 100% sure that your information is correct.
Opinions on topics are different to facts. It is perfectly OK to have a personal opinion about anything, but make sure you understand the difference between talking about facts and opinions.
If you are providing false information to your readers (even without meaning to), some of them will see that you are talking rubbish and will let you know about it in the comments section. This can be very embarrassing, particularly if a lot of your readers become aware of it.
People are looking for experts that can provide them with solutions to their problems, and if they can see that you are not the real deal they will quickly look elsewhere for a more reliable source.
4. Make your posts as helpful as possible
You should really care about your readers, because in reality your site is about them and not about you. Without your readers your blog would be a lonely place and would mean that you are wasting you time creating content.
So, with this in mind we need to be creating viral blog posts that are aimed at solving specific problems, or producing information that people are interested in reading. One good example of a blog post that would go viral is one that solves your readers problems. On the other hand, writing blog posts about what is happening in your life might be pointless, unless you are a famous celebrity.
Usually the idea of a blog is to build a community and receive interaction from the readers (as well as monetizing the blog in some way), so it is important to be encouraging feedback, comments and questions from people.
Provide as much detail in your posts as possible to really blow people away with powerful information that they can use themselves. “How To” articles are excellent to provide value to your readers, especially if you can provide solutions for common problems that people are searching for every day.
You should always reply to every comment on your blog, even if it is a negative comment abusing you. Most people will appreciate you taking the time to reply to their comments, and you will even find that sometimes the most value in a post is in the comments section.
5. Design your site to look clean, and make sure it is properly coded
Content might be king, but if that is the case then web design is queen.
If your site looks like a grade 2 student has designed it, then most people are going to click away in the first 10 seconds of landing there.
A lot of people say that the design of the site is not that important if you publish outstanding content. Well, personally I don't agree with this and the way that I look at it is that a poorly designed site looks unprofessional, and does nothing but bad things for your brand.
Unless you are professional web designer or are experienced at designing websites, you should really outsource this part. Don't try to do it yourself, because more than likely you will spend many hours trying to work it out, and it will result in a lot of frustration and wasted time. A good web designer knows how to take advantage of the latest viral technologies in the industry.
Search engines prefer websites that are coded properly and easy for them to understand, and they will penalize you if the coding is poor. The main reason for this is that a poorly coded website usually takes a long time to load and this causes a high bounce rate.
A high bounce rate also tells the search engines that your website is not the type of site that the searcher was searching for in the first place. A website with a high bounce rate is unlikely to rank highly in the search engines, and proper coding does have a lot to do with this.
Web design does not have to expensive either, it is just a matter of looking around and finding someone that has an impressive portfolio to show off, and doesn't charge like a wounded bull.
6. Include social sharing buttons
If you want your content to go viral, then it obviously a good idea to make it as easy as possible for the readers to share it with their social connections.
The easiest way to do this is simply to install a plugin that provides social media icons for people to click on and share. In my opinion DiggDigg is the best plugin to use for this, but there are a variety to choose from if you do a search. Ms. Ileane is using Digg Digg here on Basic Blog Tips so obviously she is getting great results with it too. Watch this video she made.
One thing I do recommend though is to only show the major social network buttons, because the more buttons that you show the slower it will be for your page to load.
At one stage I had about six or seven of the leading social networks on my DiggDigg floating widget, but after seeing how long it took to load I dropped it down to the big three – Google +, Facebook & Twitter.
You will find that around 80 – 90% of your traffic from social media will come from these three anyway, so I don't bother with the rest. You can always manually submit your content to some of the others if necessary.
As well as share buttons, it is always a great idea to show related posts at the bottom of the blog post, and also the most popular posts for your blog on your sidebar.
7. Optimize your pages for the search engines (but don't over optimize)
As well as social media, you should also be maximising your rankings on search engines to bring in more traffic over a long period. If your blog posts do happen to go viral, or at least get a lot of shares and comments, then naturally you will rank on the search engines without trying.
But either way, you may as well optimize your blog posts for your main keyword phrases to give you the best possible chance of getting free traffic from the search engines. Basic SEO skills are all you really need for on page optimization, and there is no need to worry if you are not an SEO expert.
A free plugin that I highly recommend for beginners is All in One SEO Pack which pretty much provides everything that you need to optimize your pages for the main aspects of on page SEO.
The basic on page elements that you need for your blog posts to include are as follows:
a) Meta Title (including your keyword, preferably at the beginning of the title)
b) Meta Description (include your keyword in here, but only once)
c) Keywords
d) Include your keyword phrase in the first sentence of the post, and then once or twice in the rest of the body – but make sure the text is readable and makes sense.
e) Include your keyword phrase in the image alt section of your images
For your primary keyword phrases, you should be using keywords that people are actually searching for on the search engines. This is fairly obvious, but still a lot of people just choose keywords without doing any research.
But, with the new algorithms that Google releases over the years, such as Penguin and Panda, it is vital that you do not go over board with your optimizing.  Google says that any attempt to manipulate or trick the search engines is regarded as spam, so it is important to play by the rules.
In years gone by SEO's were able to use dodgy black hat tactics to get prime rankings on the search engines, but those days are now over. It is simply not worth the risk of getting penalized or banned by attempting to use black hat SEO.
8. Connect with as many people in your niche as possible
This is one area that I ignored for a long time, until I realized how powerful it was to connect with other people that are doing similar things to what you are doing. You will find that some of these friendships are invaluable and make a huge difference to your business, over both the long term and the short term.
On top of the benefits of making friends, you will also have opportunities to mastermind with some of these people and learn things that you never would have thought about yourself. Some of these friendships may blossom into partnerships and even new companies.
Most bloggers are very approachable, and will answer your emails and direct messages, providing you are not pitching some dodgy MLM business to them. You want to become part of the blogosphere and actually participate in it.
Think of it this way, the worse thing that can happen is that your email does not get a reply. Don't be shy and just sit behind the computer. Reach out to them by sharing their blog posts on social media and be sure to tag them so they will remember you.
The other thing you can do is go to blogging events, meet ups and seminars and introduce yourself to people and exchange phone numbers.
9. Share other peoples content if it is worthy
You also want to be sharing and voting for content of other people, providing it is worthy. In my opinion you should only share content if you truly believe that it is worth posting. You don't want to be sending people to articles that are poorly written or completely off topic from the title.
Always read an article before you share it, and only share it if you think it is valuable information that would benefit your readers. By sharing your fellow bloggers content, most of them will reciprocate and share your stuff as well. It is like saying that if you scratch my back, then I will scratch yours.
Some people will notice if you continue to share their posts, and some of them will share your stuff in return. It is all about getting maximum exposure for your posts, and introducing as many people as possible to your content in order for it to become a viral blog post.
If you have created outstanding content, then obviously your chances are much higher of getting a lot of Likes, Shares, Retweets, Plus 1's etc.
10. Always reply to comments and answer reader questions
It is absolutely vital that you treat every person that bothers to comment on your blog like gold. A successful blog is a blog that has a lot of interaction, and your comment section is where the interaction happens.
If a person leaves a comment, then you should always reply and answer any questions that they have asked. The main reason for this is that if you do go to the trouble of acknowledging their comment (or answering their question), then they are much more likely to visit your blog again and eventually start sharing your content.
A large following of loyal readers that regularly leave comments go a long way towards influencing a viral blog post. It is all about planting seeds for future growth and building a thriving community on your blog.
Once you have gained the trust of your readers and you have won them over, then getting hundreds of comments and shares is well within reach, including the possibility of a viral blog post.
Hi Scott! My $0.02 on this: Going viral has a lot to do with luck, than simply tailoring your content with the hopes that it might go viral. For instance look at the things that usually end up going viral on the internet – I dont think any of them planned on or intended to go viral prior to creating their content. Luck has a lot to do with it, IMO. Having said that, I do agree with the article that writing well, marketing and sharing it online, and being more social certainly does help!
Fair point Craig, but following a plan gives you a lot more chance of making it happen then not following a plan. In many cases luck has nothing to do with it simply because the post is simply outstanding, original and helps many people. And many famous bloggers regularly have content go viral (such as Ileane) and that is not luck.
Some of posts online that go viral are very lucky to viral though, no doubt about that.
Well said Craig….
I do believe that gong Viral depends upon Luck as well and you can plan it upfront….
One of my article that i thought will be attract only few hundreds people got 4K visits from Sutmbleupon over night….when I saw my stats I was shocked……
I agree that a little luck is allways needed in live with whatever you do.
But you can help your luck quite a lot if you actually know what you are doing.
Lately I discovered a blog about weight loss which made €500,- a day.
I investigated everything about the blog, especially the SEO part. Yes they were lucky, but they knew exactly what they were doing and that’s what made them succesfull, not just luck. Because if they made a very crappy website with lousy seo, then I could have said it was pure ‘lucky’.
So, I think knowledge is also a very important factor for succes.
Thank you Ileane for sharing such an insightful and informative post.
All the points you raised are important but point 1 is really interesting. I normally write posts of 400 to 500 words which whilst some have been well received they have nowhere near hit the heights of going viral.
So, I am going to try your suggestion of increasing the word count in a few posts that I am working on and see how it goes.
Writing 2000 – 3000 words is going to be a big task but I can see from your post the importance of doing it from time to time.
Again, many thanks for sharing your knowledge, it is much appreciated.
– Phil
You should at least give it a try Phil, but only bother writing something really long if it is good. I think writing a long post simply for the reason of writing a long post is not going to make much difference. You need to start by breaking it down into sections, and coming up with as many ideas as possible. It does take a lot of though and time, but you get better at it the more you do it.
Hi phil…I don’t agree that short article can’t be viral……
To become viral…Title also play an important role and length should be sufficient enough to make the article complete…..its not a hard n fast rule that only 1000+ word article can be a viral post.
Fair point Sandeep, it is a lot more about the quality than the quantity of the post. I would say that it is more difficult with a shorter post, unless you are announcing some ground breaking news or facts that impacts a lot of people. You will definitely stand out more with the long post though, as nearly everybody sticks to the 500 words or so post.
Another great article to read here at BasicBlogTips. Getting the so called viral traffic you explained is essential if you want to lift your blog off the ground faster. If promoted with the right techniques, videos on sites such as Youtube can without a doubt be a great source of viral traffic but in a way which it works. Unfortunately it is easier said than done, as getting thousands of views there is a daunting task. Your tips are really very helpful. Thanks a lot Scott for contributing this article.
Hi Alex,
I completely agree that it is easier said than done, but I still think it is worth trying. Thanks for the compliments 🙂
Adding more multimedia files like images and videos always help to attract users and also open more traffic sources from image / video search engines.
Hi Scott, you are correct in every way. The only thing I’ve realized recently is that creating a viral post is really going to be herculean task these days. The reason is the number of blog content is being past around today. Everyone is busy pushing his/her own content and really minding the next person’s. I don’t doubt that a good post will solicit sharing but going viral in the true sense is getting harder by the day. Content that will be easier to go viral are videos and possibly images, maybe on pinterest.
Thanks for sharing this.
Hi Chadrack,
Yes for the little guy it is definitely a difficult task with the amount of competition out there. It is much easier for the big names out there to accomplish, which is what I am trying to achieve. Once you are well known, liked and trusted people more people will be inclined to follow you and share your stuff.
I agree with you there. Build the following first and things will take their shape.
I do pretty good with all of these. But on #1 I was told just the opposite, to make post 300 to 500 words. Short sweet and to the point. My blog is about auto detailing so it is difficult to get a good audience to follow me.
I really appreciate the advice.
Hi Joe,
Short posts are OK, but they have to really be straight to the point and add a lot of value. It is hard to add a lot of value in a few paragraphs. To stand out from the crowd I believe you have a better chance with long posts, than short posts because not many people are doing long posts. But obviously just because a post is long does not mean that is necessarily any good.
Just out interest here is a classic example of a viral blog post that was close to 4,000 words. It has had many thousands of shares from all the major social networks – check it out http://www.fluentin3months.com/life-lessons/
Hello Scott,
You’ve entered to the door of BBT with a great and worth reading post.
As you said millions of blogs are created each year in the hope of getting noticed, but only few of them are getting indexed has a plan like you.
Sharing with other peoples in your niche and sharing their content is the great way to build huge relationship. I like all the tips mentioned in this post.
Thanks,
Ehsan U.
Hi Ehsan,
This was actually was very first guest post published anywhere, so it was a big step for me. I used to always think I should only save my stuff for my own site, but have made the first step now. The post took me about five hours as I wanted to make a decent impact. Thanks for the nice words 🙂
You are doing great than, I’m little confused on how did Ileane accepted your guest post If it is your first guest post because she asks for some old guest post samples from guest bloggers.
Maybe she accepted because of the quality of this post.
theres always something new that i learn from this blog…
thanks!
Scott, I am finding that sharing the content of others is the key to my social media success. After I read an article, I automatically look for the Twitter button. What this means is – you have to make your content easy to share with social sharing buttons for people like me. I don’t always comment, but I will tweet a good article.
Hi Marcie,
Yes most people make the mistake of only sharing their own content, and don’t bother to share anything else. Their social media pages are basically a RSS feed of their own posts and this gets boring. Your strategy is a great way to meet new people and make friends. You are always welcome to tweet my posts lol 🙂
First of all, nice post Scott!
I liked all your pointers mentioned here. I got hold of all your points except few. If I may, there are few questions which I would like you to answer.
1. I don’t know how to “over-optimize” the content. When can you say that the content is over-optimized? What are the basic optimization options.
2. As you said that, “Share other peoples content if it is worthy” won’t google ban me for plagiarizing the content from other articles?
Hope, I’m not asking for much.
Thanks and Regards,
Chetan Vengurlekar
Hi Chetan,
1. A quick definition of over optimizing is any type of black hat SEO activity that is primarily created to trick the search engines. You want to make it easy for Google to work out what your post is about with basic SEO such as Meta Title, Meta Description, and a few keywords included in the content.
But you don’t want to be doing any activity that is unnatural or makes the post like a computer wrote it. Spinning articles, adding ridiculous amounts of keyords, piles of exact match anchor text and also making the text the same colour as the background and stuffing keywords in there.
2. By sharing others people content I don’t mean copying it or using it. I mean to click on the social media sharing buttons, just look to the left of this blog and you can see what I mean. Each time a post is shared it features on the news feed of the person that clicked on it.
I hope that helped but please come over to my forum if you need more help ==> http://locostmarketing.com/forum
Hi Scott….thanks bro for such aggressive tips…..
I do believe that creating a viral post require more from a writer…… you have to put your best in article….then you have to put your best of best in sharing it with others…
Hi Sandeep,
Yes unless you are already an established big name blogger, then you do have to go the extra mile. I think the basic idea is to be yourself, come up with original ideas and try to solve as many problems as you can.
Another new learning for my blogging career. Thank you so much for sharing this information to newbies like me.
No worries Arsie,
Our forum is designed just for newbies like you. If you would like more help then your welcome to say hello ==> http://locostmarketing.com/
Before I start commenting, let me share a quote with Craig Stevens (commenter), “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”~Sam Goldwyn
Writing helpful and readable 2000+ word posts multiple times a week, adding video to your posts, checking for their factuality, writing guest posts, maintaining good relationships with other bloggers and making sure it is the kind of quality content your reader wants is not something that can be done in an hour at the end of a day. It demands consistent work…and focus. You have given us a recipe to succeed, Scott. I see no element of luck in your recipe.
Hi David,
Yes you have hit the nail on the head there. Not many people will bother doing it though, but that is even more reason to give it a go.
I agree with most of your points about going viral, however I do not think it matters so much about the length of the post. If you have an entertaining or on point style post many people will agree and share it with their friends. I wrote a post about encouragement and at that time it was one of my shortest post. It got 5,0000 views. Good ideas though.
oops I meant 5,000 views.
Hi Michael,
I completely agree about the point that it does not have to be a long post to go viral, but the point is that it has to be outstanding or serve a purpose. If you can achieve it with 400 words then that is awesome.
Great post Scott , i think google a bit and see which posts have gone viral and get and idea from there. That can really help.
Hi Saad,
Thats a great idea which I didn’t think about. Researching posts that have gone viral and studying what they have done makes it a lot easier to understand what has worked for others. Thanks for sharing 🙂
According to me, the first you discussed, I am quite dicey about it. I have personally noticed that many people usually do not pay much heed to exceptionally longer posts. It is true that the posts should connect with the audience and keep them hooked till the ned of the post and than finally forcing them to leave a comment.
Hi John,
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I don’t think there is any right or wrong answer here. I never said that you can’t make a short post go viral and would say that the quality of the post is a lot more important the length.
The huge majority of viral blog posts that I have studied have been long ones though, and here is a classic example of a post that has had tens of thousands of shares ==> http://www.fluentin3months.com/life-lessons/
Hi Scott!
These all are great points and help full advice. I agree with tweaking the blog post with an image or a video usage properly with your point of blog post proves to be a great mixture. But, for me its been an art which any blogger learn with the passage of time and certainly interacting with your readers in comments section build the trust and authority of yours on internet world.
Thanks for providing great worthy information. 🙂
Hi Ayaz,
Yes a lot of these things are learnt over time and observing what works for other. Viral blog posts are a lot easier also if you can build the trust of others and become an authority online.
Hi Scott
Well i think that post you have shared is very interesting & informative also,it will help alot people in blogging.Person who will follow these basic blogging tips will become much aware of the problems faced during blogging..
Thanks
SAiF
Hi Saif,
Thanks for the kind words 🙂
Excellent post here.Google loves content that goes viral Writing articles while keeping these points in mind shall direct spiders in going viral.
Hi Becca,
Yes Google loves viral content a lot and it is a great idea to at least have some sort of idea of what to do to make a post go viral.
Content is King. frequently writing with unique content can transform one site and make it go viral. thanks for sharing
Hi Igbalaye,
Absolutely content is king
This post gives me totally new topic . I haven’t read before viral blog so I enjoyed a lot while reading. Thanks for such a great post
Hi Ayesha,
I’m glad you enjoyed the post 🙂
Thanks for the tip, Scott
I really need to connect with more dog and pet bloggers! I appreciate the reminder.
I think my site is clean and organized, but your post prompted me to take a 2nd look and I was astounded at how much real estate I’d used between my blog post and the comment box. I cleaned that up right away. I appreciate the inspiration to do this!
Kimberly
Hi Kimberley,
I’m glad you found the information useful. Keep up the great work 🙂
Good basic tips for blogging, fundamentals which anyone hoping to be a success in the blogging world such learn and stick too. I agree about replying to your comments. Can be quite frustrating when a blogger doesn’t reply, especially when you are seeking to engage with them on a subject you are interested in.
Hi Elena,
Yes replying to comments can not be underestimated. If someone has bothered to come to your website and add their opinion, the least you can do to thank them is to reply to their comment.
Its also a great way to make friends with fellow bloggers as well.
Thanks for the great share. I always try to create long and informative posts, but also keep in mind to keep the post attractive.
Great share.
Hi Vivek,
Yes you want to keep the post looking attractive. Make sure your content is interesting for your readers as well. Long posts are awesome if the information is really good.
I think my site is clean and organized, but your post prompted me to take a 2nd look and I was astounded at about how much work i still have to do to my blog
Hi Emmanuel,
Thats great I am pleased that the post inspired you to have a good look at your blog.
That’s a wonderful post but i think people are losing patience in reading too long post nowadays and if want to insert images and videos, i think people should look for images and videos that’s not too large so as not to slow down the site. thanks for sharing
Hi Igbalaye,
You have a fair point, but I believe it all comes down to how interesting you make your content. It is just a good book that you just can’t put down.
If you can write something good enough to hold the readers attention then they will keep reading. Otherwise I agree people will lose patience and look elsewhere. Quality is far more important than quantity, there is no doubt about that.
If you are writing a long post pictures are always good to implement, give the reader some eye-candy. If you are writing a long post
Hi Daniel,
Yes definitely. Impressive images are a must to spice up any blog post.
I believe that quite often people click on my blogs posts simply because of the preview image in some cases.
Viral blog post is really tasking for new bloggers. Your post here gives a detail explanation about viral blog post. My major problem now is how to get free pictures and images for my blog post. i would appreciate if you direct me. Thank you
Hi Cyracks,
I get my free images at http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/
All you have to do is give credit to the owner of the image. If you want more detailed help then send me a message on my forum at http://LoCostMarketing.com/forum
Hi Cyracks,
I get my free images from http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/
All you have to do is give credit to the owner of the image. Head over to my forum if you would like more detailed information.
The second point of inclusion of other forms of content can really work wonders in creating a viral blog post. Images and Infographics can drive more traffic compared to text and audio. A good video can also work good. The contents mentioned needs to factual, but at the same time, in case, if you are stating something like a claim, make sure, that you mention the source site also.
Hi Rita,
Yes I agree with you there. A really good post contains more than just text usually and Google seems to prefer pages that have different formats of content.
Write more than 1000 words article, with some picture or video, concern with high quality in content,helpful content,made the visitor get interaction with the writer,simple but responsive loading page,… it’s that enough to increase the traffic to our blog? or there is any X factor must be add into our web page?
hmmm.. it’s look so hard to do ..
Hi Andrew,
No, I don’t think there is any X Factor to guarantee that a blog post goes viral. But, being a person of influence is probably the most crucial single factor, followed by amazing content that is not anywhere else.
If you have a large responsive audience of people that know, like and trust you then it is a lot easier for them, than the newbie that has just got started. By implementing all of these strategies though you will stand a much better chance of it happening.
It is not easy that is for sure, otherwise everyone would be doing it. One tip that you could try is to work out what everyone else is doing, and to do the direct opposite. You will find that most people take the easy route, and don’t really put much thought into being different to everybody else.
But being different in itself is not good enough, you also have to come up with the amazing content that changes peoples lives as well.
I write long articles too. I make research, try to get original images. My friends say that it’s useless work. But as for me, to write quality article it’s not enough just 600 words. However, I think that without SEO it’s not possible to get my articles in the first page of Google.
very well said, creating viral content is not only tough but you also don’t know which one is going to be viral. But as you mentioned, if we take care of all these things, then definitely we can expect better results.
Hi Akhilendra,
Yes I agree it is impossible to know with any certainty which ones are going to go viral, but yes the tips I have mentioned will definitely give you a better chance of getting results.
I wish I knew a secret formula that works every time, but this doesn’t exist.
I dont believe in all that. In my opinion you cant pilot a blogpost to make it go viral. This is in my opinion just something seo´s love to write about to write their own “informative” content which is in fact often just bla bla bla. Sorry for the hard words but it is not you or me who decides if a blogpost goes viral.. the folks outthere decide it.
The only way to pilot a blogpost to make it viral is with help of other people who have larger projects with huge google rank, a massive community or connections. It might happen that blogposts of smaller projects gets virarl but not because they planed it.. it just happens because people love to share the content. But if there would be a secret recipe.. wouldn´t we all use it?
Really. Think about it.
Hey Scott, Thank you for this article. It really helped me. I always wanted to read something good about viral blogging.
It is a lot more about the quality than the quantity of the post. Really interesting.