Every now and then, you all come across new marketing strategies and you evaluate their potential. Because of some of these new strategies, a lot has changed but one thing which did not change is the value of content which remains the main element for almost all websites.
Content marketing is becoming increasingly popular with an emphasis on writing meaningful and original, which are two of the things that can help content go viral, and thus help your website win free advertisement. For that and many other reasons, some webmasters prefer viral marketing of the content over traditional marketing.
Let’s take a look at the points which appeal to people and can help the content to go viral.
Title: The fishing bait for readers
– About 70% of the readers online discard the idea of reading a post if the title doesn’t appeal to them. More than 50% will not read a post with an oversimplified title insulting the readers’ intelligence. Suggestive and or opinionated titles also attract less attention if the subject at hand is outdated. Intriguing titles, which are catchy, grab the attention of the readers quickly. So it is best to try and make the titles as attractive as possible.
Pick the recent hot story
– Of all things, current affairs and issues which are hot in the now are some of the most frequently searched news items. For instance, with the initial news about the launch of G+, millions of people followed the news and blogs discussing the various aspects of the two and how the companies planned to counter each other’s strategy.
Following the recent trends works for sure but it’s not the ultimate or the only way to generate traffic. You cannot write miles and miles of relevant but meaningless content but that’s just useless. What matters the most is that the content should deliver some kind of value to your readers.
We all love controversy
– Tell someone that they are wrong and see how you would have their attention all of a sudden. Sparking controversy is one way to attract attention. One of the easiest ways to do so is by going against the popular sentiment? Generally, people are more likely to react when they come across an obvious disagreement and feel provoked. You can pick any kind of hot topic, write something controversial about and see the reaction of the people.
Follow the rules
– Other than the points mentioned above, there are some content writing basics which you should follow for all of your posts. If you have been into blogging, you already know it. For everybody else, here’s a quick overview.
- Use bullet points wherever you can.
- Use simple expression.
- Add appropriate images, videos and links to each post.
- Prefer the crisp words over the conventional ones.
- Shorter lively sentence make it easier for the readers to stay connected.
- No matter what approach you use, keep your thoughts connected with the theme.
- Use Facebook, twitter, G+ and other accounts to post the links and its updates.
- Invite comments, counter posts and public view and also reply to the relevant comments and don’t be rude while doing that.
If you take care of it all, then the one thing you have to do is to wait and see how it works its magic.
This is a guest post by Susan Smith, you can check out the guidelines to guest post here.
Image Credit: team viral
21 comments
Great post. I have been in SEO for the past year looking at traffic and building on this for website promotion and yes you are right its got to be good content. People learn from the content and wait for the next articles. Google and places such as Hub pages are cracking down on this such as duplicate content and are doing a good job. Just means we have to be creative in our writing. Nice one
The problem with “link bait” is it can also backfire. Some bloggers have this technique do a science and can attract many visitors without much effort. Their ability to launch viral content is uncanny.
Thanks for appreciating my content. Very true about hubpages but they are still losing traffic and no one yet know how to grab back the momentum after the new algorithm change.
I agree with you that the most important element for all websites is the value content. Because the value which makes the topic meaningful and original. That is why some webmasters prefer viral marketing rather that traditional marketing. They used viral marketing programs is to create viral messages that appeal to people with high social networking potential which present a communications with others in a short period of time.
Good and unique content of course that encourages readers to hit the share buttons and make the traffic even more viral 🙂
Hi Susan
These are real effective tips to make your post viral. Of course, for new bloggers it really takes time for them to master all these things, but what is important is that there are guides like this one to help them remember what needs to be checked and done before hitting that publish button.
Thanks for your tips
Thanks neo for appreciating my shared knowledge.
I think all content could go viral if you write it good. Keyword density and text optimization are the keys to success, even though some of the content is highly respected, and some not. Money , business , etc.
Honestly, I find it hard to create attractive and enticing titles without incorporating my keywords. I think this is one of the toughest challenge I had to work with. On one hand, I think twitter can be a good source of hot trends that have this potential to viral.
Just read a blog post on another blog where the owner posted about getting 3,000 visitors in one day because a visitor of his shared one of his post links on his twitter page.
I think some people have a lot more influence than others. It’s crazy too.
Thanks for the nice tips Susan I will try them out and let you know how it goes.
Thanks for these great tips. I would like to follow all of them as i want to see my web-blog in below 10k.
Another good point to keep in mind, once you’ve followed your good ideas and have a post that might go viral, is to get you site ready for the heavy traffic. There’s no sense in getting a rush of visitors just to have your site crash or to exceed your bandwidth.
So (at least if you have a wordpress site), make sure you have a good cache plugin installed and working before your site goes viral. I’ve used both WP Supercache and W3 Total Cache and would recommend either one of those.
controversial posts are the best. they go viral immediately. I love this post. thanks for sharing.
The proper link bait comes with a great lie. Is like adding a catchy mask to a crappy article so you can get traffic. This way you will not gather a community next you.
Just my 2 cents.
I think that viral news often useful if you are running a showbiz blog and you want to do a little gossip, creating or following a viral news (gossip) is helpful for your website.
There really is no magic formula to ensure that something goes viral. Your best bet is to focus on your target audience and create content that they will find valuable. If it goes viral, that’s just an added bonus.
I agree, the title really does make a huge impact for the ability of an article to go viral, too few people really know how to take advantage of it though, thanks for the reminder!
Susan, I love your post, it’s very informative and today I have definitely learned a lot of new knowledge! I will try to incorporate your tips in my articles on my blogs, hopefully some of them can go viral! Hehe…
Title: The fishing bait for readers.I agree.If it not attractive,People will feel boring and miss your article.
These Tips are very useful.Thanks for sharing.
i agree with your point about the importance of the good/attractive title. With so much junk around we simply scan and if the title appeals worthwhile we read the article. You can have the most valuable advice but if the title isn’t attractive noone will read it.