Has this ever happened to you? You want to drive more traffic to your website so you decide to create blog posts more often. You choose a topic to write about then do some research and combine it with your expertise. After that, you spend hours sitting down to write your post, edit it, proofread it, and share it with your audience. But then, nothing happens. It feels as if you hadn’t created the post at all. Sound familiar?
There are lots of variables into play that make content viral online. To this day, it isn’t clear what the perfect formula for virality is. And even if there is, greedy marketers would abuse it until it no longer works. However, there are key points and techniques followed by professionals that allow them to create content that spreads.
In this post, we’ll share with you the most important practices to follow if you want your blog posts to go viral. Let’s dive right into it!
3 Key Points to Make a Blog Post Go Viral:
The first few hundred visitors to read your blog post are the most important ones. If they feel like your article is good:
- They’ll spend more time reading it and engaging with it.
- They’re more likely to share it with their friends on social media.
- They’ll link to it on their blogs and other media outlets.
But what does “good” mean when it comes to creating a blog post? We’ve spent many years creating content online and analyzing data. Here’s what we learned:
In order for a blog post to go viral, it has to be:
1 – Relevant
The reason you create content online is to communicate a message. No matter what that message is, it has to resonate with the audience. Your average reader has to know that you understand how they feel and what their problems are.
Also, the language you use has to be familiar with them. If you write in an engaging style that’s easy to understand, everyone will love your articles.
But most importantly, your blog post needs to be relevant to readers in your niche.
Want your content to not be read by anyone? Write it for everyone.
If you try to write for larger audiences, you’ll lose sight of who you’re trying to help. Your readers may lose interest over that.
Write to the smallest audience possible. Identify a specific problem and try to solve it. Think of a specific challenge your audience might be having, and help them overcome it.
2 – Trendy
If you’re going to talk about an outdated topic, no one is going to be interested in what you have to say. Stay away from that.
Here are some tools to use if you want to find trending topics in your industry:
Google Trends: This tool by Google will give you the latest topics by industry depending on your search query.
You can search for topics by country, category, and time range. On top of that, you can compare multiple topics to find popular topics to write about on your blog.
BuzzSumo: This is a great tool if you want to find the best performing topics in your industry.
BuzzSumo will help you gain valuable insights into social media shares and engagements. Then you can use those numbers to build a list of topics for your blog content.
3 – Unique
Online readers can smell mediocre duplicate content from miles. If your content is similar to what’s already available online, it doesn’t deserve more exposure. There’s no shortage of blogs rewriting the same articles with the same ideas. However, creating unique and original content will make your readers appreciate your efforts. And that’s why they’ll help you spread it.
So, before you sit down to write, ask yourself this:
Do I have unique valuable insight to add about this topic?
If the answer is no, keep looking until you find something that works.
Improving Your Content to Make Your Blog Post Go Viral
Now that you’re sure your topic is good enough for virality, it’s time for some actionable advice about blogging.
It’s one thing to find good topic ideas, but another to create blog posts worth sharing.
To create an amazing article with a maximum chance of going viral, you need to follow these six steps:
1 – Keyword Optimization
Search engines can be a long-lasting source of traffic if your articles rank well in the SERPs. Organic traffic can make a large portion of your audience if you use the right keywords. Whenever you want to create an article, start with keyword research.
Find a primary keyword that has high search volume and low competition. Then, look for secondary keywords, longtail keywords, and LSI keywords to make your content stronger..
Free tools you can use for your keyword research:
- Google Keyword Planner.
- Ubersuggest.
- Keyword Everywhere (Browser Extension).
2 – The Headline First
Your headline is the first thing your audience sees. So, why not prioritize it in the content creation process? The headline gives the first impression on what to expect from reading the blog post. If it’s catchy and enhances the visitor’s curiosity, it’ll be your way to virality. But if it’s dull or boring, you’ll lose tons of readers for nothing.
Here are some free headline generators you can use to generate blog post titles:
Sumo Kickass Headline Generator.
Tweak Your Biz Title Generator.
Your headline has to:
- Be easy to read and understand.
- Explain what the post is about.
- Enhance curiosity and show importance.
- Contain less than 60 characters (8 to 10 words).
As a beginner, write a list of compelling headlines to choose from for each article you write. After writing your post that, revisit your list and delete the bad headlines.
As time goes by and you gain more experience with this, your taste in headlines will get better. You’ll know what headline to go with for your articles.
Here are three tips to improve the quality of your blog posts:
3 – Write For the Web
Before thinking about virality, you need to be sure the audience you already have is reading your blog.
You shouldn’t be blogging just to fill your website with content but to connect with your customers and provide them value.
Write in an engaging style:
Your content needs to be easy to read and understand. Avoid jargon and complicated words. And write in a conversational tone that engages your readers.
Also, start your article with a strong introduction to keep your audience interested. Every sentence has to encourage them to read further.
Finally, wrap up your post with the most important advice. Never forget to give a clear call-to-action in your conclusion to boost engagements.
Write Scannable Content:
Large texts seem too long and hard to consume to online readers. Therefore, no one is going to read long blocks of text no matter how valuable the content is.
Always keep your paragraphs two to three sentences long. Also, don’t forget to use bolded texts and bullet points to create an appealing look for your article.
Most importantly, use images and videos to leave space between your different sections and paragraphs.
4 – Use Images, Videos, and Infographics
Blog posts with featured images get higher views and engagements online. And if you include images and infographics in your articles, you’ll get higher social shares on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Videos are way more engaging than plain text — especially to mobile device users that make up 62% of internet users. In fact, most online readers prefer to watch videos over reading text.
Pro Tips:
- Always use a featured image in your articles.
- Include lots of relevant and beautiful images in your posts.
- Create YouTube videos that talk about your articles and link to them.
5 – Make it Easy to Share
Most industries have at least three social media sites that their audience uses frequently. There’s no need to overwhelm your readers with dozens of sharing options. In fact, that can be counterintuitive and make them not share the article. Instead, have a few clear social media sharing buttons somewhere on your page.
Pro Tip: If you want your audience to share your blog post, ask for it. You’ll be amazed at how a simple call-to-action can make a huge difference in social shares.
6 – Share It Everywhere
This one is obvious, but we can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen content publishers overlook this. SEO takes time to work and do its magic. For instance, expert SEOs estimate that it takes at least three months for a blog post to claim the first spot on Google. But, social media is instantaneous. Your blog post can go viral within hours of you sharing it on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.
Depending on where your potential audience can be found online, there’s a wide variety of social media sites to share your content:
- Quora
Social media ads are another thing to try if you have the budget for it. Running ads is a great way to give your post a quick boost and push it to virality.
You’ll Learn As You Go
The world is changing every day. And that change brings with it new trends and different challenges. There is no secret sauce to make things go viral that you can learn once and use for the rest of your life. However, you can recognize a pattern of what makes things spread as you produce more frequent blog content. Keep creating content and learning from your experience.
Did you ever have a blog post go viral online? How did you get traffic to your blog? Share with us how it happened in the comments below.
