Everyone wants to make killer content. Even if you don’t realize that you need it – for traffic, for social proof and for your own satisfaction.
In this post I’ll not teach you that your post must be great, ready for social sharing, keyword optimized and helpful for readers. It’s a must (you know it, am I right?).
I’ll reveal you some tips and tricks which best of famous bloggers do to make their posts viral.
And viral for me means that your post will be linked, shared, twitted and liked.
How to Make Viral Post
1. Forget about Topic
Yes, you read it correctly. In most cases topic of your post doesn’t matter. Everyone is researching web to try finding great topic(s). A lot of people are monitoring Google Alerts, other blogs, portals and newsletters. But in most cases it doesn’t work… Of course if your blog is about blogging, your viral post must be also about blogging. On the other hands – old topics don’t go viral…
2. Make Your Post as a Top List
People like to read (and share) lists. I’m almost sure that for most of you Top XX list is the best post to read. And remember that “Top 10” list is the best list (better than Top 1, Top 3, Top 5, Top 7, Top 20, Top 50, even Top 100). You can read more about lists in this guest post: 10 Blogging Tips for an Irresistible List Post written by Erik Emanuelli
3. Prepare How To…
Another great type of post which has a lot of chances to goes viral is a tutorial. Of course title of the tutorial may not begin with “How to”, but people like it and search for “How tos“ in search engines… Some examples of it you can find below
- How to Get Likes on Facebook
- How to Write an Article in Less Than One Hour
- How to Stop Spam in Comments
4. Make Interviews
Interviews are also very good candidates for viral marketing. But you must interview someone very popular in your niche. Publish on your blog real interview with Darren Rowse or Daniel Scocco. You will see viral nature of such posts…
5. Make a Contest on Your Blog
Competition is great 🙂 If you want to have great and compelling contest – invest some money into it. I know that it costs a lot, but try to connect with some other bloggers – maybe they want to sponsor some of your awards?
6. Put some Life into Your Post
You can make it by adding some videos, pictures, infographics, memes and graphics to your post. So forget about text alone. If you want more tips in this area, please read “How To Attract Your Blog Posts – 20 Tips for Normal People”
7. Make Controversial Title
It’s one of the most important things in going viral. Of course your post must be related with your headline. Remember that poor title may ruin your great post…
Please look at following titles:
Google sucks
Matt Cutts reveals secrets about Google
I’m the Best Blogger of the Year
Devil’s Guide to Online Marketing
Do you like it? Would you click it to see what’s inside?
8. Length of Your Post Matters
It’s very individual. Sometimes very long post goes viral, sometimes not. I saw some posts which length was about 100 words. And they got thousands of likes, tweets and shares. So my proposition to you is – test it. You must try writing posts with different length. And you will see what works for you…
9. Who is Behind the Blog…
Okay. Probably you make a lot of proposed things from this list. And nothing happened. Why? Because you aren’t famous blogger and your network is too small…
Yes, unfortunately it’s a true. Till you aren’t blogger from A-list, your best post has very little chance to goes viral… So if you want to have viral post – write guest post with killer content for blogs like ProBlogger, CopyBlogger or DailyBlogTips. They have big and fanatic audience.
Believe me; Author name matters and is one of the most important things…
10.Promote Your Post Like a Crazy…
This tip is in case you don’t want to write for someone else (but even in guest blogging it also helps). So you must promote your post as a crazy. That means;
- ask your readers and followers to link to it
- make a lot comments on other blogs (with backlinks to your post)
- link to your post on your Facebook page, Pinterest, LinkedIn profile, Twitter and other social networks
If you want more ways how to promote your post, you may be interested in reading following tips:
35+ Traffic and SEO Tips & Articles from Bloggers
Bonus tip – Don’t Give Up!
Even best post on the best blog may not go viral. It is normal that planned link baits will not work 😉 But you must try. Prepare one, two, ten and even 20 great and killer posts. Maybe one of them will get thousands of links and shares 😉
And what are your tips? Do you have recipe for viral post? Please share your experience and knowledge with us in the comments below. And of course share this post with others 😉
OH! What a post by Chris (guru of blogging preferably).. Really, awesome tips for me.. As, am just a blogger started blog two months back, now currently want to fill it with some Awesome content and will do guest posting on TOP blogs preferably.. Not planning for small blogs, and will do my best efforts to get reputation online.
Thank You for your awesome post, shared that on FB as that’s really what I wanted to read.
Hi Mairaj, thanks for stopping by.
I see some sarcasm in your comment 😉 I don’t know why… My tips are about “going viral”, not about creating content for blog. Of course we should start writing content for own blog and writing guest posts for smaller blogs. But IMHO you wouldn’t get thousands (or even hundreds) of backlinks, tweets or likes on relatively new blog. But maybe I’m wrong and you can 🙂
I think if you want to prepare viral post then you must write Controversial post which is really superb idea to make that post Viral.
BTW After a long day i am on your site. Nice to read your article.
Great.
Keep it up.
Hi Amit, welcome back to my blog 😉
You are right – superb and controversial post is a great idea for viral content. Thanks for your comment,
Chris
Chris. Great post. The point about a controversial or surprising title can’t be understated. You can also relate your post to a current hot topic like Pinterest or Facebook’s stock price or even a pop culture topic like a movie. What do you think?
Hi Tom,
great that you like it. Current topics are always “hot” – so I agree with you that they are great candidates for “viral posts”.
And thanks for stopping by.
Chris
I’m a bit concerned – there is no mention of the imporance of quality. But then again, we really do live in a world where the quality of the content is nowhere near as important as the wow-factor – take a look at commercials.
With that thought aside, going viral isn’t as easy as anybody could ever think it is. It requires a great mix of promotion, relationships, and [although I’m afraid to say it], luck.
Nonetheless, great article – keep up the good work Chris 🙂
Hi Joe – I mention quality at the beginning 😉 I agree with you – going viral isn’t “fast and easy”, but we must try 🙂
BR, Chris
Hi Chris…
Thanks for the Tips bro…..I agree with all your points but there is one point missing..
that is
LUCK – yes it is true….when I started blogging, I write an article about beer and at that time i use to get 20-30 visit per day but for that post i got 3500 visit in a single day……
I didn’t plan anything for that….. this was just content, title and my luck.
Hi Sandeep, thanks for your comment. I really forget about luck. And it may be the most important point in going viral 🙂
BTW – I must try to write something about beer 😉
Chris
Thanks Chris I just changed all my blog title names to more exciting names.
The thing is with info you have to take action on them, So there’s one motion of action
Thanks.
Hi Ben, thanks for your comment. Interesting titles are very important. And helpful in SEO 😉
Hi Chris,
As the majority pointed out the controversial title, I will too.
I love the idea of a title so crazy and alluring that it compels people to click on the post, just to see what it’s all about. I just have never been able to publish one myself. I read and enjoy other, really unorthodox posts, but on my own, I always stick with the tried and true ones!
Need to give it a try – because as you pointed out, never give up!
Thanks!
~Christine
Hi Christine, thanks for stopping by. We all must try new things and new ways to promote our blogs 😉
Hi Chris
There’s no way around it, if you want your posts to go viral, promotion for most of us at least, is the name of the game.
Even with a controversial title you may not get noticed. I agree though you have more chance of doing so.
You need to have some substance behind the title though. If you write a really eye-catching title and then your post is just dull then no-one’s going to come back and read any more of your posts are they?
Thanks for sharing.
Tim
Hi Tim, I agree with you that only very good and helpful posts may go viral. And I forgot about one point – as Sandeep wrote we must have luck 😉
Thanks for your comment,
Chris
People always love to read big post with lots of useful contents in it..
Thanks for sharing
Hi Sameer, welcome to my blog. And thanks for your comment.
Hi Chris,
Great tips! By reading your article i get a clear concept for making a viral post. Thanks Chris, for sharing it with us.
Hi Albert, thanks for stopping by. Great that you like it 😉
Hey Chris,
I do follow all of the tips mentioned in this post. I have just started contests on my blog and recently I published my first giveaway post.
BTW, I wanted to ask from you that why are you not using a optin form from optinskin plugin in your sidebar?
Hi Ehsan, thanks for stopping by. Contests and giveaways are great – so congrats about it 🙂
Answering on your question about optin – I’m testing some solutions 😉
Thanks bro for this type of post. i needed it as i want to create new articles for mine ow blog and i want each article should go viral and want to experience every thing before writing a guest post.
Hi Deepak, thanks for your comment. Writing great guest post isn’t easy, but is possible 😉
Hey Chris,
When’s the last time you made an outlandish headline, what were the results?
Hi Simmeon, on this blog I didn’t try it yet. But I have some posts on Polish market with strange and interesting title. For one of them I got about 2,5k visits in 3 days only from wykop.pl (it something like digg.com or reddit) but those visits where very short (~5seconds) and bounce rate was about 95%…
Some good tips, especially about posting killer content on very popular blogs. Often I think that things that are funny have the best chance of going viral. They get more shares on places such as Facebook and Twitter. My most popular post on my blog is humerous, even though it is about affiliate marketing!
Hi Jon, thanks for your comment. I agree with you that funny and valuable content has great chance to going viral.
Great post Chris and straight to the point, I personally think also that contest is one of the best ways and fastest to generate some traffic and instant exposure online.
And it can make the post go viral like crazy, thanks for sharing.
Hi James, viral post about contest(s) may be very “viral”, especially with great and valuable prizes. Thanks for your comment.
Chris
Hey Chris. Okay, here’s a quick question – There was a guy who research about a week for a single blog post, and then wrote a great one actually. But he needed about 2500 words to say what he wanted to, which was not as appreciated by his readers and commentators as he expected. He expected the post to go viral and be the highest commented post on the blog, but just got a mere number of comments on it.
Do you think the guy should regret? (I don’t think so, in my opinion).
I think he should write another 5 great articles in following month, and next 5 in the next month, and… 😉
Thanks for stopping by Raaj.
Chris
WOW just what I was looking for. Came here
by searching for viral content
These are some good advice about Viral content Chris!
I really appreciate you sharing this write-ups.
Thanks Shane!
Hi Chris,
I’ve been blogging for several years now and I’ve never actually had a post that went viral. I’ve always wanted some of my posts to at least do that by making them more engaging. Probably, the reason why I failed is that I didn’t try hard enough as I was putting more emphasis on the main structure and content of the post. After reading your post however, I learned that there are a lot more things to consider in making your post go viral. Thanks.