Buzzfeed did it, Upworthy did it and so did Viral Nova. If you know these three websites, you will know the reason behind writing this article. Assuming you already own a blogĀ (this is why you read Asiogroup, don’t you?) you might be aware how much traffic these viral sites get.
The Internet is a great place where everyone is given the same opportunity to grow and are given every tool to fight this war. But it is not all what it takes to create a viral blog.
There are some tactics, pattern you will see in all these viral blogs. I’ll break it down for your convenience in a moment.
Upworthty has a shared their process of curating viral content on this slide on Slideshare (embedded below)
It’s all about showcasing your content, the more visual it is, the more it gets shared. These are the things you should consider in a WordPress theme for a vial blog.
- Create a Visually Appealing Design
- Write Alluring Headlines
- Create Amazing Content
- Make use of Social Media
Create A Visually Appealing Design
The design of a blog is very important in making it a viral hit. Almost every viral site you will come across, has a visually appealing design of their website. Learn more about the design part of your blog below.
High Resolution pictures make any blog stand out from the clutter of blogs, this is more important for a viral post. So keep making posts which have good resolution photos that cover the full width of your content area.
Share Quality Videos that you find on YouTube, and they should also cover the entire width of the content area, generally the content area should be 600px to 800px wide, so choose the bigger size for embedding the videos to your blog.
Bigger thumbnails onĀ the content will help the visitors visualize the post which will help themĀ know what it is about.
Content Area Should be Wider, as I said above,Ā 600x – 800px wider is better.
More Content Offerings on the page so that the visitor keeps getting more options for watching their next video. Put related posts, top posts or random posts widgets in the sidebar and below the post. it helps the visitors choose the next post to click.
A Visually Appealing WordPress theme, that showcases your content in a way that a visitorĀ can’t ignore the next story that is there on the page. A great WordPress theme’s job would be to expose the content to the visitor as much as possible. We have listed 6 amazing WordPress themes that has all the elements we talked about.
Checkout the WordPress Themes to Create Ā Viral Blog
Write Alluring Headlines
As Upworthy has mentioned in their slides, Headlines play a big role. There are some key lessons to learn from the existing viral blogs out there.
Don’t give everything away in the Headline, this is the number one thing you should keep in mind, you are not creating a news blog and you don’t have to break the news with your headlines. In fact, the 99.9% of the things you are going to share on your blog, has already been shared and are available on the web. What you have to do is, repackage it and make it exciting, make headings that allure the users to click and open the link.
Include Words that trigger an emotion, Another lesson is to use some adjectives to your headline, but try picking easy words and the words that make users check the link, such as Amazing, Revolutionary, Awesome etc.
WriteĀ More than One Headline for a Post.Ā The first headline you will come up with, will be okay, second one would be better, third will be good and the fourth one is going to be Amazing.
Here is an article you must read about writing compelling Headlines.
Create AmazingĀ Content
Whether you want to create a viral blog in a particular niche or a blog in general, you should give extra emphasis on the quality of content you are going to create. If you can not do this alone, hireĀ an author or two and create high quality content.
Create More Content to Get More Traffic, It’s a universal fact for the internet that you get more traffic when you create more content, this implies to a Viral blog as well. WriterĀ ZimmermanĀ from GawkerĀ works 12 hours a day and creates a lot of posts, this is the reason he is able to get at least one post viral.Ā Of the 10 biggest stories on Gawker in 2013, nine were his.
Create a Scorecard for Creating Content: Keep a check on the quality of articles that go online. Set up a parameter and each of the article has to go through it in order to get published. It could be something like a word limit, a certain number of images, or number of bullet points, if you are writing a list post.
Visual Content is the Best: A Video, or an Infographic, or Content with a lot of images do much better, because they can be easily consumed by theĀ visitors, there is no long reading involved. This type of content is easy to be consumed during work breaks or when people areĀ bored and check the internet for some cool things to see/enjoy.
Make use ofĀ Social Media
Social Media is the primary source of traffic for a Viral blog, people love sharing amazing things with their friends and family, So, utilize the potential of the Social Networking sites.
Keep your Brand Visibility Consistent: I have shared this several time on the blog and it is right for viral blogs as well, try getting the same username across the network, (though, not compulsory), keep same DPĀ (Display Pics, probably your logo or icon) on all the social networks. It gives a brand recognition, which is important for the growth of the blog.
Utilize Facebook Effectively: With over 1 billion active users, Facebook is the biggest social network on the internet. Viral blogs get million and millions of visitors just through Facebook. Utilize it’s potential and give maximum priority to this Social Network.
AnalyzeĀ which other Social Network works for you and put your energy on that one. It depends on the type of content you are creating, it could be Twitter, Pinterest or Reddit or any other channel. Just remember, you cannot be super active on all these Social channels, so analyze which one works well for you and plan your sharing strategy accordingly.
Put Bigger Social Sharing Buttons and show share counts on your posts, when the post get a certain number of shares, it gives an authority to the post, a kind of acceptance of the post being socially viral, which results in more sharing.
I found Easy Social Share plugin to be very effective for viral blogs.
So, this is it, I hope you have learned a thing or two about creating a viral blog. If you need help regarding the blog setup, you can utilize our blog setup services to take action on your idea. Learn moreĀ ā
