Whether you’ve just started blogging or you’ve been doing it for years, one thing you will always crave is TRAFFIC.
I remember when I first started blogging. I never really cared that much about it. My main focus was link building and increasing my page rank, nothing more. I’m sure it’s the same thing with most newbies.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to do link building but until realize why you’re doing it in the first place, you’ll never see my point.
Why do we link build? To get better SERPs(Search Engine Ranking Position). Why do we want better SERPs? Do get more TRAFFIC. Why do we want more traffic? To build our blog, spread our influence and eventually generate an income.
If you can properly leverage traffic, you won’t even need to worry about link building! (tweet this) Links will all come naturally (which is Google rule #1).
Most people think driving traffic only happens after you hit publish. That’s not the case. Even before you type the first word, you can take steps to ensure that your post, once published, drives the type of traffic you want.
Now, here are my 17 No-BS Strategies for creating viral content.
Personality
1. Find your voice. People want to read and share stuff written by other people. If you don’t have your own voice, you will sound robotic and if you copy someone else’s, you’ll be labeled a copycat. I don’t need to tell you that this will be bad for your reputation. So if you’re funny, use that to your advantage. Embrace it and throw in some jokes in your posts. If you’re the type of person that likes to motivate people, even better! Posts that encourage users to take action always do well online.
2. Talk to your readers. When you write a blog post, it shouldn’t scream Wikipedia! Wikipedia is an awesome resource for information, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that it doesn’t actually address the reader. It simply lays down facts. When you start a blog, you should aim to connect with your readers. Address them like you’re having a conversation. Use more words like “You” and “I”. Show them you’re a real person.
3. Be simple but effective. Don’t use too many “big” words to try to sound smart, you might use them wrongly and look stupid in the end. Don’t forget your grammar and spelling either. Just make sure you’re easy enough to understand but powerful enough to captivate.
4. Share your experiences. By this, I don’t mean telling people what you ate for lunch (unless you’re writing about healthy eating, then go for it!) I’m talking about relating your advice to an experience you had. For example, if you’re writing about driving more traffic with twitter. Share an experience of you driving more traffic with twitter. It’s a proven fact that people respond more to personal stories than general advice. Try it.
5. Coin a phrase. That’s right. Figure out a certain phrase that you’re going to use with most of your posts and market it like crazy. Whenever someone thinks of that word or phrase, guess who they will be thinking about… YOU! Need proof? What comes to mind when you hear or read the phrase ‘write epic shit’? Corbett Barr! That post is one of the most popular posts on Think Traffic and people all over the internet started using it and guess who they linked to… Think Traffic! It marketed itself!
Content
6. Write to Inspire. Make your content irresistible. Make it so that someone will feel guilty not to share it with the world. The thing about great content is that it also eventually promotes itself. If you give someone a reason to take action and improve, they will be more than grateful. That’s when you start to see your post achieve viral status. One person loves it, who then shares it with their friends who share it with their friends who share it with their friends. It’s a chain of inspiration. The more inspirational the post, the more viral it becomes.
7. Give the people what they want. Write for the people you’re targeting. You can’t please everyone so why waste valuable time trying? If they came to your site looking for tuna recipes, give them tuna recipes! They’ll respect you more for it.
8. Do your research and prove it. Why should anyone believe a word you’re saying? You’re most likely just starting out or you simply have zero credibility. How can you build your credibility? Borrow it! When writing your post, unless you have discovered something 100% new, you probably got a few ideas from someone else who has that credibility. You should mention them. When someone sees an expert or blogger they recognize on a post, they’re most likely going to share it plus you build your reputation because you’ve proved that you know your stuff.
9. Share the Love. Link to other people. Those people sometimes share it and even drop by to comment with a thank you.
10. Break the clock, be timeless. The problem with most bloggers is that they write posts that can’t stand the test of time. That’s not to say you shouldn’t write about things like current events. They’re good for instant short term traffic but if you want to go for the long term, write more timeless content.
11. Make it pretty. An attractive post is a sharable post. Push in some good formatting and one or more, well placed images with a possible video and you’ve got yourself a traffic generating goldmine.
12. Mix it up. You don’t even need to write a whole post. Mix it up, experiment with other media like infographics and video. After all, Youtube is the second most used search engine on earth.
13. Keep them hungry. When readers come to your site and read your post, you should leave them wanting more. By this, I don’t mean hold back. Give them something so complete and thorough that they’ll wonder what you’ll do next. This is when you should create some subscriber only content. It will get them on your lists and they will literally keep coming.
Interaction
14. Where the people are, you should be. Follow your target audience and share your expertise. I mean they are, after all, the people most likely to share your stuff. Find them, get their attention and wow them, this is where techniques like guest posting and blog commenting come in.
15. Utilize your twitter account. Twitter is one of my highest traffic generators. Get online and actually talk to people and help them out. Make connections. Retweet some of their posts. They’ll take notice and most of them return the favor. Also you can use it to gain momentum for upcoming posts or projects.
16. Reply to your own comments. Also, you should reply to comments on your own posts. Talk to your commenters as individuals rather than as a group because this is more personal and builds trust.
17. Flaunt your social proof. Give a visual representation of your social proof wherever you can. Make things like your tweets. followers and Facebook likes as visible as possible. When people see them, they would want to join in the action.
Over to you
Got any more to add? Have you used any of these strategies before? What were your results?
Tell us in the comments.
