Secrets for Writing Blog Posts That Go Viral
Over the last few years, blogging has gained a lot of popularity. As it turns out, online consumers are hungry for great content -- and blogs can easily supply that demand.
That's why blogging evolved from just a hobby for some to a full-time profession that even large enterprises tend to leverage these days.
Unfortunately, this has led to an oversaturation of content in the online world, and a lot of blog posts are ignored to these days. However, that doesn't mean blogging has lost its relevance in any way.
Blog posts that go viral are the ones that most captivate audiences and makes them interested in its contents, while encourage sharing of the information rapidly across the internet for others to consume.
A blog post’s viral exposure has the ability to reach consumers that weren't even designated as primary targets. It’s a powerful way to gain brand awareness and spark conversations around viral topics.
But how do you write such posts?
Ingredients for Writing Viral Blog Posts
Truth be told, the process of writing a viral blog post isn't easy. But it's not impossible either. With that in mind, here are a few secrets to writing blog posts that have a higher chance of going viral.
1. Create valuable content
First things first, if your content isn't valuable to your readers in any way, it simply won't go viral. So how do you create content that delivers value?
This part isn't that difficult, actually. If you research your audience a bit, you'll be able to discover what their preferences are and what motivates them to share information with others.
Their main interests should be the foundation for your blog topics. Furthermore, the content you create should be highly relevant to your readers.
The content also needs to be top-quality, educational, informative and even entertaining, if need be. That's how you create value and the more valuable your content is the greater the chances are that it will reach greater heights than you originally expected it to reach.
2. Eye on your competition
As mentioned before, there are a lot of independent bloggers out there, and even the majority of companies have their blogs as well. Ensuring that your blog posts go viral instead of everyone else's can prove to be challenging. That's why a bit of competitive analysis comes in handy.
It's important to note that you're not trying to copy what others are doing. Instead, you're finding out what your competitors are doing, what kind of content they create, how do they promote it and how do their posts go viral so that you can do one better.
Simply writing a truly awesome blog post isn't always enough to push it to go viral. Oftentimes, you have to jump through a few hoops on your end before this can happen and acquiring information from your competitors is certainly a good way to start.
3. Let analytics guide you
For a blog post to go viral, you have to ensure the right response from your readers. However, if your audience doesn't have seamless access to your posts, you're basically preventing them from reacting, in the first place. In other words, your blog posts need to be optimized and properly promoted so that they can reach enough people before they go viral.
For example, you might consider investing in SEO so that your blog posts can gain proper visibility. In that case, you should also consider investing in an efficient SEO reporting tool so that you can determine if your efforts are paying off.
Moreover, by monitoring the right metrics and KPIs, you can determine the performance of your content, as well as obstacles that are preventing your audience from engaging with your posts. For instance, a high bounce rate may indicate that your audience is abandoning your blog before ever reaching your posts. This may be due to a UX issue rather than the lack of quality of your blog posts.
4. Structure your blog posts correctly
It's no secret that a lot of users will visually scan your post before actually reading it. That said, if your posts aren't structured well, they may get ignored altogether.
A well-structured blog post that has the potential to go viral is both visually appealing and rich with relevant and valuable content. That said, here are a few things to focus on.
- A captivating headline - You have to grab the reader's attention with an awesome headline.
- Visual elements - Blog posts enriched with stunning visuals, such as images, pie charts, infographics and so on, perform better than posts with just plain text.
- An intriguing topic - The topic needs to be relevant and interesting enough to hold the reader's attention.
- Factual information - Check and double-check your sources before you include information, such as statistics, news, facts and other factors, also name your sources so that readers can check for themselves.
- An ending or is it? - End your post with a hypothesis or a question to encourage further engagement through discussions, comments and debates. Ensuring engagement even after the post is over is a quality trait that makes such posts go viral.
Conclusion
Writing a viral blog post isn't simple at all. You probably won't even make it on the first try. That's why it’s important keep trying and exploring the possibilities of creating truly great posts that inspire engagement and excitement before you can fully understand what it takes to make your blogs shine.
Once you get that covered, it becomes easier to create content that audiences will love and share.