How to Make Content Go Viral

It is every blogger’s dream to make content that has the potential to go viral. An online article that goes viral will produce magnificent traffic spikes to websites and generally will increase the health of the website too. The tricky part, though, is in getting the content to go viral to begin with. There are factors that contribute to an article going viral through social media which are outlined below.

#1 Make it Readable

Above everything, your content needs to be as readable as possible. If it is not readable, people will not read it – simple! So, the first step to a viral article is to make sure as much of the traffic that is directed to it will read it. This means first impressions are everything. Have you got a short introduction? Have you included an image somewhere to increase readability? Is the font size large enough for easy reading and the content structured with paragraphing and headings? All of these elements will help to make your content as readable as possible.

#2 Trustworthy and Useful Content

Once you have managed to get web users to read your article, the next step is to produce content that is both trustworthy and useful to the web user:

• Trustworthy content – People like to share content if they know the content has been produced by an expert in the field because this increases the credibility of the content: especially if the topic is about something not ‘black and white’ but ‘grey’. Therefore, make sure to have a bio at the start or end of the article that describes your credentials which basically outline why you are trustworthy enough to take on board the contents of the article.
• Useful – So we are up to the step where the web user has read the article and trusts the author of his credentials. But, if they do not find the content useful, they will not share it to help it go viral. The point of sharing an article with social media is that the person sharing the article thinks that the article will benefit others. If the article is useful to that person, they may feel it necessary to tell others who may find it useful too. There is no right or wrong way of telling you how to make useful content – if you are unsure how to make useful content, write the article and gain feedback from friends and fellow bloggers about your article. Market research is a great tool to use to see how ‘useful’ content can be.

#3 Share/Publish Content at the Right Time

Making sure you have published the content and shared it at peaks times will help significantly to getting your post to go viral. The way I look at it is the same when a business releases a new product. If the business, such as Apple, want to maximise sales of a new product, they will release it around September so that it is ready for the Christmas rush.

The best time to post articles tends to be on Sunday nights or weekdays after 7pm or around 1-3pm (when everyone has finished work or are browsing the web on their lunch breaks).