Blogging is here to stay. Whether people are writing about their personal stories, about social issues, about technical content related to their profession, or even just random fun stuff, we have all got into the habit of sharing our views online, trying to connect with other like-minded people. But only very few blog posts are lucky enough to go viral. Though luck and timing are often major components of posts that go viral, there are some ways to ensure that you can help the process along. Below are five such ways.
1. Content is King
The first thing about ensuring your blog post goes viral is really to take care that your content is top class. People like content that is well researched and detailed. Posts to which people can relate are also hugely popular, especially when a personal narrative is included in it. Edit out the typos and check it thoroughly before publishing. Adding pictures and videos adds to the likelihood of more people getting interested in the article. If you are willing to deal with the aftermath, you can even post something controversial on a subject that you passionate about, and watch people respond.
2. Share with a relevant authority
If your blog is content-based, that is, you are providing information in some specific field, then you will have a potentially large readership of people interested in that subject. The question is how to reach out to all those people? One way is to seek out the authorities on the subject and email them with a link to the article, explaining how it is relevant to what they do. These could be government organisations, charitable institutions, professional institutes, universities, or even a celebrity.
3. Use keyword optimisation
You might not want to pay too much attention to inserting keywords in your blog post, but it is sadly essential because there is so much content on the web, that without some tweaking, yours is likely to get lost. First, you need to find out what people are searching for. There are tools you can use to help you with this. Google’s free keyword tool in Adwords can help you there, but there are also many other tools and you can search on the internet for one you like. Once you have the keywords you want to use, try to work it into the content without making it seem too obvious. The best places to insert keywords are in the beginning and final paragraphs, the title and the image tags.
4. Share away
No, it does not mean just sharing on Facebook to your list of friends. That is simply not enough, and you need to expand your reach. Make a list of all the social media that exists for sharing content and share away. If your blog is on WordPress, you have the facility of connecting your account to various sites and your post will get shared as soon as you publish them. Make note of bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Digg, and share your posts there. Use content aggregation sites like AllTop and BizSugar. All this will help your blog post reach a wide audience in different platforms.
5. Networking
People still matter. No matter how technologically savvy you are, it is ultimately people you want to reach with the help of other people. There is no short cut to this. You have to work on your networking skills. Be smart about it and make connections without getting bogged down with spending all your time on the internet. You could assign yourself a couple of hours every day to hang around the various places where you want to build relationships. Facebook is definitely a good idea, but there are other places like Yahoo Groups and Quora, where you can have nice discussions. Visit other people’s blogs and leave comments. In short, develop an online personality and make friends. The rest will follow.
Image credit: House Buy Fast on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://writingtipsoasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/IMG_20141217_101736441.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Kavitha is a freelance content writer and French translator, and has been working in this field since 2008. She has degrees in computer applications and international business and has a background in business and international trade. She enjoys learning languages and is currently learning Japanese. Her interests vary from books and writing to travelling and history.[/author_info] [/author]