Viral content can help raise your visibility on the search engine results pages. This kind of content can take many forms. Keep reading for some ideas; you're sure to find a few that are well-suited to your website.
Not convinced that viral content can work magic for you? As Jordan Kasteler explains in a post on Search Engine Land, viral content builds links. When search engines see these links “it sends three clear message about your site...[it] is active...is current...is invested in the needs of your audience,” notes Kasteler. This is exactly the kind of site that search engines want to show their users. “Large amounts of social shares indicate that a mass amount of people not only found what they were looking for on your site, but also liked your site enough to share it with others,” Kasteler states.
Don't think for even one second, though, that it's going to be easy to produce the kind of content that goes viral. Viral content grabs the reader; it's compelling in some way, whether it makes your audience think, laugh, cry, or shout with rage. It's well-written, so you need to be willing to write and rewrite until all the spelling and grammar errors are gone and your sentences and paragraphs sing rather than stumble. In short, viral content is work, and if you want it to work for you, you'll need to work to get it right.
Kasteler offers up 21 great ideas for viral content. Not all of them are suited to every site or every writer. For example, I try to avoid conflict; it's in my nature. So you probably won't see me using “The Controversy” much to attract readers, if at all. In this article, I'm only going to have room for four of these ideas, but that's okay; I'm going to expand on his suggestions, and I'll cover more of them in future articles if there's interest.
We'll start with “The Manifesto.” Kasteler describes it as the viral equivalent of preaching to the choir. “Write a passionate, eloquent, or well-researched argument that your niche will wholeheartedly agree with,” he explains. You'll get a ton of shares. People find passion attractive, especially when it concerns something near and dear to their hearts.
Make sure you know your audience, though, especially if you're using social media to spread the message. A post on the advantages of crochet over knitting might go over well on a site dedicated exclusively to crochet, but not on one that has a mix of knitters and crocheters – unless, again, you find the right niche. For example, social site Ravelry caters to knitters and crocheters, but one of their groups (The Crochet Liberation Front) might welcome a link to an item on “Why I Am an Exclusive Hooker” more than, say, a group dedicated to a particular knitting magazine.
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