Everyone wants their blog to go viral, but only a few seem to make it to that lofty goal. Especially when it comes to blogging for business.
*loudspeaker voice* Ladies and Gentlemen! I announce, “7 Ways to Help Your Blog Go Viral”.
Because, sometimes, viral-ity needs a helping hand.
1. Your Post Title is Your Reader’s First Impression
If your post title is weak, it will not catch the eye of the average surfer.
In the blogging world, people find blog posts through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or other blogs.
With all these places your blog is shared, the title is all you get to convince your audience to click.
The title is all you get to make a first impression. So make it a good one!
I’ve seen headlines that go viral even if the content behind them isn’t the bee’s knees.
Headline writing is an art and a science that should be studied by every blogger. I encourage you to work and study this topic, because it could be the key to making your blog go viral.
2. Grab Your Reader’s Attention
You have one sentence to grab my attention.
That sentence needs to give me a sense of what your post is about.
It needs to keep me reading through your entire post.
Tall order!
Most action movies start with a big boom and a fast moving scene. This is because they want to grab your attention and keep you engaged as the rest of the plot unfolds.
Your blog opening should work the same.
3. No Essay
Blogposts are the opposite of essays.
Essay format is designed to make arguments and then tell you the conclusion.
With blogging, you need to say the conclusion first, and then show your arguments/points.
If your conclusion is boring, then no one will read your post to the end.
People are busy! In the era of surfers, your opening HAS to grab their attention and pull them all the way through to the end of your blog (where the sharing buttons are).
Because, unless someone shares your blog, it can’t go viral.
4. Skim Friendly
A side-effect of being busy, is people skim first to see if they want to read your post. If your post isn’t skim friendly, they move on, and all your great content is for naught!
Forget the paragraph rules you learned in English class.
- One thought per line. Make it short, sweet and simple.
- Use subheadings so your readers can easily see the different points you are making.
- Use Bold, Italics, and Underlining to point your reader’s eyes directly to the most important points as they are skimming.
Let me say again. Chunky paragraphs are a big no-no.
They are hard to read on a phone and they are hard to read quickly.
Psychologically, we feel reading a post with chunky paragraphs is going to take forever. So we don’t read it.
5. Easy to Read
Make your posts much easier to read by:
- Using bullet points (see what I did there?)
- Taking your font size up to at least 12pt if not 14pt.
Bullet points are a much more attractive way to present lists, or points.
Our eyes love them because they are easy to read through and remember, whereas long sentences are hard to get through.
Font sizes are going up. Tiny font is really stressful to the eyes. Reading a post that has nice, larger fonts is like taking a nice sip of refreshing water.
6. Use Excellent Writing
Even if you’ve just broken the paragraph rules, you should still write well.
Good writing is not about using obscure verbs, or flowery language.
Good writers
- get their points across clearly
- inspire you with ideas
- give your minds-eye images that last
- tell stories that resonate with you.
7. Make it Shareable
Make it stupid easy, and a complete no-brainer to comment on and share your posts. If there is any hassle at all, it is not worth it to your reader and they will ditch the effort.
Ask that they share, and ask for comments. Sometimes all people need is a little permission, even if they didn’t know they were wanting it.
I’d love it if you’d share my post! I’d love to hear in the comments, your thoughts about blogging or any of the points I made. Did I miss anything?
Here are my favorite blogs to learn about Good Writing, Good Blogging, and Going viral:
http://socialtriggers.com/craft-contagious-content/
http://www.copyblogger.com/fast-writing-improvement/
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About Rachel Ann PolingI'm a social media marketing consultant by day, singer by night. You can get my attention with a huge smile, creativity, and sparkly things. My goal as a consultant and blogger is to help the arts industry by applying social media marketing specifically to musicians and artists and their needs.
Ah, excellent. I’m a paragrapher, need to work on that! Thanks Rachel, excellent as always.
Thanks Michelle,
I was a paragrapher too. I actually found it quite liberating to be free of that convention It’s much easier to write when you don’t have to think about making three sentence paragraphs.
Really excellent post
Thanks Martin!
Rachel Poling recently posted..6 Ways Social Media Can Help Private Music Teachers Get More Students
I love the idea of conclusion first, then points. I really need to learn brevity also…I could write forever. Thanks for this!
Sarah, I SO have a problem with brevity. There always seems to be so much to say! I just have to remember that I’m not helping anyone by being so verbose. I am, in fact, making it harder on the very people I’m trying to help/reach/entertain. I still struggle with this quite a bit, as you can see from the length of the above post.
Thank you for commenting!
Sorted…it worked when I clicked the pic, but not the link…thanks
Hey Rachel, those are some important information that you shared there. I get amazed whenever people make commenting on their blog so difficult. I admit that spammers should be blocked from the site but how can you put a comment on moderator consideration when the person has clearly entered a capcha or clicked a checkbox. Thanks for the post
Well, some people really want to moderate what is said on their blog. They don’t want controversial or negative things to get into their comments section. While I can understand that, sometimes it makes them seem like they are hiding the truth from their followers. I know several people who wrote negative, but polite comments on a blog that were never published. Those people got really angry at the blogger(s) who did that. Now that blogger has lost a customer for life, and since I’ve heard about it, their reputation is being sullied by refusing to let a negative comment get in.
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Thanks for these great tips! I’m an aspiring business blogger, and I just learned many ways to make my blogging better.
Thank you!
You are very welcome! I’m enjoying being a business blogger myself. Have a great day!
Rachel Poling recently posted..How To Get the RIGHT Twitter Followers
I agree with what you said Rachel. However, I also believe that there should be a balance between writing long chunky paragraphs and having mainly one and two sentence paragraphs as you did here. Excellent content though!
Michael recently posted..Cleats and Dreams
Hey Michael!
A CP Buddy! Sweet! Thanks for reading and commenting.
I have to say, as I’ve written a lot more, I agree with you. Perhaps I should revise this older blogpost a little. The length of the paragraph really depends on what you are trying to say. When writing information and facts: I’d say go with the shorter paragraphs. When writing stories, concepts, and emotions: longer paragraphs are in order. I just try and remember that many blogs are read on smart phones, and long paragraphs turn into LOOOOOOOOONNNNNNGGGGG paragraphs on a phone.
See you around on twitter and elsewhere!
Rachel Poling recently posted..A Powerful Marketing Tool For Musicians – Live Streaming Concerts
Thanks for the information. I am currently trying to set up my own blog and every little bit of information I can find on blogging helps.
Felicia recently posted..Dear Insanity,
Glad I could help.