Today you will learn how to get viral traffic for free.
You’ll learn:
- 2 ways content goes viral
- 4 steps you need to take
- 5 rules for maximum results
- 3 websites to make life easier
You’ll also see how I got millions of visitors to one of my websites, for free. This is a method I developed called the Viral Formula.
Table of Contents:
In most cases, there are only two ways to go viral online.
The first way is through pure-dumb luck.
- Content is shared across social media and then gets picked up my the media and receives widespread PR coverage.
This isn’t reliable or predictable.
The second way relies on strategy, and although your chances will increase dramatically, the results still aren’t guaranteed.
2. Content receives PR coverage and then becomes widely shared across social media.
So in this instance, instead of relying on “hope it works” marketing, you’re going to make content that will specifically appeal to journalists.
My results from using this
I’m showing you my results so you can see for yourself what’s possible.
Here, one of my articles received 831,224 views:
And this one received more than a million views:
And this one received more than two million:
In fact, I got so much traffic I had to turn off commenting on these articles, because it became too much to moderate.
Ok, happy that I’m all legit and know what I’m talking about?
Good. I’ll give you the formula I used to get viral traffic.
Magnetic content
It all starts with making the right content.
You need to make something that’s more than just your average, run of the mill blog post.
Have you ever noticed how infographics, videos, comics and memes seem to catch on and go viral quicker?
That’s because it’s a different way to digest the content. It’s often easier and more entertaining than your typical 500 word blog post.
I’ll give you the 4 steps to making and launching viral content.
The 4 steps are:
- Discovery
- Brainstorm
- Outreach
- Creation
Let’s go through these in more detail.
Discovery
The discovery stage is where you find and examine relevant content that’s already gone viral.
Search Google, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest etc to find high-performing content that’s been featured in well-known publications.
For this, you can use a Boolean search string, like this: content format + topic.
For example, since I’ve made content go viral in the ‘spy drone’ niche, I might search for something like this: infographic + spy drone
You can also mix things up by switching the content format to video, or comics, or memes.
Now make a list of the most popular content for each search string. Then order it in rank of most popular.
Look at the amount of social shares to help you determine which pieces of content have gained the most traction.
Now you know WHAT has gone viral, so you now have a rough idea of what type of content you should be making.
Brainstorm
So now you know what works, it’s time to start listing some ideas.
At this stage anything goes, there are no wrong answers so be creative and just brainstorm as many ideas as you possible can.
To help you do this, I’ll give you a few pointers.
7 questions to ask yourself during the brainstorming stage:
- What hasn’t been done in your industry?
- What are other industries doing but not yours?
- What demand isn’t being met?
- What white-papers can you examine?
- Can you make information less boring?
- Can you make data easier to understand?
- Can you simplify complicated ideas?
Just write down as many ideas as you can for each of these questions.
It doesn’t matter if you can’t answer every single question, we’re just looking for ways to bring something original to your industry.
Outreach
Now that you’ve done your research, you know what works and you have some ideas for magnetic content, it’s time to move onto step 3; outreach.
This is the easiest step, we only have to email or phone journalists and ask them for feedback about your idea.
Journalists are wise to marketing techniques, so you can be honest and upfront with them.
You can directly ask them “would you publish this?”
They want to publish content that gets traction online, so if you pitch something that’s going to be mutually beneficial you will increase your chance of them saying yes to your idea.
If they say no, then it’s time to go back to the drawing board and start looking for new ideas.
It’s important that you don’t invest time into making content until you know it’s going to work, and get published.
And another reason why we want journalists to say yes, or at least give you feedback on how to get it published, is because people often support the things they help create.
So once you get positive feedback it’s time to move to the fourth and final stage.
Creation
Now that we know your idea has legs and it will be published, you have to create it.
Spend time making the best possible content you can, don’t skimp on quality here or take shortcuts.
This will represent your website and your business to millions, so it has to be right.
Once your content is ready, go back to the journalists and let them know it’s ready.
Send them a link to the piece, and ask them if anything needs to be changed to increase its chance of being published.
If the journalists don’t get back to you, don’t worry. This is normal.
They’re busy and get dozens of pitches everyday.
Send a follow-up email a few days later or pick up the phone and give them a ring.
Stealthy strategy
Here’s a stealthy way to get in front of journalists and editors.
For this you’ll have to spend a small amount of money on advertising, but the results can be well worth it, if your content is top-notch.
You can use Facebook Ads to create a highly targeted campaign to show-off your content exclusively to journalists, and nobody else.
This is incredibly powerful because if your content speaks directly to those journalists, and you already know it’s the type of content they want to publish, it puts you in a great position to get exposure from them.
Not only that, but Facebook Ads also lets you run campaigns based on specific employers.
For example, if you ONLY want to target journalists and editors for a particular publication, such as BuzzFeed, you will be able to do that.
Finding journalists
If you’re really stuck for finding journalists, here are a few sources that invite you to reach out to journalists.
The first one is called HARO… Help a Reporter Out is database used by journalists to find sources for their stories.
NinjaOutreach is one of the most powerful sources available for viral traffic.
Another site that I’m hearing people have got good results with is LinkedIn.
Maximise your results
Here are some do’s and don’ts to help you get the best possible results from your efforts.
Promotional content
Resist the temptation to create adverts, advertorials or promotional content.
As harsh as it sounds, people aren’t likely to be interested in your particular business – so avoid taking about it too much.
Keep the focus on your industry and how unique, interesting or useful your content is.
Monitor the news cycle
If you stay up to date with current events and keep an eye on the news cycle you’ll find plenty of opportunities to create content that has the potential to go viral.
By viewing the news through the filter of how it might relate or impact your industry, you’ll find new perspectives to write about.
Using data
Nobody likes complicated data because it’s boring. If you can simply complicated data or ideas, and make it easier to understand – or even present it in a more entertaining way, you’ll find plenty of content ideas.
Journalists love being able to help their audiences feel smart by giving them complicated information but in a format that’s easy to understand.
Controversy
This isn’t for that faint hearted, and you have to be willing to stick to your guns, even when you’re feeling the heat.
Your goal here is to split the audiences opinion and force them to create sides.
If they’re debating an issue, they will do a large portion of the marketing for you, as they want to bring more people into the debate who might support their position.
This is a powerful strategy, but prepare for criticism from people who disagree with you.
What next?
Ok, now you’ve got a proven to work strategy that will help you get viral traffic for free.
But this is just one strategy you can use.
If you want to see how I grew my hobby site to 4 minion visitors a month go to profitcopilot.com/traffic and get the free step-by-step videos.