Building a great website or blog is only half the job, you then need
to start driving traffic that site and, the most cost effective means of doing
that, is through viral marketing. Viral
marketing is the term used to describe the methods that you can use to gain
viral traffic to a website and, that occurs when people who visit your website
share your content with friends and on social media websites.
Word of mouth recommendation has always been the best free form of advertising
that any business could ever benefit from and, now that we have the internet,
you can have your message spread quickly and completely cost-free to hundreds
of thousands of internet users in a matter of hours.
There is no guaranteed method of viral marketing that will ensure
that your posts will generate viral traffic and sometimes, when something does
go viral, it can take you by surprise. What you can do, though, is put into
practice the following viral marketing tips that will greatly increase your
chances of hitting that viral jackpot more often.
Quality is the key
The essence of viral marketing is that you are encouraging people to
recommend your product, service, or website, and they are not going to do that
if they don’t feel that your offering is of a high quality. That means high
quality products, high quality content on your website, and good levels of
friendly and helpful interaction with your customers is essential if you are to
create viral traffic.
Publish an e-book
Writing a short, informative e-book that is relevant to your niche
and proving it as a free download on your website will help to generate viral
traffic. People love getting something for free and, if your e-book is useful,
they will share it with friends. An informative e-book will also raise the credibility
of your site and confirm that you are an authority in your niche.
Use video marketing
Short videos are often shared by people and, if your video is
unique, useful or funny, a YouTube video can attract thousands of views very
quickly. Make sure that you include the URL of your website with your
video. If your clip video goes viral,
you could see a huge increase in the traffic to your site.
Make the best use of social bookmark sites
Join social bookmarking sites like Digg, Stumble Upon, and Reddit,
and add your own URLS to these sites. If your content is good, people will rate
it, or vote it up, and that will encourage more people to visit your site. Take
some time to interact with sites like these and view other people’s bookmarks
too, because that will encourage more views of your own bookmarks.
Post articles on article directories
Another way that you can increase your reputation as an expert in
your field and gain viral traffic is to publish articles on article directories
like Ezine. When you do this, your URL is included in the article, and the
article can be used by other people in newsletters, used or on their websites,
or shared via social media, creating another viral marketing avenue for your
website.
Give something away for free
Everyone loves a free gift, so much so that, if they like your
freebie, they will tell their friends about it. You do, however, need to make
sure that your gift is not of poor quality and that it does have some relevance
to your products or services. Even if people aren’t paying for your freebie,
they will still associate the quality if your gift with the quality of what you
sell.
Write guest posts
Writing guest posts on other people’s blogs and websites, with a
link to your own website, is a viral marketing technique that can drive traffic
to your site. The links will help your rankings on search engines and create
more viral traffic for your site.
Build and interact with your community
Interacting with visitors to your site is an important part of a
viral marketing campaign. Respond to comments left on your site, or perhaps,
set up a forum so that your users can interact with each other. Either way, the
more helpful and informative your comments are, the more you will encourage
people to share your site with other people, which will create more viral
traffic to your site.
Viral marketing is a great way to drive traffic to a website and,
best of all it’s free! The viral marketing techniques listed above are not the
only ones and it is advisable to try as many different ways of getting your
website noticed as you can. The great thing about viral marketing is that you
never know when you will go viral. Until, that is, you suddenly see your
visitor stats skyrocket overnight.
