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Since leaving my job and staying home to concentrate on my business and blog, I’ve learned a few things that have helped my blog almost double it’s pageviews. Today I’m sharing them all with you :)
It’s important to note that my definition of “viral” is when your post receives five times your average traffic within a week. The term “internet viral” refers to posts that receive tens of thousands of pageviews a day and are something left a little more to chance, but can definitely be helped along with these tips!
1. Give Every Post A Pinnable Image Now that Pinterest is so popular, it seems that everyone on the web is pinning everything. Pins are extra awesome because they have long-term rewards–someone could pin a post from your site today and down the road it could go viral. Making your post images pinnable with text and a great image help to catch pinner’s eyes and make them want to repin your content to their boards.
2. Pin Your Posts More Than Once The same social media rules that apply to facebook and twitter apply to Pinterest–share multiple times. To avoid having duplicate pins on one board, create several boards that each image can be pinned to. I have a board especially for My Crazy Good Life. I also have one for recipes, a board for healthy recipes and fitness tips, and boards for each of my kids. One recipe post can be pinned in all of those places, maximizing the pinners who see (and share) it. You can see some more Pinterest tips for bloggers here.
3. Share Your Old Posts Many bloggers share their previous content using a plugin. Here are a few reasons this isn’t the way to go:
- You have limited control over what is shared You can tell the plugin which categories to share but unless you have gone through those categories with a fine-tooth comb you’ll eventually be sharing closed giveaways or posts that aren’t relevant anymore.
- You’ll be sharing the same message with each post From what I’ve experienced, each post that is shared using a plugin begins the same. I don’t know about you, but as soon as I see, “From the archives…” I focus my attention on something else.
- You can’t relate your posts to the season I want to share all of my fall and Halloween themed posts in the few months before Halloween–not in February. Unless you manually change the categories being shared you don’t have control over this.
Though a bit more time consuming, I’ve been using Buffer to manually share my previous posts. The one thing I don’t love about blogging is that if you’re not sharing previously written posts, they are lost under all of your new content. I sit down once a week and add my favorite posts to Buffer, write a personal message to accompany them and share away. I usually post twice a day to my facebook page and 3-4 times a day to twitter. This has easily doubled my numbers.
4. Use good Search Engine Optimization Posts that aren’t “SEOd” aren’t being seen. This is fine for the posts I write about my daily life, my InstaFriday posts or posts I write to remember things the boys do. Those posts are for me. The posts I want people to find are my recipes, party ideas and tips for tweens and teens. I use the SEO by Yoast plugin for my SEO.
5. Find new blogs Finding new blogs and leaving meaningful comments is a great way to grow your blog. You can do this by finding your favorite blogs and looking in the comment section for bloggers who have left comments – this way you’ll find like-minded bloggers that are good at interacting.
What tips do you have for creating content that goes viral?
Saw your post on FB from the SITS Girls. Thanks for the tips. I have teens of my own so I will be checking out that section on your blog.
Thanks, Larissa!
Like the tips. I loved how my traffic went crazy since i started pinteresting a year ago
Found your post from the SITS girls…very informative tips!!
I only used Pinterest really for my own eyes but I think I’ll incorporate it more into my blogging. Good idea about Buffer too, I’ll have to check it out! Thank you for this post :D
I love the pinterest tip though just yesterday I consolidated all of my boards to just four…. oh well!
Oh no!
I do all of these things and yet nothing has ever gone viral. How do you know if a post has gone viral?
Dina, the “viral” I’m talking about here can be measured by looking at your Jetpack app/plugin or Google analytics. I’m referring to a post that gets an average of 5 times the “normal” amount of pageviews in a week or so. Something that is shared so much that you have a completely different group of readers coming to your blog to look at it.
Internet viral, when your site gets up to 100,000 pageviews a day, is very rare. After five years blogging I actually had one post go viral last month. I had 104,000 pageviews in one day and I am currently writing a post about that experience, but I knew because I was watching my Jetpack app and plugin. In addition, I received warnings from my host and they eventually shut my blog down because of the traffic load on their server. That post alone is still (over 30 days later) bringing about 1,500 pageviews a day to my blog. I truly don’t think that is something that can be easily replicated, it’s more of a part chance/part hard work and timing thing.
These are great tips. I have tweet old posts setup but I don’t like that you can’t customize the tweet either. I do like Bufferapp a lot but haven’t been using it as much as I should. Thanks for the reminder to take better advantage of Pinterest and buffer. I am surprised that since I blog often about books and sometimes recipes, Pinterest is still the social media that brings the most traffic to my blog. Thanks for sharing your insights!
Thanks for stopping by, Tanya!
Love this post! These are all great tips, I def need to become better at having pinnable images! I have found that engaging with other bloggers and showing them support has been the number one way I have gained my small following! Although I get tons and tons of repins on my blog post the commenting has increased! ~Leah~
I found that taking the time to go through my Pinterest boards and fill in all the blanks and add hashtags has brought a lot more attention there, which in turn brings more traffic to my blog.
Great post!
Excellent blog Becca. Thanks for the tips. The re-sharing of your older blogs is a great idea. Some of my best articles are in the archives. :)
If you have a moment, check out my blog at http://www.ezhealthbiz.com and leave me your suggestions.
Cheers,
Will
Great post! I am re-entering the blogosphere after a long hiatus and am excited about implementing these tips!
Thanks for the tips. I need to work more on adding some writing to my photos so that when they get pinned then people will know what the photo refers too–especially when I am sharing how to things or recipes.
Great post – and yes, can you believe what Pinterest has done for web traffic? CRAZY!
Becca I am so glad I found you! I have read two of your articles so far and I loved them! I am all about actionable steps..thank you! PS I found you on Pinterest. Also, DFP by Google…how is it different from Adsense?
Hi Jennifer, I just realized I missed a HUGE bunch of comments on this post! Have you figured out what DFP is yet? If not, this might help: http://www.thepixelboutique.com/2014/04/dfp-for-bloggers/.
Thanks so much for these tips! I’ve been using a plugin to automatically share old posts to Twitter even though I knew it couldn’t be the best answer. I’ll have to stop turning a blind eye and tackle that this week!
Hi Becca,
I had fallen off on my blogging for this site (one of two blogs). As a new blogger I had become discouraged about sharing my content. I finally came to the decision that regardless of how many site visits that I have I am writing for my own satisfaction. However, I truly appreciate this post because it will help me with my technique and writing.
I also going viral with stumbleupon with just one posting…nice share here.
I’m just beginning to learn the amazing things that StumbleUpon can do!
I’ve had a couple posts go viral, but it’s been kind of unpredictable. I can’t seem to get readers to comment either. I recently decided to take a different direction with my blog, getting away from coupon matchups and getting more into evergreen frugal content, so hopefully this will help. Anyway, Great tips! I look forward to implementing them right away!
Readers are commenting less and less, and sharing more and more. I don’t know which is better, to be honest. And unfortunately, it IS unpredictable!! I guess we can just do our best and hope it works each time!
I’m find the same thing! Only a month into the blogging world and hoping the site picks up steam soon. Sometimes it feels like I’m talking to myself, LOL!
Thank you for the helpful tips. Some I already do, but a few I need to put into practice more! I thought blogger was going to be easy, but am finding it to be just as time consuming as being a business owner, to do it the right way! Thanks again!
Great tips! I am really focusing on finding new blogs. Just have to keep plugging along! Thanks for ideas about working smarter.
These were very specific, helpful suggestions!
Thanks for sharing,
Kelly