How-to Go Viral With a Low Traffic Website

I was contacted by a reader yesterday who asked me the following question:

I read your first case study on how you made a post to the front page of digg. My blog is a zero traffic one. Even if I use those techniques, no one will submit my post to digg.

Here is what I have to help me on this
:150 twitter followers
more than 50 stumbleupon friends
and some other online friends

Do you still think I can get the article to frontpage? I want to give the technique a try

Now, this is a question I get asked a LOT… and my guess is that there are thousands of DeanHunt.com readers who may have the same issue.

So let’s get one thing clear… does having a popular website increase your chances of your content going viral?

Yes! Absolutely!

Ever wondered why certain sites in an industry get mentioned over and over again?

It is a bit like the old phrase: “you need money to make money”.

In this instance, you need traffic to make traffic.

Well, there is a way around this. And I am going to share this with you today.

Here is the secret:

You can leverage other people’s traffic.

Here is how I see the viral process:

Your viral content is like a seed in a field. The field is your industry, the planet is the Internet.

When you plant your seed, if it is a big, strong seed (great content), it will have a chance to grow… however, if your seed is picked up by a bird (reader) and planted in a larger field (another blog, social media site etc) then it is now growing in two places. Thus increasing the chances of it spreading further.

This pattern continues, and you may eventually be in thousands of fields, thus boosting your chances of getting on Digg by 1000%+

So what I am trying to say is this…

Putting one seed in one field is only going to work if you have thousands of birds (readers) who can spread it for you.

If you have low traffic, then you don’t have any birds in your field, so you need to spread it yourself.

There are a few ways to do this:

1) Leverage your friends and contacts

Only do this if the content is relevant to them, but it is likely your friends have blogs, post on forums, use Twitter, Facebook etc…

Your friends can act as birds to spread your seed.

2) Leverage Social Media

Social Media has made it easier than ever to spread your seed. Twitter is currently one of the most effective. I launched a viral stunt on there recently, and it spread like wildfire.

Other options are Facebook, Stumbleupon, and even Digg.

At the very least, you will want to have a powerful account on one of these types of sites.

So take 30 mins from your day and start building a power account.

3) Leverage related forums

You have to be careful here. But providing your content is unique, and interesting, you may be able to mention it on a related forum.

You may be seen as spamming, so be careful, but forums are a great way to spread your content virally. After all, forums have a lot of birds.

4) Leverage Your Email Subscribers List

Emailing your list is a powerful technique. These people already like what you do and how you do it, so they are perfect for spreading your seed.

However, don’t over do it, and ensure that you only email your very best content.

5) Leverage Guest Blogging

If you have tried the above and it still hasn’t worked, you could try re-writing the content, and then offering to publish it as a guest blog post on someone else’s website.

You can then include a link and promo piece in the article, and at the very least, this should give you a nice traffic boost and some new readers.

Summary

Jaseem already has 150 people following him on Twitter. So that is a great foundation to build upon. I would aim to keep building that following, and also, bear in mind that content can go viral months, even years later.

I had a post get featured on the Reddit frontpage last week, and it was a post from late 2007 that I had forgotten about.

Above all, keep husting, keep leveraging, and be patient…. it WILL get easier.

Good luck Jaseem.

Dean