6 Essential Viral Marketing Strategies

What is Viral Marketing?

Viral marketing strategies involve the spread of content, in a way that is similar to how a virus spreads – quickly, while infecting many people. Viral marketing gives the potential power, to just about anyone – be it an individual or an organization, to quickly spread their content among a lot of people. Often times, we end up seeing Youtube videos of people’s pets, babies or something else, that have thousands of views, if not millions.

Social mediums such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube are synonymous with any viral marketing strategy, and form the basis of viral marketing. Other important aspects in viral marketing include the messenger(s), the content and the timing.

 

Viral Marketing and SEO

While much of the viral content might be about something interesting that was captured at the right time and place, perhaps due to coincidence or because of sheer luck, and hence might have unintentionally gone viral, a lot of content is being created with the sole purpose of going viral and as part of a wider SEO strategy.

There is simply no denying that going viral almost guarantees a large influx of visitors and traffic to the original source. It can therefore be an excellent and an effect marketing and SEO strategy. Imagine if one of your videos were to go viral, gaining worldwide attention, being featured on a talk-show or being shared millions of times, ending up getting you all sorts of traffic from all sorts of high-PR and authority sources!

‘Kony2012’ would be an apt example here.

Why Viral?

For starters, going viral gives the potential to target thousands of potential customers and potential audience. That precisely is the aim of every SEO strategy, isn’t it: getting targeted traffic. That is exactly what viral marketing does for you; pull in highly-targeted traffic, in large numbers, in a short span of time.

Spreading the word could also come with added advantages from a SEO-perspective such as increased traffic (as explained above), an increased Click-Through Rate (CTR) and Call-To Action (CTA), and a higher conversion rate.

 

Viral Marketing Strategies

So what exactly can one do to ‘go viral’? As stated above, all three factors, namely the content, the messengers and the timing is extremely important to an effective viral marketing strategy. But here is a six-step viral marketing strategy that could work for you:

1. Give stuff for free – freebies, giveaways and promotions which give away stuff for free are a good way to have your content go viral and therefore a guaranteed method of attracting visitors and customers. This could include giving out a free product like a WordPress plugin or an app or even a free domain name or hosting space. Alternatively, offer a service such as a free personal consultation or a coaching session. Do this periodically.
2. Give people permission to re-use your content – whether its images, a video, an article or anything else, giving people the permission to re-use it, share it or reprint it on blogs, websites, social mediums, magazines, their own videos or anywhere else is usually a good way to go viral. Just make sure to add a disclaimer that says that this is free to reproduce as long as the person who does that credits the original uploader/creator.
3. Offer people an incentive – as easy as it is for someone to click on that share button, why would he or she do it? Offer an incentive so that people are forced to share. Ask people to share, like, retweet, +1, or pin your content. Add a ‘recommend to a friend’ box within your app or plugin. And in return, offer them something extra. Every 5 referrals, or every 50 shares earns you an eBook worth $10 free of cost. Dropbox, the popular cloud-storage software, does this to great effect, by offering additional storage on every referral. You could also do a contest by offering a big prize to anyone who shares your content the most.
4. Be funny, use humor – Being funny and humorous is usually a sure-fire way of going viral. This is why we see images like ‘internet memes’ shared by a lot of friends, and Youtube videos showing people and animals doing funny stuff with a very high number of views.
5. Choose multiple forms of media – go for videos, images, press releases, and podcasts.
6. Choosing who to target – in order for your content to spread like wildfire, you need to ensure that as many people as possible hear about it. Post it on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, GooglePlus, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Submit it on content submission directories like StumbleUpon and Reddit. The more places you put your content on, the merrier. Having your content on multiple mediums not only gives it more chances of exposure, it also increases its chances of being picked up and plugged by someone with a high social networking potential (or SNP).

 

Being Prepared for an Influx of Traffic

It is vital to know that going viral would probably mean a large influx of visitors and traffic to your blog. Make sure your hosting package will be able to handle that sort of traffic and/or sales. Being prepared usually pays off in the long run.

 

Optimizing for Conversions

This is not limited to just viral marketing, but also applies to it, as it would apply to any other marketing strategy. All your marketing efforts should be optimized for conversions. Your viral marketing efforts need to have a clear and precise call-to-action – whether it’s to have your viewers like your Facebook page, subscribe to your blog, purchase an item or perform any other action.

Network Marketing

At first glance, this might seem like a completely new and unfamiliar term to you; however network marketing is essentially another word for viral marketing. Network marketing simply refers to networking with people through different online and offline mediums. Connecting with people, especially emotionally, and building contacts is an important aspect of viral marketing. A human being, by nature, is a social animal – use this to your advantage to attain more exposure, traffic and revenue streams.

Concluding Words

Suggestions? Would you like to add something? Leave your comments in the comment section!


Also Read:

• SEO Client Problems and How to Deal With Them
• The Three Pillars Of SEO In 2013: Content, Links, And Social Media
• How to Create an Effective Google AdWords Campaign
• High PageRank (PR) Social Bookmarking Sites
• How to Recover from Google Panda Effect
• Negative SEO: Myths and Facts You Should Be Aware Of
• How to Make Money Blogging
• Matt Cutts: SEO Needs To Focus On Helping Users Not Link Building
• Importance of Social Media in SEO
• Have Google's Panda and Penguin Replaced SEO With Social, PR and Content, or a New Type of Savvy Marketing?
• On Page SEO Guide – How To Rank Higher And Get More Traffic
• 20 Ways to Get More Website Traffic This Year (Ethically!)
• 6 Ways SEO Will Change in 2013
• Penguin 2.0 SEO Update - Google Updates Things Again!
• Top 21 SEO Tips and Tricks to Follow in 2013
• Difference between Google Panda and Google Penguin
• 7 SEO Tasks to Complete Before Even Thinking about Hiring an Agency
• 5 Devastating Local SEO Mistakes—and How to Avoid Them

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The Three Pillars Of SEO In 2013: Content, Links, And Social Media

A good SEO strategy is the difference between your business easily being found online and getting lost in the noise of thousands of other businesses trying to stand out. With Google’s ever-changing algorithm, it can be difficult to know what’s effective here and now.

In 2013, success in SEO hinges on businesses putting together a robust combination strategy that brings together an integrated web of great content, credible links, and social signals. Each of these pieces supports the other, providing tremendous value to readers, building your authority and brand value, and distributing your content across new channels. Here are the highlights of what to think about in terms of each of the three pillars of great SEO.
 

Content (Pillar #1): Make The Most of What’s On Your Pages
The first pillar of an effective SEO strategy is your onsite content and structure. From the way you organize your site to how you optimize your content, there are five key aspects that will ensure that your content is doing its job. A strong on-site SEO plan includes keyword research, content optimization, user experience, site design, and the presence of a blog with great content that’s updated frequently. Let’s take a closer look at each one.
Keyword research: The foundation of your SEO strategy is keyword research. The concept is simple: you can only optimize your site once you know how your target market searches for the products/services you have to offer. Google’s Keyword Tool is designed to help advertisers in the Adwords Program target effective keywords for their paid advertisements. But it’s a free, robust tool that can be used by website owners that want to better understand the range of keywords people are using to get to their site. Try these three strategies to get started:

1. Brainstorm a list of phrases related to your business, brand, products, industry, location, and customers. Once you’ve developed that list, enter each of these words into the Google Keyword Tool to see what related terms are recommended by Google. Google’s suggestions will greatly expand your keyword list. Pay attention to long-tail keywords (e.g. “apartments in West Hollywood near beach” vs. “Hollywood”). They’re easier to rank for and just as important as your major keywords.
2. Enter your site URL into the website box in the Google Keyword Tool. It will scan your site, and come back with a list of recommended terms that you are currently ranking for or could target. Many of these suggested terms are will be great keywords for your site.
3. Create a list of competitor sites and enter each of those URLs into the Keyword Tool. Your competitors may be ranking well for specific terms that you hadn’t thought about. While you never want to directly copy a competitors’ keyword strategy, it can often inform your approach and round out options you hadn’t thought of yet.

Keyword structure: Once you’ve developed a list of keywords, take the time to organize them. One simple way to do this is by taking a look at your website structure and mapping keywords to the major sections. For example, if you’re an SEO firm serving customers in New York and New Jersey, you might have pages with different options for travel rates for in-person meetings and other details by location. That way, when individuals are searching for “SEO Firm Manhattan” they’re likely to find your site. Knowing what sections of your site are targeting specific keywords and gearing your content optimization toward those goals will move your SEO efforts forward more quickly.

Content optimization: Once you’ve researched your keywords, you’ll need to optimize your content for those terms. Content optimization is not about stuffing keywords into every available opportunity or even meeting a specific formula of “keywords must appear X times per 500 words”. Instead, just remember to include your primary keyword is included in your article title and meta tags. Remember that each page (or unique URL) represents an individual piece of content that can be optimized for different, specific phrases and conversion goals.

User experience (UX): User experience is simply a way of encapsulating the question: when people visit your site, are they able to quickly and efficiently do what they want? For example, if they’re trying to make a purchase or find specific information, is it easy to locate the menu or complete the task? If the answer is no, it may be hurting your search rankings.

One easy way to figure out if your user experience needs to be improved is to look at your bounce rate on Google Analytics. A bounce is a visitor that leaves your site without visiting more than a single page. If a high percentage of people are bouncing from your site, you may be ranking for irrelevant terms or your site design may be too complicated. Ask yourself what people are trying to accomplish, and look at ways you can make that easier.

Initial things to look at are making sure your navigation is easy to use, that your site design is as clean and uncluttered as possible, and that big actions are highlighted in clear and effective ways. Consider hiring a professional UX designer to help you evaluate your site if you’re having trouble breaking through on this point. It’s possible to design your site in such a way that you not only achieve optimal SEO, but also optimal conversion rates.
Site design: Is your site design clean and professional? There’s an assumption, by both search engines and visitors, that a site that looks spammy is spammy. If you’re trying to build an authority site but are working on a highly out of date design, consider upgrading to a simple website on WordPress. WordPress is an easy to use content management system with many excellent designs (called templates) available for free. Premium templates range anywhere from $20 to a few hundred dollars, and allow you to specifically customize your site. Some of the best templates can compete with world-class designs.

Regularly updated blog: Since Google’s Freshness Update, there’s a ranking premium for sites that are regularly getting new content. The easiest way to do this is through the addition of a blog. By regularly adding articles that are valuable for your readers – from timely pieces that comment on trends and news to evergreen pieces like how-to’s or product reviews – you’ll build your authority and improve your search rankings.

Another benefit of regularly blogging is that it quickly builds the amount of content that you can rank for in the search engines. A well-developed strategy can help you target many of your keywords through ongoing blog development. Think of each blog post as another raffle ticket you throw in the hat for being listed in search engine results pages.

Inbound Links (Pillar #2): The Infrastructure of Connections

Links give Google one very important signal: another site or reader found material on your webpage valuable and relevant enough for them to link to it. The more links you get, the more valuable your content is deemed to be by search engines. More likes also builds trust and authority, causing your pages to rank higher, driving more traffic.

In the past, link building was a numbers game. Links came from simple tactics that included listing your site in a bunch of directories, linking to your site from comments on blogs, and other transactions that focused more on having someone dedicate the time to “link building” than actually focusing on creating value for readers.

Today, link building is still critically important, but there’s more pressure to build high quality links. Sites that you’re linking from need to be reputable and relevant to your industry. Here are some strategies to build links that also build your brand and authority in your niche.

Guest blogging: There’s an increased focus today on guest blogging as site owners look for organic ways to build links. Guest blogging is simple: you find and pitch an appropriate blog with an offer to write a post geared toward their audience. When you’re guest blogging, look for reputable blogs that are relevant to your industry and subject matter.

Press release distribution:  Press releases are another way to build links to your site and help build brand recognition for your business. There are two keys for effective press release distribution. The first is to find a newsworthy story to write about in your release, or to find a relevant hook in the broader news landscape. For example, if you are a coach for administrative assistants looking for new opportunities and its Administrative Professionals Day, your press release is more likely to be widely picked up.

This syndication effect will help you build inbound links. It may also lead to valuable news coverage with publications running your story or reporters asking you to act as a source. The second piece of leveraging press releases is to use an effective press release distribution service. It doesn’t have to cost you hundreds of dollars. In fact, many are free. But make sure that whatever you choose is active and reputable. A popular choice is PRWeb.

Repackaging existing content: Building links to your site doesn’t require an army of writers constantly developing new content (although it certainly doesn’t hurt!). Instead, look at your existing content and see how it can be repackaged across platforms and mediums. Do you have a great, data-driven blog post? That could be the foundation of a fantastic and highly viral infographic. A case study or white paper could be paired with some simple imagery and turned into video content for YouTube and Vimeo. A newsletter distributed by email could be turned into guest posts or social media content.

Leverage real world connections into links: Are you sponsoring local events in your community, such as little league groups or a networking event? Perhaps you’re speaking at a conference or doing pro-bono consulting for a non-profit? Do you belong to any professional associations, speakers organizations, or civic groups? Many of the above opportunities will come with the chance to list yourself on their website, along with a bio or company description and a website link. Sit down and do an audit of these options – especially ones you may already be a part of and not using effectively. Circle back and have your site listed where possible, and be on the lookout for these opportunities in the future.

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How to Create an Effective Google AdWords Campaign

Useful pay per click campaigns should be viewed as a useful addition to a current, organic campaign rather than something that stands on its own with no support. In other words, relying solely on pay per click campaigns to drive traffic to your website has the ability to siphon your marketing budget in quick time!

But what if you need customers and you need them now? Here's how to create an effective Google AdWords campaign that won't get your accountant off side. But first, a quick look at the benefits of what an AdWords campaign brings to the table:

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Negative SEO: Myths and Facts You Should Be Aware Of

There are two ways to get ahead of the competition. Either you establish yourself as a better option. Or you prove your rival to be worse. The same goes with SEO, at least as far as the concept of negative SEO or anti-SEO has been making the rounds on the web. Even today, negative SEO is a matter for important concern for many website publishers or online businesses.

Usually, you’ll hear that there’s nothing like negative SEO.

If Google has to be believed (which you have to, as long as you are fairly Google-dependent), there’s almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your keyword rankings. Then Google comes up saying that it works really hard to prevent a rival from harming a specific site’s search rankings.

If there’s no such thing as negative SEO, why does Google try to prevent it? This is a question that any inquisitive guy like me would ask.

Moreover, why does someone need a Disavow Links tool?

Right from the day the concept or issue of negative SEO emerged, it’s also been associated with a lot of guesses. Webmasters have been continuously thinking when something like this can happen, how it actually happens and what do once someone’s in trouble due to reverse SEO.
Well, there are both myths and facts.

Though negative SEO is very real (under certain situations), it’s also given rise to plenty of myths. If you lack adequate SEO knowledge, it’s quite easy to give in to the most common myths of negative search engine optimization.

The biggest of these myths is, it can happen easily, with anyone. To tell you the truth, negative or anti-SEO also requires tons of knowledge in order to implement such a campaign with all the effectiveness. Moreover, large businesses or companies are mostly targeted by spammers who try to ruin search rankings by way of creating lots of spammy links pointing back to the competitors’ websites or blogs.

An extreme situation, in this regard, is where you want to blame negative SEO for everything that happens to your site.

Many people think that negative SEO can harm just any website’s rankings, which is not true at all. Most of the time, negative SEO will not do any harm at all to websites that have long been there or established. For example, Rand Fishkin openly invited spammers to do negative SEO to SEOmoz. The more credible an online resource you are, the harder it is to break into.

In any case, it’s vital to increase your knowledge base on the topic of negative SEO if it ever happens (god forbid!) to your own site. This includes making yourself aware of those key tactics that spammer make use of while trying to ruin the search rankings of a site through negative SEO.

Most Common ways for Negative SEO a Website:

Spammy Links – This is commonest one. In order to harm your site’s rankings, the spammers will try to point ‘tons of bad links’ to your domain. The results of this spammy practice will vary depending on the strength of the link profile.

Hacking into Your Site – Another form of negative SEO is that where the spammer would try to hack your site first. Once hacked, they’ll most probably stop or block Google from crawling your site’s pages.

Report a Site as Spam – Spammers can also report to Google that your site is packed with spam or indulges in spammy activities. Since Google always welcomes such complaints, spammers benefit from it.
Though there are several other (really hard) ways of doing reverse SEO, the ones you see above are among the commonest.

As you can see, there’s no one single magical solution that you can use to protect your web properties against the evil effects of negative SEO. However, you can definitely bolster up your position in a way that makes it simply unviable to launch a negative SEO attack against your site. Here is a video by Matt Cutts, where he talked about negative SEO:

Conclusion Yes, negative SEO is very very real. If you don’t believe me, you should at least wait till the time some dirty spammer ruins the search engine presence of your own website or one of your friends’.  To make it really hard for your rivals to start a negative SEO campaign against your web properties, you should avoid mistakes that would make you vulnerable to such attacks.

At the same time, you need to keep a close watch at the link profile and the overall SEO health of your website or blog, consistently.

Also Read: 

• 20 Ways to Get More Website Traffic This Year (Ethically!)

  • Google Penguin Update: An SEO update to Look out for

    • Matt Cutts: SEO Needs To Focus On Helping Users Not Link Building

      • 6 Ways SEO Will Change in 2013

        • Have Google's Panda and Penguin Replaced SEO With Social, PR and Content, or a New Type of Savvy Marketing?

          • Importance of Social Media in SEO
          • On Page SEO Guide – How To Rank Higher And Get More ...
          •  

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How to Make Money Blogging

You must know the key for your online success. Internet is a 24/7 marketing medium. It is a global medium where people look for information to solve their problems. If you use this medium to market them the crucial information or online product and solve their problems, in return they pay you for the solutions.

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1. One of the truly great things about blogs is that they are a means of self-expression. In a world where it can be difficult to be heard, they provide a convenient way of airing your opinions and broadcasting your ideas. There is nothing more rewarding than blogging about your passions and interests. It is also a brilliant way to enter the world of writing.
   

2 Blogs are very cheap to set up and maintain. Another great benefit from blogging is that they are very cheap to run. There are only two components to a blog that cost you: your domain name and web hosting fees. For as little as EUR10 a month you can have your blog up and running. There are even websites that provide free hosting and domain names, thereby, costing you nothing. Although I would recommend that you pay for both hosting and having your own domain name, as in the long run it is much more beneficial.

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Blogging software is very easy to use and there is lots of support from dedicated websites such as WordPress. Plus there are also many forums and guides available to giving the novice a helping hand. WordPress offers many plug-in features which can maximise your blog's potential.

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A blog is a very easy way to generate income. There are many ways to earn money from advertising, sponsorship, affiliate programmes, to selling your own products. Many people successfully earn healthy incomes from blogging.

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Blogs can be used to target niche markets. You can target a certain niche that is generating a lot of interest and write product reviews on your blog. You can then earn money through affiliate marketing by sending interested readers to product vendors.

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You can also generate a lot of traffic through your blog with relatively little effort thanks to great support structures in place for blog users. The above are just some of many reasons why you should have your own blog up and running.

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Having a blog can really add to your credibility in the marketplace. It allows your readers to get a sense of who you are as a person. This is very important in building rapport for future business relationships. A blog is also a great way of giving you a platform so that you will be heard above the masses.

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The better your blog's content the better your results will be. So make it interesting and you will surprise yourself with the results

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A Quick Blog: Methods for a quick Blog

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Your blog can make money with Clickbank.

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Your blog can make money with Affiliate.

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Your blog can make money with Google.

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The most important thing is traffic to your site.You can use:

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Emailmarketing

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Article marketing software

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Social networking…

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PayPerPost.com will give you a fee for posting a product review on your blog. Keep in mind, however, a lot of bloggers consider undisclosed advertisements very unethical. So only post reviews where you are allowed to disclose that it's a paid product review. Most people don't realize that a lot of so-called television news stories are really sponsored paid slots. That's why there are so many stories about the next health food, next health study, next financial product. Bloggers don't like this.

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Matt Cutts: SEO Needs To Focus On Helping Users Not Link Building

Google’s head of search spam Matt Cutts has addressed a number of factors to do with digital marketing in his latest video post entitled ‘What are some misconceptions in the SEO industry’.

In the five minute YouTube video, he looked to clarify one of the biggest misunderstandings in the industry, the difference between algorithm updates and data refreshes, as well as dismissing claims Panda and Penguin were all about generating short term revenue for Google. He also suggested SEO firms needed to focus their efforts away from link building.

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In terms of algorithm updates compared to a data refresh, the main difference lies in the fact an algorithm update involves changes to how the algorithm works to rank, index or filter search results.

So, the recent Penguin 2.0 for example was an algorithm update. A data refresh on the other hand, is, as the name suggests, a refresh of the data within the existing algorithm, usually only making very small changes to how it works as a whole.

In the YouTube video, Google’s distinguished engineer also added there was a misconception among many within the SEO industry that Panda and Penguin updates were all about making the search engine giant money in the short term.

However, Cutts immediately rejected such concerns, suggesting algorithm and organic search were separate from its revenue goals. If anything, he believes Panda has the opposite effect as Google is cutting out the low quality spammy sites, highly monetised via AdSense.

Cutts also said many SEO firms were still concentrating too much of their time on link building and understanding search engines, rather than the users themselves.

He said it would be in their interest to look to social media and other such areas in order to develop more awareness of their site.

Also Visit:

Importance of Social Media in SEO

 

Google Penguin Update: An SEO update to Look out for

 

6 Ways SEO Will Change in 2013

 

Have Google's Panda and Penguin Replaced SEO With Social, PR and Content, or a New Type of Savvy Marketing?

 

On Page SEO Guide – How To Rank Higher And Get More Traffic 

 

20 Ways to Get More Website Traffic This Year (Ethically!)

 

 

 

 

 

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