This guest post is by Jason Towne of TopThreeDaily.com.
I'm new to the blogosphere, but thanks to tips from ProBlogger and a few others, I decided to make the plunge and start my own blog. It's only been a little over a week. The day after my site went live I had nearly 2,000 pageviews and 500 unique visitors. Within the next 24 hours those numbers doubled and then I soon passed 8,000 unique visitors and 20,000 pageviews. In the week that we've been up, the site rose over 2.4 million spots on Alexa.
Keep in mind I had no experience whatsoever with blogging, social media, or technology. How did I do it?
Optimizing the WTF? factor
The first and most important thing I did was to research what, and how, blog posts go viral. I began by researching the concept of linkbaiting, starting with ProBlogger's classic post, and then continued to study Buzzfeed, Popurls, and other sites to get a feel for what gets spread around. One thing I learned is that titles that make people say WTF? are winners. For instance, my first viral article, 6 Bible Thumping Tips that Will Save Your Butt!, only had a chance because the title was so intriguing. I know this because I sent out that exact same article twice, with two inferior titles, and it went nowhere. When I changed the name, it took off like a rocket.
Now that I’ve had several viral articles in a row, I'm confident that a quality title is everything. Here's a trick that I use.
First, focus on either list posts or how-to guides. Both of those bring amazing results over and over. Second, think of something that's traditionally considered a "negative," combine it with a "positive," and you've built instant interest. For instance, "Bible Thumping" is usually used in a derogatory way, but "saving your butt" is a good thing. You could do the same with any negative and any positive. For instance, diseases are bad and money is good. So how about an article titled, 5 Diseases I...
