Follow the exact viral marketing process a tiny, unknown blog used to become the most talked about site on the internet – bringing in a server crashing amount of traffic (literally) and thousands of new backlinks from sites like The Huffington Post, Buzzfeed and Yahoo.
Link building can often be a slow process; pumping out content, building connections, reaching out in the hope of picking up links.
But sometimes, when you get the formula just right, something magical happens.
And it looks a little bit like this: –
Yes, that’s a website going from 0 referring domains on the 28th July, to 193 referring domains on the 2nd of August.
‘So what!’ you may think, ‘I could build a thousand automated links tonight while I’m asleep!’
But just take a look at where these links are coming from: –
And in case you were wondering, no, these are not parasite pages, or anything so uncouth.
These are 100% bonafide, in-content, editorial links.
Want to know what happened?
Well, let’s take a closer look at how one website owner managed to leverage the power of viral marketing, to get the world’s press talking about (and linking to) his site.
It all starts with a can of coke.
The Secret Recipe
Legend has it that coca-cola’s secret formula is a closely guarded secret.
Indeed it has been claimed that only 2 employees are aware of the exact formula at any given time.
Fortunately, when it comes to SEO, things are not quite so secret, and we can use the power of Ahrefs to reverse engineer the formula for this particular viral marketing success story.
And as it happens, the ingredients are actually quite simple.
Here they are: –
- 1 x decent quality infographic
- 1 x share in the right place
- 1 x emotive topic
- A dash of controversy
- Actually, this last one is super secret, but read on and we’ll reveal it!
Now, let’s look at each of these ingredients in a little more detail.
Secret Ingredient #1: 1 x Decent Quality Infographic
Ok, so time to reveal the content that was responsible for this sudden burst of links.
On the 3rd of May 2015, Niraj, from a website called ‘The Renegade Pharmacist’ posted an article titled ‘What Happens One Hour After Drinking A Can Of Coke’ (you can find it here).
The information, and claims for the article appear to have been taken from a piece written by someone called Wade Meredith, for a site called Health Bolt, way back in 2006.
The original piece now returns a 404 error (looks like the site has changed hands), but I managed to pull it up on archive.org.
In a nutshell, according to Wade, drinking coca-cola is bad news for your body. Like, seriously bad.
Anyway, Niraj used Wade’s claims to create a shiny new infographic for his own post.
And for the next 2 months…
…nothing happened.
Until he (or someone else) added ingredient number 2.
Secret Ingredient #2: 1 x Share In The Right Place
Before continuing, I should caveat the following, by saying that I cannot be 100% sure on the sequence, but using Ahrefs tools allows me to make a pretty confident assessment of what took place.
So, caveat in place, let’s proceed.
We will use Ahrefs ‘New’ feature under ‘Referring Domains’ to take a look at how the links started to roll in.
Running the report for the domain shows us that on the 29th of July there were 12 new referring domains.
And here they are…
Does one stick out?
Yep. It’s reddit.
Let’s take a look at the specific share.
If we pardon the french, that particular subreddit is one I know very well. It’s a very popular and active sub, with over half a million subscribers.
If a link is popular in there, you can be sure you will get a lot of traffic to your site.
Here is an example from a site I launched back in March, that received over 3,000 visits from the sub 2 days after going live. As it happens, the content that was shared was also an infographic.
Now, interestingly, when I tried to find the original share on reddit for The Renegade Pharmacist’s post, it appears to have been removed, however, I am assuming that in the time it was live, it: –
a) did well
b) was seen by a lot of people
c) at least one of those people had some major clout
Because what happened next is the post started to pick up some serious viral traction.
Running the url through Ahrefs Content Explorer shows us that the page has now been shared over 16,000 times on facebook and a few hundred times on other social networks:
And then, the really cool stuff happens.
The infographic started to be picked up by some major news sites.
Like yahoo…
And The Huffington Post…
So, why did they pick it up? What made this simple infographic so special?
Well, that brings us on to ingredient number 3.
Secret Ingredient #3: 1 x emotive (and current) topic
If you want your link building efforts to go viral, then ingredient number 3 is a big part of the formula.
Tapping into a subject that generates a strong emotional response in readers is one of the key ingredients for a viral take off.
Niraj’s post ticked all the right boxes:-
- It’s about health (that’s a pretty personal thing right there)
- Specifically, it’s about sugar (we all know sugar is evil right?)
- It’s about a big brand (sugar + negative effect on our health + big brand = ultimate evil)
Additionally, since science decided that it was sugar, not fat, that was causing us all to die young and obese, it’s never been out of the news.
So an infographic on just how nasty coke really is, was a good choice for both:-
a) going viral (generating a lot of shares)
b) being of interest to the media.
And it certainly seemed to work.
But, here’s when things get really interesting.
Secret Ingredient #4: A dash of controversy
By the 30th July, the infographic was showing up everywhere. There were links from The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan… even Playboy.
But while most of these outlets were blithely reprinting the infographic as fact, there were some sites who started to question the validity of the information.
Sites such as viral media giant Buzzfeed.
And, it turns out that coke, may not be quite so evil after all.
Buzzfeed claim to have spoken to leading scientists in the fields of nutritional biology (regarding the sugar) and addictive disorders (regarding the caffeine), who advised them that the claims made in the infographic were either false, or at the very least, a little overstated.
You can read Buzzfeed’s rebuttal here.
Still, whatever, that’s a nice juicy link right there.
And once Buzzfeed starts talking about your site…
…the WHOLE INTERNET is talking about your site.
So, the controversy that the facts may not check out was only adding fuel to the viral link explosion flames, and by the end of the day, the site had picked up another 118 referring domains.
Sweet!
Which brings us to the final ingredient in our link explosion formula.
Secret Ingredient #5: 1 x Incurring the wrath of a big brand
Here is a link to Buzzfeed’s facebook share of their post (link).
Browsing the comments, there is a common theme.
Now, I will leave it up to you to form your own opinion, but it is certainly not outwith the realms of possibility that a brand the size of Coca-Cola would be willing to spend a few thousand dollars on some ‘advertorial’ type content to mitigate bad press.
I am not saying that’s what happened here.
But hypothetically speaking…
…incurring the wrath of a big brand, with mountains of money to spend on PR, might pick you up some juicy links.
Just don’t do anything that is liable to get you sued!
So What Did All This Buzz Do For The Renegade Pharmacist?
Well, it’s safe to say that they will have received a lot of traffic over the past week.
While we don’t have access to actual figures, we can take a look at some trends and statistics that would be indicative of a huge spike.
Firstly, Ahrefs shows an organic traffic increase (more like a mountain) starting on the 31st July and peaking on the 1st August.
Secondly, Google trends shows searches for ‘coca cola’ spiking on the 31st July. We can be pretty confident that those additional searches were due to the spread of the infographic.
Finally, we have anecdotal evidence directly from The Renegade Pharmacist, who on the 30th July, posted on their facebook page that traffic had ‘blown up’ their site.
Clearly, this spike will start to subside over the next week, but with the number of high quality editorial links from premium sites boosting their domain authority, and no doubt a shed load of citations/mentions on top, it is a pretty safe bet that their organic search traffic will be hugely increased across the board from now on.
And the backlinks are still coming in…
Viral Marketing: A Recipe For Success
The simple combination of an infographic that resonates with a wide audience, a share in the right place, and a dash of controversy, sparked an explosion of traffic and links that is sure to massively boost the organic reach of The Renegade Pharmacist.
Right at the start of this article I mentioned that:
‘when you get the formula right, something magical happens’
But hopefully you will realise that, really, there’s nothing magical here.
It’s all about selecting the right topic, creating great content, and getting it in front of the right eyeballs.
Tick these boxes and leverage the power of viral marketing to skyrocket your own SEO.
So, over to you!
Oh… actually… before I go…
Want to know how you can tap into someone else viral marketing success to bring tens of thousands of new visitors to your own site?
Well, find out in our viral content case study.
