How to write powerful blog posts that go viral (even if you’re not a “writer”)

Photo by Alice Donovan Rouse on Unsplash

When I first entered the arena of online entrepreneurship and started looking for different ways to get my name out there, I couldn’t help but see the importance of blogging everywhere I looked.

Whether that was in the form of content marketing that brings prospects to my site, or SEO that gives me free traffic from Google for years to come…

It didn’t take me long to realize this is something I should do, but I had one minor problem…I had no idea where to start.

So naturally, I reverted back to my college days and created essays that made me look like a “professional” (a.k.a stuck up prick)…

But no matter how hard I tried or how much keyword optimization I did, these articles would always fall flat on their face and get 10 readers max — meaning I’d wasted over 400 hours of my time for no results.

This was extremely demoralizing and I thought about quitting (for good reason), but after a little bit of thought and realizing that I didn’t have any other choice…

I decided to double down and purchase a $1,500 Copywriting course that taught me a simple formula on how to craft blogs that actually do some good.

Then funny enough, within 3 weeks of finishing this course I’d started to get published on larger websites (including Yahoo Finance) and within little time, I was able to write articles that got 1K views every time.

This gave me all the momentum I needed and to date, my most viral blog article has received over 15K views…

All by following a simple formula that I’m going to share with you today.

Part 1: The headline

The main purpose of any article is to have the visitor read your entire article then take action (whether that be something small like following you, or something larger — like purchasing your book)…

So the entire article is important, but without an attention-grabbing headline that sticks out and brings visitors to your blog — then well, it really doesn’t matter how good your article is.

This is the same reason why old marketers (i.e. David Ogilvy) say how 80% of your advertising is spent on the headline, making it a pretty big deal that most writers mess up…

But here’s the good news, with right process, it’s really not that hard to do — and here’s exactly how I’ve created some of my best headlines.

Step #1 — Write down your top-level idea

Most people tell you to write your headline after you’ve created the entire article, and I honestly think that’s terrible advice.

Why?

Because when you create your headline first, it gives you direction on what the rest of your article is going to be about.

This is the same reason why I start by writing my top-level ideas (minimum of 3) and to give you an example of this, here’s the 3 things I wrote down for this article:

Top-Level Ideas

If you follow this simple formula, you can write blogs that go viral
Good writing can only take you so far, you need structure
Here’s a proven formula that’ll help you craft blogs that go viral

Then once you have these in place, it’s time reformat each of them into a “plain english” headline that follows one of the 8 headline principles:

The 8 Principles of Headlines

Ask a question that directly relates to your product and make the reader answer it

“What would you do if you earned $1,000 or more on the side using skills you already have?”

2. When in doubt, use a “how” headline

“How to win friends and influence people” or “How to find your Dream Job — even in this economy”

3. Tell a surprising story

“A Little Mistake That Cost a Farm $3,000 a Year”

4. Use lists as headlines

“8 career-stalling secrets most job counselors don’t even know about”

5. Announce news that’s novel and relevant to the reader

“Finally, a system to earn money on the side that isn’t scammy or sleazy”

6. Make the Headline time-sensitive/urgent.

“Learn the 7 reasons why most entrepreneurs fail before I pull this free report forever,” or “Gone forever: the investment plan Congress is shutting down permanently next week — here’s how to take advantage while there’s still time!”

7. Give the reader useful information

“Free guide reveals the 7 mistakes that prevent people from finding their Dream Job”

8. Create mystery

“Is this hidden tax known only to Washington insiders siphoning off 13% of your business’s earnings?”

Applying these to the top-level ideas I created above, I came up with:

Finally, a simple formula that allows you to create viral blogs
A Simple Structure That Allowed Me to Create Viral Blogs (In Half The Time)
How to Create Blog Posts That Go Viral (In Half the Time)

And at this point, I always know what 95% of my headline is going to be (I pump it up later), which allows me to jump into:

Part 2 — Creating the outline

One of the biggest struggles I had in my early days of writing was just getting words on the paper.

I never had any direction on what I wanted to write and would spend countless hours trying to figure out my flow and structure, but then as I learned in Ramit Sethi’s Call To Action course…

All of this is taken care of with one simple outline.

This honestly blew my mind as I didn’t think one simple outline could fix a problem that consumed 6 hours of my day, but since I paid $1,500 for this course I decided to give it a try…

And sure enough, after doing this for the first time, I wrote a blog in 3 hours — which was an amazing improvement from my old standard of 6 hours (if not more).

Now the time has continued to improve over the years and 3 hours sounds like a long-time now, but to this day I continue to use outlines…

And here’s the exact template I use:

Headline -

Introduction

Open with a hook (important to keep their engagement right away)

Part 1 -

Main Point #1
Main Point #2
Main Point #3

Part 2 -

Main Point #1
Main Point #2
Main Point #3

Part 3 -

Main Point #1
Main Point #2
Main Point #3

Conclusion

Then after you have this filled out, you honestly have 80% of the article completed…

Which means we’re ready to move on to:

Part 3 — Tying it all together

So by this point we’ve already done most of the work, and now we just need to put it into a blog format.

Over the years I’ve learned a few different ways to do this, but my all-time favorite quote (regarding this topic) is found on Nicolas Cole’s website where he mentions…

“Becoming a thought leader is about answering your target customers’ questions with your own personal story”

I love this quote for many reasons, but the 2 main takeaways you should get from this is:

Never write about something that you’ve never experienced. There’s already enough spun content and worthless advice out there, so please don’t muddy the waters anymore. BUT, at the same time, everybody has experiences they can share — so don’t take that the wrong way either
Write articles like you’re talking to a friend. Nobody likes academic jargon that puts them to sleep, which is why you’ll hear every marketing guru talk about the power of storytelling

And that’s it!

That’s honestly all you need to do in order to complete the remaining 5% and finish the article.

Additional considerations:

Try not to worry about length too much, just make sure you include everything you need to say. As a general rule of thumb, any article under 800 words has no meat and is essentially worthless, but at the same time, you shouldn’t write a 10,000 word article just to write a 10,000 word article (nobody likes fluff)
Images always help. I’ve always noticed that screenshots of your results tend to work the best, but if you want to include funny pictures, those always help too. Oh, and don’t forget about videos either
P.S. Don’t forget about the main blog images either. Unsplash.com tends to be the best (free) site for this
Typography can also go along way, but not necessary. If there’s something important that you’d like to stand out, then go ahead and bold it…but again, it’s not necessary
Never forget to hyperlink any credible sources that you’ve used (like what I did with Ramit’s course). Not only is it good karma, but it also shows Google that you have good sources…which also means you’ll rank higher.
Always remember a call to action at the end (follow me, sign-up for my free course, email me, check out my site, etc.)

Long story short

As with everything in life, writing is a skill that improves over time…

But if you use these simple tactics I guarantee you’ll expedite the process and start getting thousands of views in no time.