Exactly How I Got a Stampede of Web Traffic
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Dean here again from www.deanhunt.com – Today I will show you exactly how I milked an article to get a stampede of web traffic.
Today I am going to show you a step by step guide on exactly how I got a random story onto the Digg.com main page LAST WEEK.
Here is the back story: My biz partner bet me $1000 that I couldn’t get a random article onto the Digg.com main page.
He found 3 random articles:
1) A self help article
2) A gadget review article
3) A religious article
He gave me a time limit of 3 weeks to transform one of these articles and get the new version on the Digg.com main page. I could modify the article, but couldn’t do a complete re-write:
Spoiler Alert: I got the self help article onto the Digg.com main page 48 hours later. I didn’t even need to use articles 2 and 3.
I took a few screenshots, and I am going to show you the EXACT tricks and techniques I used to do this.
Here is the article that I had to transform into viral gold: http://www.procrastinationhelp.com/humor/procrastinators-creed
Here is my version of the story: http://retiredat21.com/10-step-guide-to-thinking-like-a-loser/
Here is my version at Digg.com: http://digg.com/offbeat_news/10_Step_Guide_To_Thinking_Like_A_Loser
I thought that the original article was pretty good, but there was no way it was going to get on the Digg main page. So I knew I had a lot of work to do to create some viral content.
The Dilemma
Many people contact me and say “Dean, I would love to get some viral success for my site, but I don’t have your creativity”. My answer is that ANYONE can get millions of visitors for ANY article. But 99.99% of marketing experts prefer to talk the talk instead of walking the walk, so the only way I could prove just how easy it can be, is to use an EXISTING article and transform it.
My dilemma was that I was technically using someone else’s content. This was a catch22 for me. If I create an article from scratch, people will just say it was my creativity that did it, if I use someone else’s article, then it is not morally correct.
However, this case study should help thousands of webmasters achieve viral and buzz marketing success.
To be honest, the content in the original article is nothing new, but I have credited the original article anyway.
Below are nine of the main techniques and tricks I used to transform the article into a buzz article. Remember, this mini-series is not just about Digg.com, if you create buzz with your article then you will be mentioned on authority sites and powerful blogs.
Trick 1: A Global Appeal
This trick is based on the law of averages. I am sure you are all familiar with the term “niche”, well here is the trick… niche-focused articles often aren’t as successful with viral content as content with a global appeal.
Here is an example: Let’s presume that 100 people see the original procrastinator’s article. Of that 100, 40 of them have never heard the term “procrastination”, so they are not going to enjoy it. Let’s also assume that another 20 are not going to fully understand or appreciate the humor in the article. Finally, let’s presume that a further 10 people don’t understand the word creed.
Note: Don’t make the mistake of presuming all your readers speak fluent English.
So from this example we have alienated 70% of all the readers.
An article simply cannot go viral with ease if 70% of all readers are not going to understand it.
So clearly I had to make it have a more global appeal.
Step one was to change the focus from procrastination to not being a loser. What % of people are familiar with the term loser? I am guessing close to 100%.
In one simple step I have increased the probability of this article being a success by 70%, simply by changing the focus/topic.
Trick 2: The Negativity Slant
This is an area I have studied a lot over the past few years. Here is how it works:
Content with a negative slant will get discussed more than a positive slant.
“Bad news travels faster than good news”, and we can use this knowledge to our advantage. Have you noticed what % of the news is bad news? It is a HUGE %.
Look at the buzz stories of the past month and here are some of the articles you will see:
• iPhone disappointments
• George Bush (almost always negative)
• Paris Hilton prison stories (mostly negative)
Did you know that Paris Hilton created an official petition to prevent her from going to prison?
Did you know that there was also a petition at http://jailparishilton.com/ by some entrepreneur that claims: “She did the crime, she should serve the time,
no special treatment!”
The “Jail Paris Hilton” petition got more than three times as many names as the official one, and the site has had millions of hits.
Trust me, a negative slant will ALWAYS have more chance of going viral.
I personally saw the effects of this phenomenon with the “Bizzare Google request” blog post that was described as the “viral marketing success of 2006”: http://deanhunt.com/bizzare-google-request/
So here is what I did to the original article… instead of saying something positive like “How to procrastinate less” or “How to succeed with procrastination”, I made it negative with my title “10 Step Guide to Thinking Like a Loser”, you can see my version here: http://retiredat21.com/10-step-guide-to-thinking-like-a-loser/
Trick 3: The Killer Headline
Unlike the other two tricks, this one is common knowledge…
You can have a great piece of content, but if your headline sucks, your content will NOT get seen.
ORIGINAL HEADLINE: “Procrastinator’s Creed”
Do you think this is a good headline?
I have already shown you why around 70% of Internet users will NOT like this title. So let’s look at my headline again:
VIRAL GOLD HEADLINE: “10 Step Guide to Thinking Like a Loser”
Which do you think will grab people’s attention?
Below I am going to show you in detail why this headline is an absolute killer headline.
Trick 4: 10 Steps to Viral Heaven
Ok, here is the trick… people love lists! There have been many discussions about why lists are so powerful in Digg.com, but we can save that for another time… all you need to know is that Internet readers LOVE lists. Anything in list format is a surefire winner with the Digg crowd.
Note: Apparently “top 7” is the magic number: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/05/22/top-7-lists-lead-the-pack-on-digg
This was another killer mistake that the original author made. He ALREADY had the content in list format, he just messed up the headline by not including a top 10.
So to improve the original article I simple added a number to the headline. Easy!
Trick 5: Stand out from the crowd
This trick applies to both your headline and your content. The Internet is a VERY crowded place, and there are millions of webmasters who are trying to grab some attention. So if you want to get noticed then you MUST stand out from the crowd.
Seth Godin uses this as the focus of his “Purple Cow” book http://www.sethgodin.com/purple/
There are hundreds of thousands of articles on procrastination, and I knew that I had to stand out from the crowd with my version, so I created a headline that would achieve that.
I guarantee that my headline really stood out from the crowd at Digg.com
If you are struggling to think of ways to be creative with your content, then grab a pen and paper and just start writing as many wacky ideas as possible. Be creative, controversial, edgy, wacky, unique… try it all.
You can never be too creative!
Trick 6: Curiosity Killed The Cat
Curiosity may have killed the cat, but with buzz marketing it is a killer technique.
The key to this is to create a headline that raises people’s interest. You can do this by giving a teaser in your headline.
Looking at the current Digg.com frontpage content, there are some articles that attract curiosity:
Gas consumption per day: U.S. vs. Rest of the World
The 9 Most Meaningless Corporate Slogans
Wouldn’t you want to read those stories?
Note: The gas consumption article breaks my “Global Appeal” rule, but they get away with it because the vast majority of Digg readers are American, and a decent % are America Haters (ouch).
Trick 7: Image Is Everything
This is one of the easiest tricks. All you have to do is simply add an interesting photo/image to your story. It is that simple!
I don’t know the exact reason for why this is so effective. Personally I feel it helps with the packaging (See trick 8), and it helps present the content in a superior manner. I actually did an article recently that got on StumbleUpon simply because the image I added was so amusing.
So here is what I did for the procrastination article: I added the following image to the article:
Trick 8: Perfect Packaging
Packaging = website template.
If your site looks crappy then you are reducing your chances of going viral. There are some exceptions (Craigslist), but generally you will get more attention if your site looks great.
I recently posted part one of this buzz marketing study on my personal blog: http://deanhunt.com/my-buzz-marketing-101/
Then I was asked to guest blog for a major web development portal. So I published the same article here: http://fadtastic.net/2007/07/10/a-buzz-and-viral-marketing-case-study/
Guess which article was featured by Darren Rowse at the hugely popular Problogger.net?
You guessed it, the awesome web template at fadtastic meant that the case study was packaged much better there.
Tip: Ensure your site looks great, also try and make it look like an authority site (add a feed, contact-us, disclaimer etc…)
Trick 9: Shifting the Focus
This is a powerful trick that I used to great effect on the procrastination article. What I did was shift the focus of the article from first person “me/I” to second person “you”.
In the original article the tips were in this format:
ORIGINAL: “1. I believe that if anything is worth doing, it would have been done already.”
I simply switched this tip to second person:
VIRAL GOLD: “Learn that if anything is worth doing, it would have been done already.”
So why is this trick so powerful?
There is a reason that Internet Marketing experts talk in second person in their sales letters… example: “Do you want to know how you can make $1000 per day?”
By focusing on the reader you make them seem more involved in the story. It also helps keep their attention.
Have you ever been chatting with someone who is talking constantly about themselves? Boring isn’t it!
I re-did the article and switched the focus on the reader. This was very powerful, and helped ensure that people left loads of comments both at the blog and at Digg.com.
SUMMARY
Above are 9 of the tricks I used to transform a decent niche article, into a global viral success.
I don’t know how many visitors the original article got, but mine has had over 65,000 unique visitors thus far.
Please note that these tricks will require some practice and patience. But with time you will be able to master them.
Personally I have used these techniques to get over 2 million unique visitors to my articles for FREE.
I hope you have enjoyed this chapter, as always I welcome your questions and feedback.
The next chapter will expose some of the myths about viral marketing.
Dean
Note: Dean Hunt also writes regular net business features at www.streetlessons.com – he is a site flipping authority at www.midascode.co.uk/blog and he helps teach other young entrepreneurs at www.retiredat21.com
: Shane has a great story on how anti-mentors can teach you a lot and what you learn from them usually will help you move forward and focus on the solutions instead of the problems. A really great read!
Exactly How I Got a Stampede of Web Traffic: Dean Hunt wrote a guest post for the milkman recently, explaining how he took a “normal” post, modified it, and got on the frontpage of Digg in no time. Negativity can help you make it on Digg, no doubts there, it worked for Dean, might work for
these top hits in digg.com. Isn’t it a wonder how they manipulated people to press the button? [IMG] Photo taken from the article 10 STEP GUIDE TO THINKING LIKE A LOSER by Dean Hunt He even gave his brilliant tips on how he made it to the top!READ THISTruly, people love nonsenseness. You want more nonsense? Then here’s a more astounding one… VIEW THIS You guessed it right. It’s one of the posts who made it to the front page. Obviously, people with obscure stupidity is rocking the net!
We’re Giving Away Another $500!It’s Our Birthday And We Brag If We Want To!Our Milkshake Brings All The Cows To The YardGet Your Free Milk TodayA-Listers Found Guilty Of StealingAdsense Attack!Make Moo Famous – Batch 1Exactly How I Got a Stampede of Web TrafficHannibal The CannibalMaD CoW GiVeaWayDigg Made EasyMake More Money With Your ThemeText Link Ads Says We’re NaughtyViva Las Vegas!0 AGLOCO Sign UpsGet SeriousA Brisket Case Study Of Buzz MarketingIs he milking the cow too hard ?
We’re Giving Away a Nintendo Wii!Million Euro Wiki Doubles It’s ProductivityThe Numbers For August Are In!Million Euro UpdateRemember September – What We Made OnlineMake Money With MillionEuroWiki!Adsense Attack!Exactly How I Got a Stampede of Web TrafficMake Moo Famous – Batch 1Text Link Ads Says We’re NaughtyOur Blog Is Not Your BitchAnd This Month’s Stupid Cow Award Goes To…Hannibal The CannibalMaD CoW GiVeaWayMake More Money With Your ThemeDigg Made Easy
[...] to Google Latest Content Exactly How I Got a Stampede of Web Traffic – 15 minutes ago Dean here again from http://www.deanhunt.com – Today I will show you exactly how I [...]
Good post Dean. This is exactly the type of information people need, but less than 20% will actually follow through and do. I will implement this myself and post the results either in a post or on here for everyone to see. So I guess you could say I’ll be the first guinea-cow in this project!
3 Reasons why you will love this post:
1. You can be sure that your content is accessible by millions just by being careful with tone and content.
2. You will feel inspired and feel self belief
3. You will see that you are in control of your websites popularity if you apply these techniques.
Now all I need is a funny picture
Am I getting the hang of it? Damn I should have mad the headline more negative, hmmmmm 3 reasons why you will hate this post may have worked better!
Thanks for a great post. My writing so far as been very unthoughtful and I have just been blogging stuff that has come out of my head but after reading this I will definitely take some small pieces of advice onboard for my daily writings, especially the headline tips.
Forest,
Your title should be “3 reasons your enemies will hate this post”
Try that.
Thanks for all the kind words. It doesn’t matter if you are looking to have the viral marketing story of the year (I have had), or just an interesting blog… the same principles can really help.
Let me know how you go on.
Dean
I have just tried this with my post
http://digg.com/gadgets/5_Step_Guide_to_Giving_up_your_Mobile
One problem I have with Digg is picking which topic to put the post in. Do you have any advice for this?
Tom LeDree
This post itself might get onto the front page of Digg.
Tom, I have had the same problem in the past. Here is my advice: Go to digg prior to submitting your article… use the search feature and type something similar to your story. Then look for a story that is similar, and has over 50 Diggs. Then simply copy the category.
Dean
but wont the flood, of people, result in the no overall affect, from experience, will it still work successfully?
I don’t understand what you are asking, but a flood of people is exactly what this article is trying to get. Tom was showing how you can use research beforehand to increase the chance of your article standing out from the crowd. You use the information from a successful post and try to mirror that in yours, not word for word or title for title, but try to understand the formula that got that post to the top spot. It is not something that probably can be achieved on the first try for many people, but like Dean said practice will definitely show you how to effectively use these tips and tricks.
Thanks for the tip! I will try that next time. I just noticed something wrong with my latest Digg story. I titled it “5 Step Guide to Giving up your Mobile!”
It properly should have been “5 Step Guide to Giving up your Cell Phone!” because like you said most Digg users are American
woops! Well at least I made a mistake and have learnt from it.
[...] Original post by John Cow [...]
Wow, great post Dean, this is definetly going to make me look twice at an article before I publish it.
Nice post. The first link to your site isn’t properly formed though. Missing the http:// thus a 404.
[...] Efron Link to Article paris hilton Exactly How I Got a Stampede of Web Traffic » Posted at Make [...]
amazing post! i am going to implement it into my site immediately, honestly, this kind of stuff is what people need to build successful blogs!
great post Dean
[...] Your page is on StumbleUpon [...]
Excellent tips and thanks for sharing! It’s concise and easy to understand.
Very nice points!
That is pretty amazing. What I’d like to know is when some one stumbles an article of mine, I get well over 100 visitors from stumble the next 24 hrs. It seems like those are BS visitors because no one is commenting or subscribing. Out of over 100 in a day you’d think you’d grab a small percentage of readers.
100 is nothing really. The power is in numbers, so when you get it up to 1000, 10,000 consistently, then you’ll see more powerful stats.
In my opinion SU isn’t the greatest traffic there is, Just recently I’ve had an article that got SU’ed yesterday, that has taken off, and now has had over 2.5k visitors from SU to that one article, how many comments? None, Which is really what I expect, I just hope one or 2 stick around for the new content
[...] Hunt guest blogs at John Cow Dot Com about how he got an article on the front page of Digg in less than 48 hours. It was part of a bet and makes a great story as well as a very informative [...]
Awesome article, enjoyed thoroughly!
Many thanks guys.
This is just a sample of the techniques I have used. But the article was already really long, so I had to keep it to 9.
If you subscribe to Johncow and my blogs (deanhunt.com streetlessons.com etc..) then you will be first to hear of any future tips.
By the way… I noticed someone put this story on Digg.com
They used the title “9 Ways To Get Buzz Traffic”, now that is NOT a bad title. For a blog it is actually a good title, but it simply won’t work on Digg.
Here is what I would have called it:
“How I Made Digg.com My Bitch”
or
“How I Hacked the Brains of the Digg Audience”
LOL @ “How I Made Digg.com My Bitch!” I see it’s all about pushing the envelope. Sorry about earlier, I mistakenly gave Tom the credit for a post/comment that you made about doing research on Digg before you submit one.
Tom you’re still cool though!
Awesome post Dean! You gave us some very useful information. I think I may give myself a challenge similar to this one. In fact, I think the big cow himself should issue a challenge to his readers. Something like the first one to get on the front page of digg gets a free review on this site. Just an idea.
Now there’s a moo-tastic idea!
Great Work Dean
How about the next article that you all write for your sites/blogs etc… you have to use the techniques from my article and give it a buzz spin.
I will judge the posts and perhaps myself and the head cow can arrange a prize.
Dean
sounds like a great plan to me!
Dean
Have you thought of selling this service to people ?, you could get them to submit an article to you, you then change it around, make it more friendly for sites like digg and charge them a fee.
And you get 10% of whatever he makes doing it because you gave him the idea!
Another thing you can do to get your article dugg more deeply is to join Diggbarter. I’ve used it with great success to get a few of my articles to page 1 on Digg!
Thanks for the tip Trent, glad you mentioned it.
FYI diggbarters site is down at the moment, which is a shame, I was just going to test it out
Yes, it sounds like a great way to get banned for life.
Even with everything that’s listed in the FAQ?
While I don’t necessarily believe that getting Dugg is worthwhile, this is some great advice here on how to do it! Well done!
Yeah… digg traffic sucks
[...] Exactly How I Got a Stampede of Web Traffic by John CowLong post, but very informative. Give it a try yourself to see what can happen. Posted on July 20th, 2007 Share This Like this post? Subscribe to my Full RSS Feed. [...]
10 Reasons Why i will NEVER Visit JohnChow.com again!
How is that for applying your digg technique. Geez, if ony i could come up with content to match that awesome headline. lol. That was just a tease, i love you guys. I read John Chow, Dosh Dosh, and Darren. I’ll go ahead and add Dean Hunt to the list. I am thinking i need to get more opinionated (alot more)and edgy on my vegetarian blog, as their is plenty of material with which i could do that. I have been blogging for a total of 3 months now, and it is the best NEW vehicle for expression, community, and even money. (but you already now that, right?) Missy.
Dean: Thanxs for the tip.
Chow: Thanxs for your mootasticness.
oh my word! i thought i was on the john chow blog, and i am on the john COW blog, i thought john had done a makeover on his blog and added cows to his header, instead of that fancy car. (how funny) i do like this blog and it carries good information, i especially like this article, have bookmarked it for next time i want (to try) and get an article to FP of digg. thanxs dean and COW.
Definitely on the right track Missy. I tried something similar the other day and I was amazed at the effectiveness myself!
I took a look @ your blog and I could just imagine how using these techniques would open people up to a new way of thinking. I think you should definitely give it a shot.
[...] Post inspired by John Cow’s entry: Exactly How I Got a Stampede of Web Traffic. [...]
[...] JohnCow.com shares the real way to get on page 1 of Digg using a great case study. This is a few days old now but contains REALLY useful ideas. [...]
[...] Exactly How I Got a Stampede of Web Traffic | John Cow dot Com [...]
[...] Exactly How I Got a Stampede of Web Traffic: Dean Hunt wrote a guest post for the milkman recently, explaining how he took a “normal” post, modified it, and got on the frontpage of Digg in no time. Negativity can help you make it on Digg, no doubts there, it worked for Dean, might work for you too! [...]
[...] to Buzz / Viral Marketjavascript:void(0)Publish Posting that any affiliate should read.Part OnePart TwoPart [...]
[...] Experiment with the Negative Slant. I have read some interesting articles recently about the negative slant angle, not only for your headlines, but also for your entire article. This is especially true of [...]
So Digg traffic is good but low quality?
yes Digg users are not known for clicking on ads
Dean, great advice. I have taken your pointers and created two posts on advice regarding seo and car buying. While it is early and my site is only a few weeks old, I am seeing the impact on stumble and digg.
Thank you for the advice. Here are my two stories found on my site:
http://www.findbettervalue.com
7-sure fire tips to keep your site traffic low and your blog off the search engines.
10 lies of a dirty car salseman.
[...] Never write different, exciting, or pre-news posts and articles. Just take a look at this case example found on Johncow.com. [...]
[...] traffic. These topic have been covered very well by outstanding bloggers like Jonathan, Dana, Bunk, Dean, and others. Instead, I’m going to talk about building powerful, profitable relationships through [...]
dean do you do any freelance for other blogs?
Bloggernoob – I do, but I am fully booked for quite a long time.
Sorry.
Dean
wow quick reply. thanks for the quickie. let me know when you have some time