Viruses have been considered a curse to the digital age since the beginning of time. From personal experience I lost 2 gigs of important data on my USB, had a cell phone gone haywire and a friend gone crazy (for a brief period of time) because of its destructive effects. Taken from the medical jargon and defined as a microscopic agent which has the ability to infect almost anything it can come in contact with (think the I Love You Virus almost hacking into Pentagon), it is truly a bane for most. But believe it or not, it can be a boon to your site. If you can infect anything you come in contact with, in a positive manner of course, even a just begun site (after the Sandbox experience of course) can shoot up the search engine ranking. It’s a fairly simple concept, with fairly simple means of doing it.
Viral marketing as implied above involves getting a bunch (think BIG bunch) of links that are relevant to your site. While it may seem dubious for some, the methods we’ll be presenting here aren’t. As long as you do things honestly and naturally, you’re sure to get positive results. Here are some ways to make sure you’re site positively viral (pun intended):
1. It’s about content. Whatever strategy you employ, always think that if you’re content is not up to par in terms of quality, substance, even quantity (of articles) it will be useless. It has to be informative, interesting or entertaining depending on your target audience.
2. Bait for links. This can be done outbound or inbound. Outbound through making comments on blogs related to your site or industry with a link to your site or a specific page. Inbound through making sure you’re site is interesting enough for others to make a comment on or you can pay a popular blogger to link to your site or vice versa. Another inbound method is through using “hooks” to bait them. You can use useful information, funny jokes, news, or a review about something/someone popular to “hook” them.
3. Use social bookmarking tools and social networks. Social bookmarks can increase awareness and more visibility for your site if it’s content is interesting enough. Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter help build relationships and also associations to potential target audience and customers of your site.
4. Utilize blog commenting. As stated in link baiting, post comments on sites related to your site or to your industry.
These are some of the ways you can make more valuable links to your site.
Being a positive virus can generate positive results for you!