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plan for viral. And yet each of my three “viral” posts did have common qualities
that transcended the ordinary daily drumming of the web.
1. Their popularity had nothing to do with SEO.
Ironically, these three posts were my least-search-optimized posts of the year. I
mean, what kind of search traffic does “content shock” drive? It was a made-up
term!
Isn’t this an interesting idea? We’re supposed to pay attention to SEO to
drive blog traffic, and yet premeditated SEO played absolutely no role in these
three successes. Why?
When I wrote these posts I mindfully tossed SEO aside and wrote great
content that I knew people would love. Think about it this way: If you’re
stuffing your content with popular search terms, how original—how heroic—can
it possibly be? By definition, competing for SEO terms forces you to out-duel
somebody else for keyword supremacy. Creating content with a chance to go
viral forces you to stand in a place where you create an entirely new keyword—
and supremacy based on originality. And Google seems to love that.
2. The content was long.
These three posts were not only popular, but they were also the three longest
posts I wrote all year. Sort of validates the research covered in the shareability
chapter, right? Longer posts sometimes have a better chance for massive social
sharing.
3. The content was distinctive.
Great marketing begins with great content. These pieces were unique and
conversational. In all three cases, nothing had ever been written like these posts.
I took personal risks with this content, too—taking a stand, trying a new format,
providing intense personal disclosure.
As this case study suggests, whether or not you emphasize SEO depends on
the specific goal for your content. SEO isn’t a universal solution for content
ignition; rather, it’s dependent on the type of content you’re producing. This
graphic summarizes the relationship between content ignition and SEO:
