I Google’d around a little and found that nobody that had written about the previous night’s episode had mentioned her booty dance.  I would be the first, so I grabbed a clip from Hulu and dreamt up the most straightforward headline I could think of — Blake Lively’s Booty Dance On SNL (VIDEO).  Within minutes, I was #1 on Google.  But would there be traffic?

At the end us Sunday, traffic to my blog was up ~10x.  The next day traffic rose another 4x.  I was onto something.  Here’s what I learned:

1. I’ve said it before — speed, SEO, and style matter when creating viral content.  Style — I’m amending that to be sexiness … until I think of a better S word (feel free to suggest one).  People share and search out stories that are attractive, fun, and appealing.
2. BuzzFeed matters.  I really like BuzzFeed.  Google sent a bunch of organic traffic to my post, but BuzzFeed sent more.  And their link now outperforms mine on Google because they have better page rank.
3. Use your social networks.  I posted my story to Facebook and had a few clicks.  Would have been nice to see some more sharing, but, to be honest, my circle of friends isn’t really the Blake Lively target demo.
4. Reddit rocked.  Reddit sent the most traffic — all with no points.  I’ve been really happy with Reddit lately — a single Reddit post may be the most valuable action a person can take on your site, but this is something I’m still trying to quantify.

But the most important thing I learned was this — it’s not just pixie dust.  There’s a method to the madness.

1. The story was rushed out to make it into our morning newsletter — and because it was very new, it was the first time most people saw the story.  We had our story up less than an hour after it first broke.
2. It had a great SEO headline.  We’ve been working on this, and the results are impressive when we use the right words.
3. It was written very entertainingly — another thing we’re trying.  It led with a joke.

All this seems like common sense.  It largely is, but it’s nice to see your theories supported.  Speed matters — nobody is going to share a story the 3rd time they’ve seen it.  Old news will always under-perform.  Words matter — we were on page 1 of Google for a long time with this story for logical, straightforward queries.  Style matters — if you haven’t entertained the reader, there’s nearly no chance the reader will want to entertain his or her Facebook friends with your content.

All this has got me wondering: what is the value of the non-viral, less-read content?  That sounds like a future post…