How to Create a Viral Content Site with WordPress (2024 Guide)

Want to know the secret behind sites like Buzzfeed and Upworthy that pull in millions of visitors per month? Two words: viral content.

A viral content site is a website designed to generate massive traffic by publishing highly shareable posts. The goal is to get readers to spread your content far and wide, bringing in waves of new visitors.

It‘s a strategy that works. Buzzfeed‘s Tasty food video channel regularly racks up view counts in the hundreds of millions. A single Tasty recipe video showing unique ways to decorate a cake earned over 652,000 shares and 780,000 engagements on Facebook alone.

Creating your own viral content empire can provide impressive benefits:

A huge influx of targeted traffic to your site
Rapid growth of your brand‘s reach and visibility
Potential to earn significant ad and affiliate revenue

ViralNova, which grew to 100 million readers in under two years by sharing amusing and uplifting stories, sold for $100 million in 2015. Even on a smaller scale, a popular site with a few million monthly visitors can generate a full-time income.

In this guide, we‘ll walk you through a proven process to create your own viral content machine using WordPress. You‘ll learn:

How to set up an optimized WordPress site to host viral content
The types of posts most likely to get widely shared
Strategies to get your content in front of the right people
Ways to profit from your site‘s popularity

Ready to ride the viral wave to online success? Let‘s get started.

Understanding Viral Content

Before we get into the technical steps, we need to cover what actually makes a piece of content "go viral". While there‘s no guaranteed formula, viral posts tend to share certain characteristics.

Evokes a Strong Emotion

Content that makes people feel something strongly, whether it‘s positive emotions like joy and amusement or negative ones like anger or disgust, gets shared more frequently.

A study by Fractl analyzed the million most-shared articles from the top 190 English language news sites and found the most common viral emotions were:

Awe (25%)
Laughter (17%)
Amusement (15%)

To strike a chord, your content should have a clear emotional hook, take a strong stance, and not be afraid to ruffle some feathers.

Rewards the Sharer

We share content that makes us look good and reflects our values and identity. Content that proves the sharer is "in the know", has great taste, or possess admirable traits like compassion does well.

Ask: would someone feel proud to show this to their friends? Does it communicate something about them?

Highly Visual

Content featuring compelling images, videos, and graphics spreads much further than plain text. Buzzsumo research found that:

Facebook posts with images get 2.3x more engagement than those without
Articles with an image every 75-100 words earn 2x more shares
Infographics are liked and shared 3x more than other content types

Pack your posts with eye-catching visuals in easy-to-consume formats like short videos, memes, and data visualizations.

Offers Practical Value

How-tos, life hacks, and articles that help readers solve problems or learn something new are inherently useful and thus, highly shareable.

A classic example is the listicle "X Ways to [Do Something Desirable]". It promises a quick hit of valuable information busy readers can put into action.

Rides a Trending Wave

Content that capitalizes on topics dominating public conversation has a built-in viral advantage. Newsjacking a big story or adding to the latest meme craze lets you tap into existing interest.

Monitor trending searches, hashtags and news stories for opportunities to join the discussion with your own relevant take.

Now that we know the winning ingredients, let‘s explore how to assemble them into an irresistible viral treat.

Setting Up Your WordPress Viral Content Site

These are the key steps to get your WordPress site ready to host viral content:

1. Pick the Perfect Domain Name

Your domain is the web address people will type to find your site, like cnn.com or buzzfeed.com. For a viral content site, aim for a short, catchy, easy to remember domain name.

An ideal domain is:

Brandable and unique
Easy to spell and pronounce
Descriptive of your content
Available as a .com

For example, Upworthy.com and BoredPanda.com tell you exactly what to expect from their sites. Use tools like Instant Domain Search to brainstorm variations and check availability.

Expect to pay around $10-15 per year to register your domain.

2. Choose a Reliable Host

Your WordPress site needs to be hosted on a server to be accessible online. For a viral content site anticipating major traffic surges, choosing a robust hosting provider is critical.

Look for a host that offers:

Managed WordPress hosting optimized for performance
Generous bandwidth and storage limits
24/7 security monitoring and DDoS protection
Easy scalability to accommodate traffic spikes
Automatic daily backups
Responsive support

Reputable managed WordPress hosts like WP Engine, Kinsta, and Flywheel are popular options. Expect to pay around $30 per month and up depending on your traffic levels.

3. Install WordPress

Most hosting providers offer simple one-click WordPress installation right from your account dashboard. If not, follow the famous WordPress 5-minute install:

Download WordPress from WordPress.org
Create a database for your site via your host
Upload the WordPress files to your host using FTP
Run the WordPress installation script

Voila, your WordPress site is now ready for customization.

4. Choose a Speed-Optimized Theme

Your WordPress theme provides the design framework for your site. For a viral content site, you want a theme that is:

Optimized for fast loading speed
Mobile responsive to look great on any device
Flexible and easy to customize
Designed to showcase visual content
Includes built-in social sharing buttons

Some of the best themes for viral content sites are:

Bimber – Highly customizable viral magazine theme with multiple unique layouts and content formats
Smart Mag – SEO optimized theme with drag-and-drop homepage builder and reviews system
Valenti – Retina-ready theme with infinite scrolling, video playlists, and rich snippet support
Goliath – Responsive theme with 8 viral layout styles and gallery/list post formats

Remember, your site‘s design plays a big role in encouraging social sharing, so choose a theme built with virality in mind.

5. Install Must-Have Plugins

Plugins expand your WordPress site‘s functionality. Some key plugins to install on a viral content site are:

Social Warfare or Monarch for attractive social sharing buttons
WP Rocket for caching and speed optimization
ShortPixel for compressing images without quality loss
Yoast SEO for optimizing your content to rank in search
Gravity Forms for creating user content submission forms

Focus on a lean set of plugins that enhance the user experience, encourage sharing, and make your site load lightning fast.

Planning Share-Worthy Content

With your site structure in place, it‘s time to craft content that compels people to smash that share button. Use these research-backed tactics.

Analyze the Competition

Spend some time studying the most popular content in your space across social networks, news sites, and aggregators like Reddit and Hacker News.

For each viral hit, ask:

What emotion does the headline evoke? (curiosity, shock, delight, etc.)
What type of visuals are featured? (images, gifs, videos, infographics, etc.)
How long or in-depth is the actual content?
What demographics are likely to find it relevant?
Which specific elements (headline, intro, images) are most compelling?

Take notes and look for patterns to guide your own content planning. Don‘t copy viral posts directly, but do learn from their success.

Prioritize the Headline

Your headline is the single most important element of your content. It‘s what convinces someone to click through and start reading in the first place.

Viral headlines often use:

Numbers or lists (10 Secrets of…, 5 Things You Should Never…)
Strong adjectives (essential, hilarious, brilliant…)
Emotional words (shocking, beloved, delightful…)
Action words (discover, transform, dominate…)

Aim to create curiosity without resorting to cheesy clickbait. Tools like the Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer can help gauge your headline‘s impact.

Go Visual, Early & Often

As mentioned, content featuring rich visuals gets shared much more frequently. In fact, articles with images receive 94% more views on average than those without.

Some of the most share-worthy visual formats are:

Infographics
Data visualizations
Videos under 2 minutes
Memes and GIFs
Image galleries & slideshows

Choose compelling visuals that support your content and place them prominently at the top to grab attention. Canva is a great tool for easily creating professional looking graphics.

Make Sharing Seamless

Want readers to share your post? Make it as easy as possible for them. Place social share buttons in prominent locations like:

Floating on the left or right side
At the top of the article
At the bottom after reading
In a pop-up or slide-in

Choose buttons that are large enough to be easily tapped on mobile, since over half of social sharing now happens on mobile devices.

Also consider displaying share counts to provide social proof and make sharing more enticing. Just beware that if counts are low, it could have a negative impact.

Dive Deep on Trending Topics

Remember, content that ties into topics already getting major attention has a leg up in going viral. To find these trending topics:

Check trending hashtags and topics on Twitter
See what‘s popular on Google Trends
Browse the front page of Reddit, Digg, and Buzzfeed
Note recurring themes in top shared articles on Buzzsumo

Once you‘ve identified a trend to cover, don‘t just rehash what‘s already out there. Look for a unique angle to add to the conversation, like:

Compiling the best tweets, memes, or opinions on the topic
Analyzing the trend using data
Offering a strong opinion or fresh perspective
Creating an ultimate guide on the subject

The key is providing more insight or entertainment value to stand out from the noise.

Promote to the Right People

Even amazing content won‘t go viral without a little push. Once you publish a post, actively promote it through:

Sharing on your social profiles multiple times
Posting on relevant forums, Facebook groups, and subReddits
Emailing your subscriber list
Reaching out to influencers for feedback or a quote
Running paid promotion on Facebook or other social networks

Don‘t just blast your content everywhere. Focus on communities and individuals likely to have a genuine interest in the topic. An endorsement or share from a trusted influencer in your niche can spark a viral snowball effect.

Monetizing Your Viral Site

Once the visitors start rolling in, it‘s time to think about generating revenue. Some of the most lucrative monetization options for viral content sites are:

Display Ads

Placing banner and sidebar ads on your high-traffic pages is one of the easiest ways to start earning passive income. Google AdSense is the most popular option, and there are also many other ad networks happy to fill your inventory.

RPM (revenue per thousand impressions) for viral content sites is often lower than other niches since visitors may be less likely to click ads. But with enough volume, ad revenue can still add up to a significant income stream.

Native Ads

Native ads are sponsored content that blends in with your site‘s editorial content. They often take the form of a recommendation widget at the end of articles, showing other "stories you might like" that are actually paid placements.

Networks like Taboola, Outbrain, and RevContent specialize in native ads for viral content sites. Expect to earn anywhere from $2 to $10 per 1,000 visitors depending on your audience demographics.

Affiliate Links

Mentioning products or services related to your content? Use affiliate links to earn a commission on any sales you refer.

For example, if you write a post on "10 Kitchen Gadgets You Never Knew You Needed", you could include Amazon affiliate links to each product. If a reader clicks through and makes a purchase, you‘ll earn a cut.

Focus on affiliates your audience would be genuinely interested in and always disclose the relationship to stay on the right side of consumer protection laws.

You‘re Ready to Go Viral

We‘ve covered all the ingredients you need to cook up a viral content site using WordPress:

An optimized WP theme and hosting setup to deliver your content at scale
Research process to craft posts with maximum share potential
Promotion tactics to get your content in front of the right eyeballs
Multiple monetization options to turn your traffic into dollars

Building a site that repeatedly creates viral hits is no small task. But with a strong grasp of audience psychology, a system for producing share-worthy content, and a network to spread the word, you can achieve incredible growth.

The key is to focus on posting content that‘s insanely useful, wildly entertaining, or both. Make it easy and attractive for visitors to share with their networks. And don‘t be afraid to have a strong voice.

One viral hit can change the trajectory of your site. Put these strategies into action, and you could be the next viral success story.

How to Create a Viral Content Site with WordPress (2024 Guide)