The most important step in making your articles go viral is your headline. In print a headline can mean the difference between selling a few hundred copies or a few million copies. Many people don't realize the importance of the headline on the Internet. In many ways an online headline is more important than a headline on a magazine or newspaper.

With todays fast pace, writers have only a few seconds to get the readers attention. Many times the decision to read an article is based solely on a very small link from the headline. Huge headlines or many of the other old tricks of publishers are not available to writers on the internet.

So, the first step in making you articles viral is the headline. An excellent place to start is by researching other articles that have gone viral. Some of the more successful headlines offer a solution to a problem, or seem to be filled with benefits.

Using humor is a great way to make your material viral. This is probably the most difficult since it is much harder to convey humor with just the written word. But if you can achieve it the benefits could last for years. How ofter do you get the same jokes, sometimes years apart, in an email from a friend? These stories usually stay alive and continue to be passed around long after they first appear.

Even if you don't have a funny bone in your body is perfectly acceptable to interpret and adapt materially would find on the Internet for your purposes. by adapting viral methods, not plagiarizing, like the example of hotmail below.

Bribery is another method and can make all the difference in making your article go viral. There have been many articles that have gone viral just by offering a small incentive for the reader to pass the article on. Some others offer free reports for referring others, if your offer is good, and the perceived value is high your results will be good.

The nature of the internet is viral, so viral marketing is a natural on the internet. The internet continues to grow and has become gigantic through viral marketing.

One of the most famous viral marketing campaigns is that of hotmail. Hotmail automatically inserts a signature into sent mail that offers a free account. Every email sent was and is an advertisement for hotmail. Google sets the standard for what viral marketing is capable of doing. Google hasn't spent a dime and advertising. Google's popularity increased solely by providing a great product and the word of mouth it created.

Each of your promotional articles has the potential to become a viral article. Traffic will explode to your site if you are successful in making your article viral. To be successful, you must become an expert at using viral techniques in your writing.