My Article Went Viral. Here’s How Much It Made (& How You Can Do It, Too)

My article on the Google algorithm leak on May 27th went viral after snagging the #1 ranking spot for most of the related keywords while the topic was trending, gathering hundreds of social likes and dozens of re-shares, and getting one of my highest click rates on an email ever.

The article got over 15,000 pageviews in a week – and 10,000 of that was within the first 48 hours.

I always used to get nosey about how much articles like these earned, so I figured I’d peel back the curtain.

I also want to share how I managed it – because this isn’t the first time I’ve managed to get a trending topic to go viral.

I’ll reveal my exact steps, but do note that some of it will come down to luck. Not every article is going to take off like this.

If you want to check it out, here’s the article I’m referring to on the algo leak.

How Much The Article Earned

Let’s talk cold hard cash: how much money did the article make?

This is just from ad revenue with Raptive.

I didn’t (and still don’t) have affiliates in the post. I also don’t have an email opt in within the post – I have a pop up. And I don’t have any course ads within the post, only in the footer that spans my entire site.

So the only money this could earn directly that I can track comes from ads.

I earned 🥁🥁🥁

$433.23 USD!

From 1 article in 1 week. That’s pretty epic!

The RPMs are also reasonably high – especially for something primarily getting organic search traffic: $29.62.

Now, I do have to caveat this as you may have noticed from the screenshot above: it doesn’t show 15k pageviews.

The article got about 15,000 pageviews (16,987 according to Microsoft Clarity and 15,658 according to G4), but not all of that counted towards Raptive ad income.

As of June 1st, Raptive counted 14,626 pageviews that could be monetized.

That means the rest probably had an ad blocker on, or were bots that left before my ads could load (I have them set to load last on the page, after the content, which is usually at the 4s mark).

Raptive is also 1 day behind in reporting the traffic. I’m writing this June 3rd, and that’s when I took my traffic screenshots from Clarity and G4 (the numbers still don’t match if I remove June 2nd from the data on these softwares).

…But I Reduced the Ads

Now, I expect this could have made closer to $500, but on Friday, May 31st I changed my ad settings.

I got reports from users that a video ad was blocking the content on mobile, so I turned off my mobile video player that runs in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.

It turns out, they didn’t mean that ad. They meant the actual in-content ads which were rendering oddly.

That video player is typically my second highest earning ad spot on blog posts, so I’m sure the income took a blow from that.

I also didn’t resolve the in content ad issue, as I just learned of it and wrote Raptive about an hour ago to resolve it.

So I suspect I also lost some income and pageviews due to the issues scrolling on mobile at the moment.

I am so appreciative I have friends and readers who feel comfortable telling me about these things so I can take action. I wish I’d realized what was actually going on last week so I could have gotten it fixed earlier.

But c’est la vie!

I’d rather more people get the information than I get an extra $50.

My Trending Article Formula

I’ve done this a few times on different sites over the years and I’ve created a pretty easy formula to follow that I want to share with y’all.

Some caveats before we get going:

a) this is not a guarantee you’ll get 15k pageviews. I’ve had articles “hit” like this and get 500 pageviews or even 50. It depends on how far reaching the trend is.

b) do NOT just trend-bait. We are using this to help our audience with topics in our niche. I’m not going to start writing articles about trends in basketball on SKS cause it’s make no sense (and I know less than nothing about basketball).

c) the goal isn’t a quick win. In fact, the goal is a long win. That’s where step #5 comes in, and why I put it so high on the 7 steps.

d) I’ve had some posts like this flop. That’s normal. This isn’t going to be a sustainable traffic source anyway unless you’re writing for trends every day, and even then you’ll fatigue your audience.

e) you still need to write an amazing post. This is not an excuse to write a 100 word piece of drivel. One of my theories for why my algorithm leak article ranked so well (beyond Google maybe suppressing the original leakers articles) is that I actually added value. Almost every other article just restated what Rand Fishkin and Mike King said in their amazing articles – or summarized it in 500 words. That isn’t beneficial to people, but my 10 point analysis of what to do with the data is.

1. Find Trending Topics and News

Step 1 is finding something to write on.

It’s neither as complex nor as simple as you might think.

You first need to have a clearly defined niche. Let’s use dog travel as an example here.

Then you need a clearly defined audience avatar. Does your person have a large dog? Where do they live? Are they flying or doing road trips?

That will change the type of news they’re interested in.

Let’s say it’s a woman with a large rescue dog weighing over 50lbs. They’re from the US.

Once you know your niche and know your audience, you can then start to track news in the niche. It’s easiest if you’re living your niche every day so you’re already immersed in the news.

Here’s where I find trending topics:

• Google Trends (you can even find this within Keysearch where it’s easier to search it + Twitter trends at once)
• Twitter
• Apple News for general news
• Press Releases (you can sign up for mailing lists in your industry)
• Industry relevant news sources
• Tiktok
• Exploding Topics (less so, but it’s a cool resource. I get their free emails. I’ve never paid for the service)
• My own communities

Keep an eye on what’s being talked about.

I popped on Twitter last Tuesday and saw three tweets about the algo leak from other major SEOs. That brought it to my attention, and then I moved onto step 2.

In our example of dog travel, you might learn about Bark Air launching private jet flights for dogs from someone on Tiktok (how I found out about it), from a newspaper or press release, or from people talking about it in a Facebook group you’re in.

Now you have something to talk about, so how do we add value?

2. Do First Hand Research and Analysis

Do NOT just trust what other people are saying about a trend or about news.

If you just read what’s already out there and regurgitate it for you audience, why should they bother reading yours?

I always recommend doing your own research and analysis.

Let’s go back to the dog travel idea. How are you going to analyze Bark Air when it’s not a data set like the Google algo leak?

Here are some angles I have off the top of my head (I haven’t actually researched this, so there are probably more):

• Cost per mile versus K9 Jets or other private pet flight services
• Compare the departure airports in New York (my mom pointed this out, because Bark is from a much easier to get to airbase)
• Value of the amenities on board vs. other private pet flight services
• Compare the cost the flying your dog cargo or road tripping across the country following the same route
• Compare plane size/reliability versus other private pet flight services
• Speak to pet parents to get first hand quotes on their first impressions of Bark Air
• Talk to a vet about whether the “calming aromas” they put on the plane for pets are actually proven to work

I’m not saying you need to become an investigative journalist. Most of these things could be done with a quick search online, or by checking their website.

Even just looking at their website and their press release is more than what most of the blogs and Tiktoks sharing the launch did – cause many kept repeating the same pricing error from one viral video.

Sometimes it just takes reading the source material to have the best information.

3. Add Something to the Conversation

The best way to add something to a trend is to make it your own.

Girl math went viral on Tiktok last summer, and I thought it’d be hilarious to do “dog math” with my dog, Theo. I popped my glasses on him, and 550k views later, it became a trend in the dogtok community.

You can do the same with a trending topic for your blog!

How can you present the information differently in a way that’ll help your readers the most?

I realized I was struggling to read some of the tech SEO articles on the algo leak, so I decided to break it down in plain English.

My first draft was very tech SEO heavy and honestly super dry to read.

I included every tiny little piece of information I found that interested me, but I realized it wasn’t going to actually help my audience.

They didn’t care about every attribute in the leak, or they’d read it themselves.

But I know the question they’d ask next: “what does this mean for my blogging strategy?”

I focused my article on that question instead of on the leak itself. There are way more qualified SEOs to talk about the tech side of things – like Mike King who helped publicize the leak.

You can do the same with your posts.

With Bark Air’s announcement (and to be clear, they aren’t paying me and I’m not even necessarily endorsing them. It’s just a major news thing in that world that I could pick off the top of my head), what can you offer that’s different from other news sources?

I’m choosing to focus on two of the most common concerns with pet travel: money and comfort.

Theo and I road tripped most of the route they’re launching within the US, so I could pull up my actual expenses from the trip to compare how expensive it’d be to fly instead.

And then I could bring in our experience flying on planes as a service dog team, and compare the space Bark Air gives for larger dogs to other planes (even business class).

Sometimes it’ll be tone, sometimes further analysis, and sometimes it’ll be relating it to your personal experience.

But you want to do something that adds more than your competitors do – and that something should never just be more words for the sake of words.

4. Write an Epic Article

A lot of trendy, news style articles are very thin content. Think Buzzfeed- or Narcity-style quick glances at the info.

We don’t want to do that because our whole business model isn’t short, news content.

We want people to come to our site and stay on our site – that’s how you make the big bucks, and get lifelong readers.

To do that, we need to write a proper, helpful article.

My algo leak article is 4,415 words long. That’s a behemoth compared to some of the others I’ve seen cycling through the top 10 with like 500 words.

That keeps people on the page longer (Clarity says people stayed on my post an average of almost 3 minutes) so your ads can make you more money.

You don’t need to write 4k words, but you do need to make sure that every word is valuable and actually says something helpful/relevant to your user.

I use my usual intro writing method, then I get to the point as quickly as I can. I’ll usually brain dump a bit first if it’s something like the algo leak where I’m hyperfixating and probably got too into the weeds.

Then I zoom out and ask myself “what do my audience really need to know?”

I slash anything that isn’t 100% relevant to them.

Then I tie everything up with a conclusion that leaves them with a thought, a next step in the strategy, or connects it to another larger idea in the niche.

I never want to leave someone with blue balls but stopping the article with no cool down.

Time Saving Tip: Try voice-to-texting your stream of consciousness to start. Pretend you’re leaving a voicemail for your ideal audience and see the order that you reference things, the tone you use, and what you end up spending the most time on.

5. Keep People Coming Back for More

Most writers would be starving fishermen: they all catch and release.

Almost every other article I’ve read about the algorithm leak just ends. It has no encouragement to keep people in your orbit.

One of the best things about an article taking off and getting you in front of new people, is that it helps bring new people into your world.

Why would you go through all the hard work to get 15k people on your site and then let them all go? I wouldn’t!

Here are some of the ways you can catch and keep people on your site from a viral article:

• Email list opt in (I have a pop up in the bottom left corner, and in my sidebar – though that’s only good for desktop. Mine is made with Convertbox)
• Encourage people to ask questions in a second area (I ask them to join my free Facebook group to ask questions about the article – this has the added benefit of the fact that I only allow “students” in my FB group, but people who grab freebies count as students so I get their emails this way, too)
• Create a hashtag for socials and have them share pictures related to the topic
• Include a low ticket product (I have my $9 SEO Spreadsheets in my footer at all times. I could have added something in the post to monetize it better, but I didn’t think of it at the time. Keep it relevant to the content though!)
• Add internal links to related articles using relevant anchor text

Use as many as you can naturally in your post.

I find ending on the FB group option works really well, especially because it kills two birds with one stone for me with the email addresses. I use it as the last line of my post, but I also link it once or twice in the article as a sort of “bonus” internal link.

6. Share it Everywhere

Google’s algorithm leak revealed the click data from outside of Google is tracked – but we don’t know how much it matters to rankings.

It’s long been assumed in the SEO world that it influences rankings, as socially viral articles tend to rank higher on Google.

When I published my article, I immediately emailed it to my audience and posted it on all my social platforms (Facebook group, Facebook page, Instagram stories, Instagram post, Threads, Twitter, LinkedIn, and my personal Facebook page re-shared from the public page post).

… Yes, I’m on too many social platforms.

The article got just over 1,000 clicks from my email list in 24 hours (that’s a CTR of over 10% for my list which has never happened before!).

Over 2 days, it got about 2,000 clicks from my social media and from reshares.

Within 12 hours, it was ranking #1 on Google for a variety of common searches related to the leak, and within the top 3 for most other terms.

I even had an audience member find it in Google News (although my own Google News area doesn’t show it in GSC). (No Google discover traffic though.)

Even if a platform doesn’t have a lot of followers, share it there!

My LinkedIn is largely abandoned, but using my social scheduling tool I shared it there. It got picked up by a couple other SEOs and they shared it further.

Fun Fact: Facebook, from my own group – always use UTMs to track this stuff y’all – was the biggest social traffic referral to article. The power of micro niche groups!

7. Bonus: Repurpose the Content

It’s great to have one viral article, but what about 2?

I love Youtube, and I noticed Youtube was showing up sometimes above the #1 result for queries related to the algorithm leak. So I decided to make a video.

It got a bit rambly, I’ll admit, because I ended up accidentally doing a 1 hour masterclass on my current blogging strategy that isn’t 100% reliant on SEO, and how to sell digital products.

But it’s a great video that shares all the relevant information in my article in a different way, and again adds a new bit of information with the in depth strategies for selling a product.

It got 1.2k views in a week.

… embarrassingly I forgot to turn ads on for it so that made me a whopping $0. I’ve been having a ton of issues with Youtube live recently so I was just glad to get it on at all, but I completely forgot to check after. Oops! Based on previous lives that performed similarly, it’d have made about $25.

I also shared it on my podcast (I bet you didn’t know I have one! It’s just my Youtube channel in audio form. Search “She Knows SEO” on your podcast app of choice to find it).

The episode got 93 downloads.

You can also repurpose this content for Tiktok videos, Youtube shorts, and even extra blog posts around the topic.

This post is technically a spin off of that trending article.

Many SEOs, like Dr. Marie Haynes and Mike King, are doing series on the algorithm leak and everything that continues to come out from it.

Even my dog math videos on Tiktok spawned parts 2-5, and later got moved to my personal Youtube (they did not perform as well on YT, interestingly).

Don’t be afraid to keep juicing that lime until it’s properly run dry.

My Challenge to You

I’m going to give you some homework, because I’m the worst kind of teacher: one who wants you to put this into action.

Spend this week looking for a trend in your niche.

This may even be something outside your niche, but that will have ramifications on your niche.

Make sure it’s a topic that even if the article doesn’t go viral, it’ll help your audience in some way. It should stay relevant on your blog even after the trend passes or the news isn’t as fresh.

Follow my steps and write a post on it.

Make sure you share that post everywhere (even if you have 1 follower and 1 newsletter subscriber. Send it to your family group chat, too!), and then try to repurpose it for content on at least 1 extra platform.

Then let me know how it goes!

Join my free Facebook group, SEO for Bloggers, and tag me after your article has been up for a week to share how it went for you.

It’s ok if it flops – my first like 20 did. I just wrote them cause it interested me (check out my product review update from 2023. Barely anyone read it, but it helped me learn how to write better posts so my algo leak article could be better).

But I hope it takes off, gets you some new subscribers, and helps you create a die hard community of besties who love your niche as much as you do. Cause that’s the best feeling ever ❤️