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ChurchMag / Web / Analytics / Do You Want to Go Viral?

Do You Want to Go Viral?

Do You Want to Go Viral?

February 5, 2015
by Eric Dye

Every blogger loves to be read.

Let’s be honest about it. What’s the point of writing something, making it public, and then having hardly anyone read it? Sure, you learn to write better and there are other benefits, even if your ‘community’ is just a few readers—it can be very powerful.

Ultimately, however, every blogger wants to go big.

They want to go viral.

Like this maybe?

Google Analytics Do You Really Want to Go Viral?
Who doesn’t want to almost hit 200,000 pageviews?

That’s what happened on ChurchMag last month.

ChurchMag Went Viral

When posts go viral, it can be really exciting.

It’s happened before—you may recall this gem of a post? I was really proud of that. It hit a ChurchMag all-time high of 80,000+ pageviews in a day, and it was a post that was entirely written and created by my wife, Anne.

But this post?

Parents and Texting viral post Do You Really Want to Go Viral?
Parents and Texting — A funny post.

This is the kind of post that we refer to as ‘candy.’

It’s a fun post that isn’t ‘home grown’ at all. It’s a little bit of awesome that’s been found that can be cleaned up and shared with the ChurchMag community. These are also the kind of posts that always have a chance of breaking out of our general readership and has a chance to go viral.

Like this:

Google Analytics Realtime Do You Really Want to Go Viral?
That moment when you realize that 1,141 people are on your blog at the same time.

As I said before, our highest traffic was 80,000+ pageviews in a day, so when we almost eclipsed 200,000, it was pretty #EPIC:

Do You Really Want to Go Viral?

But then it continued!

Do You Really Want to Go Viral?

Crazy stats, I know.

When I told friends and family about this, the usual response was ‘cha-ching’ or a comment about bringing in lots of money.

This may be true for Buzzfeed and 22 Words, but a niché content site like ours that’s driven by unique advertisers, does not translate into ‘easy money.’

In fact, it has quite the opposite effect.

The Cost of Hosting

WP Engine hosting

Thankfully, ChurchMag is hosted on one of the best web hosting companies on the Internet. WP Engine handled the spike in traffic without a single glitch or hiccup.

I was impressed.

And when it came to the overage charges—oh my, the overage charges—they worked with me to upgrade my server plan to accommodate the extra, sustained traffic. And not just a one-click upgrade, either, they migrated all my WP Engine hosted websites to a new server without a single second of downtime.

It was nothing short of impressive.

So while ChurchMag was displaying pages to hundreds of users in real time, the entire mammoth site of over 12,000 blog posts migrated like butter on a hot biscuit (this is what happens when you write a blog post just before lunch).

Do You Want to Go Viral?

Is it cool to go viral?

It is.

The thought that almost 5 million people saw this post on Facebook alone, is really cool.

Do I want to go viral again?

Not any time soon.

Going viral has the potential to empty your pocketbook and turn your awesome blog into a major headache. Thankfully, the ChurchMag co-owner (my wife), runs the ChurchMag finances with enough margin to cover a traffic spike. Hopefully the broad reach we’ve had will have exposed ChurchMag to a few more pastors and tech volunteers who can find enjoyment from our community.

Do you want to go viral?

Hosted by WP Engine

Eric Dye

Support Lead at Valet, and Proprietor of DYECASTING. Human by day, gamer at night, lover of coffee, and all things spicy.

Category: Analytics, Blogging, Web

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Reader Interactions

There are 3 comments already... Come join us!

  1. Chris Wilson says

    February 5, 2015

    All I could think of was “do you want to build a snowman?” while I read this. I’m glad that traffic spike hasn’t stayed…frozen.

    Reply
    • Eric Dye says

      February 5, 2015

      LOL

      Reply
  2. Eric J says

    February 10, 2015

    It’s a good thing you were on a premium host and not shared hosting which would have just turned your site off after the huge traffic spike. We have had 2 viral posts and those traffic spikes keep us on expensive hosting :(.

    Reply

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