Don Modekali

Tag: viral nova clone

VN Experiment: My Viral Nova WordPress Theme
Hey guys,

November is here and it’s funny how quickly time flies when you have a lot of things going on. I have a quick follow up update for you on my VN experiment. This update is with regards to the theme I used for my site.

When setting up my VN site, I opted to use WordPress as my Content Management System. The benefits of WordPress are obvious, and it’s the flexibility in posting and scheduling content that I was mainly looking at. Moreover, I generally prefer WordPress of other CMSs.

One of the things I was looking for is a theme that would look/function like ViralNova. Now, you may cringe at the thought of copying everything VN is doing but if they are getting it right, why should I go a different route?

So, my quest to search for a theme that’s similar to what VN is using started. Luckily, I did not have to look far to get what I believe is a good theme. While it’s not exactly like VN’s, it certainly has some characteristics that I find important in this type of site.

Viral Nova Clone Template

Now, this experiment is about VN but there are a bunch of other related sites (or should I say competitors?) that are also having similar success. In my experiment, I am majorly focusing on three sites: Viral Nova, Upworthy and Distractify.

Let’s see how the sites’ layouts look like as of this time:

From the layouts, you may have noticed some boxed thing going on.

Moreover, in case you missed it, all the themes also allow visitors to load more articles on the same page rather than going through the usual pagination.

Coming to the pages, you’ll see the ads positions are nearly similar.

Then, of course there is the ability to share posts on social media sites.

The theme I am looking for should have similar ad placement on the pages. Then, of course, things like social sharing capability are important.

I’ve looked at different themes that are likely to work for my case and I’ve settled on Socially Virally WordPress theme. This theme looks nearly like ViralNova and has the major features I bolded above:

You can see the boxed homepages, auto-scrolling posts at the bottom, and the ad placements on the side.

The theme only cost me $35 from MyThemeShop.

What you may or may not know is that ViralNova initially run on True Pixel theme designed by MyThemeShop.

However, the site was given a facelift, with the owner outsourcing the work to 99designs. You can see the winning design that they opted to go for here.

If you are not familiar with 99designs, it’s basically a crowdsourcing, contest-like design website. You simply initiate a contest and commit to paying for it. A bunch of designers interested in your contest will submit their design proposals. You get to choose the winning proposal and pay for it.

The site is really a good place if you are looking for a unique logo, web layout or anything to do with graphics. I’ve seen lots of professional graphics at the site. Check 99designs.com and see what the designers can help you with.

For my Socially Viral theme, I just did some customizations to make the theme match my brand’s colors and I was up and running in a day.

Viral Nova WordPress Theme

If you are looking to create a viral site, you may have other ideas on what you would like. Luckily, since the success of VN, there have been a number of good themes and scripts designed for viral types of sites that you can choose.

Here are my select top 5 Viral Nova templates.

1. ViralTimes

This theme is also designed by HotCloneThemes and can be said to be the perfect Viral Nova template. The theme looks exactly like Viral Nova in terms of features and even the colors. The theme costs $69 but the best thing is that the price gives you access to all the themes developed by HotCloneThemes.

The best thing is that you can get the theme for free. Simply sign up for an account here. However, with the free theme, you cannot remove copyright information, which is a link indicating “Designed by HotCloneThemes”.

Click to View Demo Site

I did sign up and get to set up my site with the theme. So, how does it perform?

Well, I couldn’t get the theme to work properly on my site. It just felt so blank…like a part of the theme was missing. Moreover, there was not a lot I could do in terms of customization without editing the .css file.

If you are good at HTML and are not afraid to edit code, the theme may be good for you. But for me, I’m more of a visual editing guy so I opted for a different them.

2. ViralPress

From all the themes I have come across online, this theme is the one that looks exactly like Distractify. The theme is developed by HotCloneThemes and is meant for WordPress and comes with modern standard features such as social media integration, responsive, lightweight, etc.

I looked around the developer site and saw clone themes of popular websites such as College Humor, LOL Snaps and others. The theme also goes for $69, like all themes developed by HotCloneThemes.com

Check out the theme here.

3. Socially Viral

This is the Viral Nova clone I am using for my website. The theme is responsive and professionally made. Moreover, the backend is clean and easy to get started with.

The theme is being sold for an amazingly low price of only $35. I opted for Socially Viral because of their unbelievable low membership price. For only $67, you get all the premium themes and unlimited updates.

Click image to view Demo

I think this was a good investment on my part since I am constantly making sites for myself and clients and will not have to buy a new theme every time I need to do an experiment with a web site

Some of the features that make the theme stand out include:
- Tasteful homepage design and style that will sparks curiosity within consumers.
- Appealing common threads design and style that will raises your page views.
- Getting individual web site design and style that will raises your interpersonal shares.
- Prominent sign-up pack that will raises your buyers.
- Fast design and style that will boost your search engine ranking.
- Built-in advertising opportunities that will improve your earnings.
You can check out the Socially Viral theme here.

PS: You can get a 10% discount on the theme by using this coupon DON-M. Simply enter it when checking out to apply your discount.

4. TruePixel

This WordPress theme is developed by MyThemeShop and is currently on sale for only $35. This is the theme that Viral Nova used initially before changing it’d design.

I also used the theme on my site and found it easy to customize and set up. However, the homepage boxed feature that I was looking for lacks in this theme. That’s why I switched to Socially Viral from TruePixel.

However, the team at MyThemeShop has introduced a new TruePixel layout that makes it great for viral websites. Here is the new layout dubbed “social” layout.

TruePixel is a great theme to use for your Viral Nova clone website. The theme is lightweight, which is an important factor since you will be posting lots of images on your website.

You can check the full features of the theme here.

5. BearWorthy

This is another VN clone that I have come across but is not meant for WordPress.

BearWorthy is a Viral Nova clone script made using HTML5 and CSS3. The script costs $47 and can be easily setup if you know a bit of HTML. Looking at the script, you get the best of both Viral Nova and Upworthy features. This is one of the best VN clones I’ve seen around.

Some of the features of BearWorthy include:
- User Sign up/login system
- 4 Types of posts (Image, Gallery, Audio and Video)
- Explore posts (trending, featured, popular)
- Next/previous buttons on all post pages
- Comments system (via Facebook)
- Search feature and
- Social share
- Newsletter Subscriptions
This was my preferred theme but since it’s a PHP script and doesn’t work with WordPress, I ended up not choosing it. However, if you are comfortable with HTML, you should be able to get this going. Moreover, there are a number of installation videos provided by the developer to get you started.

Check all the features of BearWorthy here.

The above are four of the top Viral Nova clone templates that I have been looking at. Like I said, I finally decided to go with Socially Viral. However, there are other high quality themes out there that will make your website stand out and not look like a VN copy-cat.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy November.

BONUS: Get 10 Viral Nova Templates

I have a quick bonus for everyone. You can get my report of 10 of the best Viral Nova templates for WordPress that I have compiled. Simply click here to request the FREE report.

PS: Check out the completely FREE viral WordPress theme in the report 🙂

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November 4, 2014
Project VN Experiment aka Viral Nova Clone
Oscar Wilde was a man of many hats…and so am I!

So far, I have concentrated on creating niche sites, which to be honest, I have found success. Now, it’s time to get started with a new challenge.

It’s time for another online business experiment.

The candidate: Viral Nova!

Cringes :-/

Introducing the Viral Nova Clone Experiment

What’s Viral Nova?

I don’t feel I should have the above subheading in this article because I assume everyone has heard of Viral Nova.

In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, simply head on to ViralNova.com

In a nutshell, VN is a video and images content curation website that uses click-bait headlines to generate traffic from social media, mostly Facebook.

Click-bait headlines are simply those shocking-type or funny-type of headlines that make you want to click a link and read an article or view videos/images to see what is going on.

You may have come across headlines like this:
- OMG, I Can’t Believe What this 7-Year Old Did to This Bully.
- No One Paid Attention to the Man…That’s Until He Started Playing The Violin
- 33 Cute Baby Faces that Will Make Your Heart Melt
Okay, hope you got the idea.

What the site does is simply find shocking, beautiful, or other interesting content from various sources online, repurposes them, creates and exciting or shocking titles and then simply posts the content on the site.

The result? Hundreds to thousands of shares on social media sites that leads to millions of unique visitors per month.

VN has seen major success throughout 2013 and 2014, both in terms of traffic and revenues. I would have started this experiment earlier when Glen from Viperchill brought attention to the site in his post here.

But the lazy me was not ready to get started. Glen followed up in another post on VN on how some of his readers had found success in the model. I still remained passive; no action taken.

And now, with the third post on VN and related sites, I dusted myself up and said, “What the heck”, time for a new challenge. So, here I am with my introduction post to my viral content style website.

Potential Opportunities

1. Proven models to follow

There is no need to re-invent the wheel. The circular ones are doing a perfect job.

This philosophy is what I intend to follow with my viral content site. I will simply take notes from VN, and a host of other successful knock-off or copy cats, and implement what they have.

Note: I will not be copying their content exactly. Rather, I will be looking at them for inspiration. For example, if I find certain content was shared a lot, I may post it on my site. If I like the design of a particular site, I may implement it on my site with some customization.

2. Low entry barrier

One of the biggest challenges of online businesses is creating online content. I first-hand know this as you can see I do not post every other day on my blog.

Why? Content creation takes time. It is tasking and just tiring.

The good thing with this experimental website I’m creating is that it is following a content curation model. Basically, curation means getting content from other sources, adding your unique perspective or value to it and then distributing it to your audience.

Of course, you have to credit the original source for the content.

Potential Challenges

1. Facebook Traffic

VN and other similar sites rely on most of their traffic from Facebook. However, Facebook recently tweaked its algorithm to reduce the number of fans that can see a brand’s content on their timeline.

This means the early successes that VN has in driving traffic to its site from Facebook may not apply to me. Today, if you want to increase your page’s visibility, you need to pay more.

At this time, I do not have any budget in mind. In fact, I haven’t set aside any cash for ads. Will I be able to break into the biz without paid ads? We’ll see.

2. Branding

There are lots of VN knockoffs at the time of writing. (Thanks Glen for broadcasting the gold rush on megaphone). How will I differentiate my site not to be regarded as just another VN knock-off?

What about the niche? Should I approach the website on a niche version or go broad? These are some of the questions I will ask and have to decide in the next few days.

3. Monetization

Google AdSense is my preferred method of monetization for the site. However, since most of the content posted on the site will not be my original content, I may get into potential problems with Google AdSense.

However, I have other options to go for. Some of the possible monetization methods I may consider include CPA (cost per acquisition), selling ad space, and sponsored content.

Recommended Reads for Project VN Experiment

Before signing off today, I would like to share a number of articles that I have found extremely helpful in understanding this business model and getting ideas on what I can do on my own site.

Here are the lists I have read, (and which I recommend you read in case you want to start a similar site).

Time Sensitive: How To Reach 100,000,000 Visitors in Six Months

$100,000 in One Week, A Viral Nova Follow Up

Are You Clicking These Headlines That Make Regular People Internet Millionaires? (Check Success Story #1)

For the above three articles, make sure you go through the comments. There are some real gems in them.

Upworthy: How to Create a Fast-Growing Media Company

Scot DeLong’s Success Formula for Viral Nova

Exclusive Interview With Scott DeLong – The Mysterious Genius Behind ViralNova.com

The Facebook Traffic Problem

Now, in case you missed it, Facebook simply just made it a lot harder for content sites like VN and the like to get traffic from its social network. This came out on 25^th August, and you can read the post on Facebook Blog.

But like everything that is algorithmically controlled, there are always ways to get around this clamping. For example, I believe increasing engagement with fans on Facebook will make them visit the website.

For the most part, I will be studying what ViralNova.com, Upworthy.com and Distractify.com are doing to their sites, and then get the gems from them. It’s all about experimenting.

On whether the Facebook algo tweak will have an impact on my experiment. Definately.

On whether the algo can be side-stepped, probably.

I looked at the traffic data of the three sites I am monitoring, and since the algo was rolled out, it seems VN and Distractify have seen increased traffic. Upworthy’s traffic has tanked a little bit. Still, perhaps it’s too early to see the impact of the algo.

Viral Nova traffic…saw a jump from August (when the algo was implemented)

Distractify also saw an increase in traffic from August.

Upworthy’s traffic tanked a little bit.

Another route I will be pursing would be to focus on SEO and other methods of generating traffic rather than relying solely on Facebook traffic.

This is just the scratch of the surface of some possible ends to get around Facebook clamping.

What Have I Done Already?

Now, let’s see how far I have done with the VN-knock off. Mark you, I started the site in August but I’m posting this article a little bit late. But providing the dates here will give you perspective on how things are going.

Okay, here are the timelines:

9^th August- Bought Domain Name

15^th August- Set up website (hosting, theme, plugins)

16^th August- Set up my social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram)

17^th August- Published first article

That’s the update I have today.

Stay tuned for my next post.

Would you be interested to see how things turn out with Project VN? Let me know in the comment section below.

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October 13, 2014