You have undoubtedly seen videos on YouTube with over a million views and hundreds of comments. Being the creator of such a video puts you in the very enviable position of being able to use it to generate traffic for your website. Although many such videos "accidentally" become huge draws on the Internet, there is no question that others are strategically designed with viral marketing in mind.

When a video "goes viral", it is passed enthusiastically from person to person online. For whatever reason, people find the video entertaining and noteworthy enough to send links of it to friends, family members and coworkers. With lightning speed, such videos take the Internet by storm - and draw incredibly high page views. When such videos maximize their marketing potential by including a discreet website URL in the corner of the screen, traffic can begin stampeding into the advertised website.

There is no foolproof, guaranteed way to create a viral video. Rather, there are several techniques that can be used to create one that will generate the kind of buzz necessary to improve your website's traffic. Below, we outline a few tips regarding elements to include in a video that might make it "go viral"; experimenting with some or all of these may help you achieve success in this endeavor.

Viral Video Marketing Techniques

• Amateurish videos are far likelier to go viral than slickly produced ones. If people sense that the video has been created in a studio as a form of advertising, they are less likely to pass it along to their friends. Use a regular camcorder and "average people" when creating your video.

• Videos featuring animals doing cute or interesting things tend to do quite well. Since they are "safe for work", such videos are likelier to be spread around more quickly. If you own a cat or a dog, be on the lookout for it to do something noteworthy and capture it on film.

• Similarly to animals, videos of kids doing or saying cute things tend to be huge draws online. If you have old family videos lying around, go through them to search for notable moments that might make for good viral videos.

• If you own a keyboard or other type of music program, use it to create a catchy beat that will get stuck in peoples' heads. Use it to back up a collection of funny or quirky images, and there's a good chance that it will go viral and generate a lot of buzz.

• As witnessed by the success of many reality shows - and the popularity of April Fools Day - pranks are something that many people enjoy. If you can capture a video of someone being duped or pranked, post it online and begin sending it around; you may have a viral video on your hands.

• Many viral videos have featured people "butchering" popular songs - i.e., singing a well known tune without exhibiting very much singing talent. Considering the popularity of karaoke - and American Idol - it is obvious that people find this endlessly hilarious. Film yourself or a friend doing this, post it online and see what happens.

• Videos of people having accidents or otherwise hurting themselves have been huge draws for years. The old "slipping on a banana peel" phenomenon still holds a lot of weight these days. Always have your camera at the ready to capture such incidents on camera; if it is funny enough, it might be the next hot Internet video.

• If you are a talented artist, you could create animations of various kinds. Some ideas include cartoons based on current events or parodies of popular movies and television shows. When such efforts are well done enough, they are likely to be passed along from person to person.

Marketing Your Viral Video

As mentioned previously, putting a discreet website URL on the corner of the video you create is a smart idea that can draw visitors to your website; after all, isn't that the point of creating a viral marketing video? Once your video is ready, you should get it "live" on the Internet as quickly as possible. YouTube is the obvious place to post virtually any type of video; there is no question that the service has created many Internet stars throughout its run.

Once your video is online, you can get the ball rolling by sending out links to it on various social networking and social media websites. Tweet the URL to your followers on Twitter; share links to it with your Facebook friends. Digg your video on Digg.com; others may follow suit. From there, let it go and see what happens. With any luck, it will generate interest and begin drawing traffic to your website.