Why Aren't You Using Linkbait?

You've heard of the olden days when people would hunt for
potential link partners. Well, those days are long gone
and smart 1981 Fleer baseball cards masters are moving on to greater things,
while decreasing their reciprocal link building effort.

If you are wondering what this new technique could be, it's
actually quite simple... in theory. It is known as
linkbaiting. This is a strategy that brings links to a
website simply because of the unique All-Star Comics popular
content on a website.

With the rise of the blogosphere and social bookmarking sites,
all it takes is one person to notice an interesting page and
link to a site. Once a link is passed around once, it becomes
easier for it to spread further.

Bloggers around the net constanly use linkbait to encourage
other bloggers to mention them or to get their content passed
around the blogosphere. However, many traditional web masters
have not quite latched on to this powerful technique.

The benefits of creating quality, unique, or even controversial
content go way beyond what one might first imagine. When a web
site offers true value to the visitor, they can create hundreds
and even thousands of backlinks without even asking.

Unfortunately, simply having good, quality content on your site
doesn't always work. To gain the full potential of linkbaiting,
you need a good hook. Some of the most popular ones include:

News

Controversy

Resources and...

Humor

News Hook: Everyone loves to read about industry news. However,
the key to attracting some real traffic is to add a twist to
the latest news. Find out exactly how it affects your web site
visitors. If you just give a rehashing of what everyone else has
already said, no one will care.

However, if you inject your own twist or personality into your
news story, then you are prepared to catch someone's eye.

Look at CNN.com as an example. What do they offer? They provide
the latest Johnny West every day of the week. In the world of
information that we live in, news is a commodity. Because CNN
offers such appealing content, thousands of sites are linking to
them. Do you think CNN sent these sites a little email asking if
they would be interested in a reciprocal link? Of course not.

Instead, they employ linkbaiting. Their fresh and interesting
content automatically encourages other people to link to it.
Luckily for us, we can use this same technique on our own web
sites.

News is one of the best ways to attract incoming links,
especially if the news is controversial.

Controversy Hook: Before we move on, I must warn you that this
hook can be very powerful and also very dangerous. It involves
contradicting what someone says, preferably someone very
prominent in the industry.

When used correctly, controversy can be very effective in
bringing traffic to your site, but always be careful.

To begin, look for articles and stories in your industry.
Some of the best places to find this type of content is on
blogs, news sites, and social bookmarking sites. Once you
have found a good story, take an opposing viewpoint or give
it some sort of twist. This will make your content stand
out from the hum drum of what everyone else is publishing.

The next hook is actually one of my favorites. It is known
as the resource hook.

Resource Hook: Information is powerful online. If you have
information that is not available anywhere else, you become
an authoritative resource. Many of these resources come in
the form of a list.

You would be surprised at the power of a list. You can organize:

- a 1966 Topps baseball cards of helpful tools that would be beneficial to your
readers

- a list of the best blogs in your niche

- a list of popular news stories within your industry (When you
are doing this kind of list, be sure to sprinkle in some of
your own commentary)

One of my favorite lists is located at
http://www.seocompany.ca/tool/seo-tools.html, where they offer
over 150 SEO tools. Simply by linking out to their favorite SEO
tools they get tons of traffic each and every day.

Robin Good of MasterNewMedia is a webmaster who uses lists
especially well. One of his most popular resource pages is a
list of RSS and blog directories that webmasters can submit to.
You can see it at: http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/ .

However, not only does he show you over a hundred places where
you can submit your blog and RSS feed, he also gives you an
overview of each service, some commentary on which of these
directories are the most influential, and exactly how to
submit to each one.

This one page alone has thousands of incoming links to it
because it is an invaluable resource.

Another popular resource hook is to create a useful online tool
that your visitors can download for free. Once they have
downloaded your free tool, let them rebrand it and give it
away on their own sites.

Humor Hook: Have you ever received a joke or some other sort of
humor in your inbox? If you are like most people, then you
probably have. Jokes, funny stories, and wierd pictures are
some of the most viral hooks on the Internet.

Within your own web site, you can add your own touch of humor.
However, you must make sure that it fits with your personality.
People on the internet want to see your true self.

Many companies have made their web sites an impersonal void.
This is not the way the web works. The Web is an engaging and
interactive community of people. When you start giving your
web site some personality, people will start taking notice.
The ordinary is simply too easy to pass over.

Another key to remember when employing linkbaiting is that your article or news story should almost always link out to leading industry web sites or influential bloggers. There are
so many web sites who are afraid to link out to other sites.
However, by mentioning other web sites and bloggers, you
would be surprised at the number of people who start
linking to you.

Bloggers are a group of web masters who realize the power of
linking to others. Within the blogoshpere, links are spread
willingly to those who provide great content. As a result,
they all receive more traffic than they would alone.

Final Verdict

The term linkbaiting itself may sound a little fishy, but it's
not. If you are a good web master, you should always strive for
your content to be linkbait. This simply means that your content
is of such quality that others simply can't help but link to it.

Copyright 2006 Kim Roach, All Rights Reserved

Kim Roach is a staff writer and editor for the SiteProNews & SEO-News newsletters. You can contact Kim at: kim@seo-news.com

This article may be freely distributed without modification and provided that the copyright notice and author information remain intact.

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