You’ve heard about the past when people would hunt for potential link partners. Well, those days are long gone and smart web masters to move to something bigger, while reducing the reciprocal link their development efforts.
If you’re wondering what this new technique can, it’s actually quite simple … in theory. This is known as linkbaiting. This is a strategy that carries links to a website just because of the unique and popular content on a website.
With the advent of the blogosphere and social bookmarking sites, all it takes is one person to see the interesting pages and links to the site. Once the link is passed around once, it becomes easier for it to spread further.
Bloggers around the net constantly use linkbait to encourage other bloggers to mention them or to get the content they passed around the blogosphere. However, many web masters do not quite stick to the traditional strong technique.
The benefits of creating quality, unique content, or even controversial go far beyond what might first imagine. When a website offers the correct value to the visitor, they can create hundreds and even thousands of backlinks without even asking.
Unfortunately, just having a good, quality content on your site does not always work. To get the full potential of linkbaiting, you need a good hook. Some of the most popular are:
News
Controversy
Resources and …
Humor
Best news: Everyone likes to read about the news industry. However, the key to attracting some real traffic is to add a twist with the latest news. Find out exactly how it affects your web site visitors. If you only give a repetition of what others have said, no one will care.
However, if you inject your own twist or personality into your news, then you are ready to catch someone’s eye.
See, for example CNN.com. What do they offer? They provide the latest news every day of the week. In a world of information that we live in, the news is a commodity. Because CNN offers such appealing content, thousands of sites linking to them. Do you think CNN sent these sites a little email asking if
they would be interested in reciprocal links? Of course not.
Instead, they employ linkbaiting. They are fresh and interesting content automatically encourages other people to link to it. Fortunately for us, we can use the same technique on our own website.
News is one of the best ways to attract incoming links, especially if the news is controversial.
Controversy Hook: Before we proceed, I must warn you that this book can be very powerful and also very dangerous. It involves the opposite of what someone says, preferably someone very prominent in the industry.
When used correctly, the controversy can be very effective in bringing traffic to your site, but always be careful.
To start, look for articles and stories in your industry. Some of the best places to find these types of content in blogs, news sites and social bookmarking sites. Once you have found a good story, took the opposite point of view or provide a kind of twist. This will make your content stand out from the hum drum of what other people publishing.
The next hook is actually one of my favorites. This is known as a resource hook.
Hook Source: Information strong online. If you have information that is not available anywhere else, you become the authoritative source. Many of these resources come in the form of lists.
You will be surprised by the strength of the list. You can set:
- List of useful tools that will be useful to your readers
- List of the best blogs in your niche
- List of popular news in your industry (When you do this kind of list, be sure to sprinkle in some comments of your own)
One of my favorites list is located in http://www.seocompany.ca/tool/seo-tools.html, where they offer more than 150 SEO tools. Simply by connecting to their favorite tool of SEO they get tons of traffic every day.
Robin Good MasterNewMedia is a webmaster who uses a very good list. One of the most popular page is a resource list of RSS and blog directories that can be sent to the webmaster. You can look at: http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/.
However, not only does he show more than a hundred places where you can submit your blog and RSS feeds, it also gives you an overview of each service, some comments that this directory is the most influential, and precisely how to submit to each.
This one page alone has thousands of incoming links to it because it is an invaluable resource.
Other hooks are popular resources for creating a useful online tool that your visitors can download it for free. Once they have downloaded your free tool, let them change the image and give it on their own sites.
Humor Hook: Have you ever received a joke or any other kind of humor in your inbox? If you’re like most people, then you may have. Jokes, funny stories, and images are some of the most bizarre viral hooks on the Internet.
In your own web site, you can add your own touch of humor. However, you must ensure that it matches your personality. The people on the internet want to see your true self.
Many companies have made their website impersonal nothingness. This is not the way the web works. The Web is attractive and interactive community of people. When you start giving your website a few personalities, people will begin to take notice. Ordinary just too easy to miss.
Another key thing to remember when using linkbaiting is that the article or news should almost always a link to the website of the leading industry or influential bloggers. There are so many websites are afraid to link to other sites. However, by mentioning other web sites and bloggers, you
will be surprised at the number of people who start linking to you.
Blogger is a group of web masters who realized the power of connecting to others. In blogoshpere, willing to spread the link to those who provide great content. As a result, they all receive more traffic than their own will.
Final Verdict
The linkbaiting term itself may sound a little fishy, but it does not. If you are a good web master, you should always strive for your content for linkbait. This means that your content is a quality such that others can not help but link to it.