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Reel Them in: Unleash the Power of Linkbaiting

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Have you ever wondered how you can promote your business that sells your products online? Have you ever planned to create a blog where you make a name for yourself as a celebrity critique can but you don’t know where to start or what content to put to attract a lot of readers? Attracting attention online can be a challenge with the changing landscape of cyberspace and today’s number of websites that are at stake for indexing by search engines. Whether you need to draw customers to buy your products in your business website or get customers to patronize your blog where you can freely express your mind and earn passive income through pay per click advertising at the same time, asserting your online presence and value takes time and needs certain techniques to market your website successfully.

One of the most effective methods to reel users in to your site is linkbaiting. Linkbaiting is an incredibly familiar term used in search engine optimization. But what exactly is linkbaiting? How can you utilize it to your advantage? Linkbaiting is all about creating and posting content on a web page that baits people to tell others about it by linking to it from other websites.You can make an article, blog post, image, or video that is interesting enough to catch viewers’ attention. This technique is especially designed to gather links from as many different sources as possible. Linkbaiting is one of the most effective forms of viral marketing. This is commonly used to get links since the number and quality of incoming links determine a site’s ranking in search engines. The higher the quality and quantity of inbound links, the better it is.

Have you read some Top 10 or Top [insert number here] lists of anything such as places to eat, online tools and resources for car care, fitness tips that will make you lose weight in three months and whatnot somewhere on the web? Or have you seen viral marketing videos that are highly creative easily catches anyone’s attention? Most likely, you have seen videos of Nike and Kobe Bryant’s jaw-dropping dunk over a moving Aston Martin while wearing a pair of Hyperdunk shoes. These are some examples of linkbaiting strategies that contain catchy, relevant content to increase online presence and to promote certain ideas, brand or product.

There are several linkbait strategies to choose from.

  1. Informational: You can opt to create informational hooks such as lists or how-to-guides that readers may find comprehensive and helpful. It is probably the easiest and most effective form of linkbait to attract an audience and gather links.
  2. Lists: Lists are very popular and prevalent especially in social media sites, such as Digg and Delicious. Lists worthy of attention have creative content and title, beneficial to your target audience and focused on your niche. Some examples would be: -15 Helpful Tips to Maintain your Car, -7 Ways to Start Your Mornings Right ,-50 Online Resources for Best-Selling Novels. Always remember that in creating lists, you have to present it in our own perspective to make it look original and interesting.
  3. Commentary: Writing a timely commentary or discussion about the latest news regularly would get users viewing your page and attract links. Stay updated for the latest trends and current affairs news that readers might be most interested in. You can research anywhere online for any relevant news, from news websites, online journals and periodicals to social media sites. Make sure that post content on a regular basis, may it be daily or weekly, to keep your readers updated.
  4. The Great Debate: Another surefire way to gather audience is to stir up controversy on a topic by providing an opposing perspective to a prevailing wisdom or another article. Provoke the online community into talking about you and linking to you by being a little more liberal and radical and by defying mainstream conventions and status quo. A perfect example would be the Men Are Better than Women website (www.menarebetterthanwomen.com) that posts anything “for men and against women”.
  5. Humor: You can execute linkbait techniques in funnier, crazier and cooler ways. It never fails to make use of humor as a tool to attract attention and links. From blending all sorts of stuff in a blender to dunking over a moving sports car, such gimmicks never disappoint to create obsession in the online community. Viral marketing campaigns through videos with subtle branding or through sites that amuse the readers first before promoting the brand tend to become very popular in the internet, thus absorbing a high amount of consistent traffic stream in the long run.

A successful linkbaiting campaign does not require you to shell or a lot of cash nor have to be complicated. As long as you are consistent and persistent, you can attract links like a magnet. People will be talking about your content or flood your website in no time.

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