What Are Link Baits Anyway?

Before starting, we answer the question – why does link baiting get hated on anyway, and why the negative connotation on this tactic. It’s important to understand that the tactic, in its most fundamental definition, can refer to any content that is created to attract plenty of links. Looking at this fundamental definition – it does not connote any negativity or positivity—just yet.

What makes a link bait positive or negative is how it used and how the technique is classified. Like a powerful artifact from fantasy films, link baits can either be used for the side of good or evil; it all depends on who uses it. A link bait can be an excellent piece of content that took a number of weeks or months to create or compile, or can be something posted right away, attempting to be something shocking, outrageous, and downright bad. These are the basic extremes of link baiting.

Aside from these two types of link bait, there is a third type, which is a non-link bait. This is a type of content that is called a link bait, but is apparently not as outstanding as the first two types. This third type is usually incorrectly termed as link baits, and is satisfactory at best – and even while comparing it to negative link baits, this type of link bait is the worst.

Why? Because it pretends to be a link bait and seems like one, but it isn’t at all, hence does not provide or produce the desired results of that are generally generated by link baits.

So, Which Is an Excellent Link Bait?

Now that we have the third version (or the pseudo-link bait out of the way), the question is, what makes excellent link bait? Well, most people usually condemn negative link baiting – but people continue to glorify quite a number of distasteful things and content. At the same time, we commend the practice of positive link baiting, but positive content sometimes fails to take off and generate interest.

So, what makes a link bait excellent is not its negativity or positivity. It’s more of how the content is responded to. So, even if we do complain about a negative link bait—those people who get angry about it and respond to it basically link to it, making the link an excellent one in its own right, because it has achieved its goal. People may get angry over a piece of content, may find it disgusting and anything similar – but they will continue to share it, feeding the system.

Positive link baits, on the other hand are of course, better. But that’s only when they generate the desired links. You’ll know a good link bait when you see one, because it’s insightful, inspired, creative and well-thought of. However, the thing is, both positive and negative link baits can get the same amount of attention.

Who Gets to Judge Excellent From Not?

In the end, it’s up to us readers and linkers to choose and decide what’s actually good or not, and this comes in the form of distinguishing the good from the bad. If the content is simply common and mediocre, it’s not a link bait at all. It is just content. If the content is derogatory, insulting, inflammatory and the like – then it’s negative and it’s not worth sharing at all.

And if that piece of content is well thought of, creative, inspiring and the like – well, you know what to do .

Webmasters can use Brand awareness and link building in information graphics (hereafter known as infographics), which are graphic visual representations of data that deliver information clearly and quickly.

Due to the “easily-digestible” information that infographics convey, there are myriad Web-based businesses nowadays that use them to develop their brands and link building tactics. Utilizing these powerful tools is something you should consider if you want to bolster your link building campaign.

Below are several critical factors worth pondering about before creating your implementing infographics into your SEO efforts:

You need to know the subject for your infographic. For every brand or product you want to put out there, there is always a corresponding, amusing graphic concept that can be used. Brainstorm on ways to present your brand/product, get all the information on the product/brand, and then get a designer who can bring the ideas to life.

Hire a competent designer. Infographics are a bit complicated to work on, as research and creativity need to go hand-in-hand. However, when you hire a good infographics designer (a freelancer, in-house designer, etc.), things should run smoothly for your business.

Begin with small projects. Just because you are marketing your brand through infographics, does not mean it will become an instant hit. Start small; try out one or two graphics to see what works and what doesn’t. Once you get a feel for things–– like how long it takes for infographics get noticed and who the potential audiences are—that are good for your business, gradually increase your graphics quantity.

Always put a logo in your work. Claim credit for the infographic you produced, for it can help develop your brand, identifying you as a trendsetter in the industry you’re in.

Share your infographic. Keeping it hidden would be useless in the first place. Your brand gets more exposure if you can get more people to share your infographic with others. Provide an embed code at the bottom or top of your infographic so that they can repost it on their sites. You can also add a keyword-rich link to your site, further deepening your SEO campaign.

Put up your infographic on social media sites. Advertising your brand/product gives you greater chances of getting traffic from social media sites. To name a few:

•    Twitter.com (social networking and microblogging site),
•    Digg.com (social news website) and
•    StumbleUpon.com (discovery engine).

It is important to be the first one to tweet, stumble, and digg your product to get all the traffic to your site.

Secure a Creative Commons license. Creative Commons, a non-profit organization, provides free copyright licenses that prevent other people from stealing intellectual properties. Securing your infographic with a Creative Commons should be a priority. With a CC license, people will be forced to link back to your site if they repost your infographic, garnering you more backlinks in the process.

-    Submitting Your Site to Authority Directories

Though there are plenty of directories, not all of them can give a good ROI. For directories, one should at least try to submit their links to big players like Yahoo!, Best of the Web, JoeAnt or Business.com. These directories have been proven to generate quality backlinks that actually help in the campaigns of their customers.

Directory submission can cost quite a lot. But once you get through, you can expect at least a respectable return on the money you spent. One thing to remember, directory submissions are not for websites that are still being constructed. Submitting an incomplete site is a sure way to get your application rejected.

Moreover, since getting listed is actually a privilege, you may not be able to refund the payment you made.

-    Actual Outreach Activities

This may not be a usual SEO strategy but it still is a legitimate avenue in establishing a connection with your customers. The only important thing here is how you will be able to translate your outreach into online customer traffic.

You can orchestrate outreach activities in many ways. The most common of these is through giveaways and/or promotional sample products. You can offer a free sample on your website just to entice some visitors in clicking through your online ads. You can also employ agents who will help promote your business by making phone calls and the like.

-    Web Content Publishing or Link Baiting

The most traditional way of building a link network is through web content publishing. Visitors click through a website maybe because it was first on the SERPs. What makes a website sit atop the rankings? Excellent Web content. Publishing quality web articles can be time consuming but it definitely is the surest way to life your website’s ranking and rep.

You can produce your own articles but for most companies, especially the bigger ones, hiring an external partner to produce the content may be the best way to go. This strategy is definitely more time and effort consuming but it is one of the most natural ways of acquiring backlinks.

You can use other tools though as link baits aside from web articles. You can use viral videos, graphs, photos, comic strips, and many more. You can post ads of your company in reputable and high-traffic websites.

-    Link Buying

Though a very common practice nowadays, link buying is a link building strategy that has been discouraged. However, many companies, especially some start-up ones, that turn to paid links just so they can jumpstart their link building campaigns.

Several businesses online offer their services for a fee and guarantee a certain number of backlinks back to their customers’ sites. The downside of this strategy mainly comes from the fact that you never really know where the links are coming from or if they are even relevant to your site.

Some of these paid link companies even give out spam links. These will definitely not help your campaigns. This dangerous possibility is the prime reason why this strategy is inherently flawed. You are better off sticking to strategies that will get you quality links in a natural way.

Link building requires time and effort. Do not hesitate to invest your time and a little bit of your funds to your campaign. The returns of your effort may dwarf everything that you spent to make it happen.
 

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.

1. News. “Now” is the operative word when it comes to the Internet’s strength against other media. Optimizing this involves creating content that’s definitely in the know.
2. Contrary. Although not necessarily taken to mean creating arguments for its own sake. Rather, being contrary in linkbaiting is taken to mean providing another critical view, a new insight to a pre-conceived notion, or the discovery of an entirely new area of interest for that matter. Originality—whether in layout presentation, approach to the main topic, and most of all, in terms of content—can spell the difference between a well-linked piece and a missed article.
3. Resource. Being the authority on something (and having to earn that credence) is a distinguishing factor for any writer. A number of the most-read or viewed material online imparts knowledge that one can only get from the experts.
4. Humor. Ah, never underestimate the power of rapport that can be built with a laugh. Humor in linkbaiting makes it something you instinctively want to share with other people. After all, one good laugh deserves another.

On the headlines:

1. Creating misleading hype that is only loosely connected to the content.
2. Headlines that have content considered “fine print.” Worst case in point: promising to give a certain number of pointers or promoting the participation of a particular guest blogger, only to indicate at the bottom of the article that the remaining steps or the actual guest’s blog post can only be read in a different upcoming article.
3. The headline when used effectively, can be a powerful hook in itself. Poorly conceptualized titles can waste what would have been a well-written article.

On the content topic:

1. Nobody likes a perpetual ranter who completely misses the point (if there was one to make in the first place). Articles that seek to win hits by being scandalous or antagonistic without any real reason are only inviting trouble. Sure, an initial spur would increase visits, but if there’s no real value, return readers are not very likely.
2. Copy-pasted articles, whether literally committing plagiarism or continuously recycling ideas, are a surefire way of being forgotten in the long run. Any bet for link baiting must have some aspect of “freshness.”
3. Many have written about carefully choosing hooks for link baiting. Read up on those. Not using them is a mistake that can easily be amended.

On the article quality:

1. It is an insult to your readers to present them with a clearly unedited article – rushed/illogical flow of ideas, grammatical mistakes, typographical errors, broken links — all indicate sloppy work which likely translates to sloppy content as well.
2. Never underestimate the importance of the visual/design impact of the article. Cluttered, difficult to read pages are more than likely to discourage readers.
3. Give credit where credit is due. Citing references is the most basic application of this.
4. Not speaking the target audience’s language means a missed point of connection. (Jargon – its abuse or inadequate use can both be the weakest points of the article.)
5. Link spamming – anything with “spamming” involved is a no-no for anyone planning on being successful with link baiting.

Self-Awareness

1. Look at the range of tools you already have: are you SEO- and SMO-friendly? With the different forms of linkbaiting, hooks, and media available, which direction is best-suited to your capabilities and branding strategy?
2. There is always room for providing compelling content — whether it involves translating confounding concepts into a practical and comprehensive resource, or its opposite, expounding on a vague point by giving more examples and
3. Play your strengths to your advantage — as a newbie with a refreshing perspective, a fairly well-known resource building a considerable reputation, or an authority that is going for the big time.

Audience-Awareness

1. Who are you trying to get on-board and why? Although they are all essentially part of a globally expanded word-of-mouth campaign, your niche’s bloggers, and social media network active community members and industry watchers are sought for specialized expertise.
2. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Consider targeting second-tier bloggers first (those that show great potential in creating a strong voice in the field) not necessarily going right ahead for the big fish.
3. To get you started, why not use your own networks? This is entirely different from, say—God forbid!—requiring your friends to click a hosted ad on your blog every 15mins. Without resorting to anything that is likely to get you banned, your personal network will likely be more open to actively promoting your work.
4. Never underestimate the power of language — it defines your relationship with your readers in so many ways. Only those who truly know their readers can get away with using their industry/community-specific terms without sounding like someone who’s trying too hard to fit in. Understand and learn first before jumping in with all the jargon and memes.

Industry-Awareness

1. Why make the same mistakes everybody else is making at the beginning? This seems all the more foolish, given how information is quite literally at your fingertips. Observe and analyze successful/failing examples of what you’re trying to achieve and how you were planning to achieve it.
2. Be in the know. You may not necessarily be the very first one to broadcast juicy news, but make it a point to cover all the major developments – even if it’s just to give a review or helpful hindsight.
3. If possibly (and there are only a handful of things that are not) try to always test market prior to major changes in your strategy. Keeping an ear on the ground will make you go a long way.