Linkbaiting | Writing linkbait articles | Increase inbound links

Linkbaiting - writing linkbait articles to get noticed, and increase inbound links

Linkbaiting, despite the shady connotations it sometimes carries, is a perfectly legitimate way of increasing your link popularity. Since search engines use a website's link popularity to gauge how important that website is, more and more web masters are creating linkbait content to get noticed and linked by high-traffic websites.

Wondering what linkbaiting is?

It basically means creating conditions for people to link to your content from their websites. The content acts as "bait", and hence linkbaiting. Linkbaiting is not just good for search engine ranking, lots of highly targeted traffic can come your way from the websites that link to your content.

But linkbaiting is not a panacea for all SEO problems and many a time it has proved a nuisance for some web masters and bloggers, especially when they have tried to promote their linkbait content over social bookmarking websites like Digg where highly temperamental users promote and demote links and you can end up getting tons of useless, counter-productive traffic. Therefore, be careful when you choose this highly effective and yet double-edged tool to promote your website.

First steps

So how do you first create linkbait content, and then create enough buzz to get it noticed? Both require strategy, hard work and focus. Let's first talk about what content qualifies as linkbait content.

When you read or view something with great interest, what hooks you to it?

• Is it some information you desperately need?
• Does it satisfy some craving?
• Does it add value to something you already know?
• Is it extremely topical and you need it to keep you updated and informed?
• Does it solve some problem that nobody has solved yet?
• Is it outright funny?
• Does it touch you emotionally?
• Is it highly controversial?

All these things mentioned above are called the "hooks". The hooks make you read (I'll only use “read” from now onwards and you can assume I also mean “view”) something. If a hook doesn't exist you don't read -- you simply move on to the next thing. So when you are creating linkbait content, you have to think of the "hooks", you have to offer something compelling, and unique. Below I'm explaining some of the hooks you can use to create highly link-worthy content.

Offer something highly useful, for free

People love stuff that is useful and on top of that free. Highly useful and free stuff is irresistible. It doesn't have to be a tangible product. For instance, some people create comprehensive link-lists of resources, free source software, blogging tools, very large how-to articles and ebooks. Useful stuff adds value. If the other web masters and bloggers think your information is useful, they would love to pass on this information to their visitors and their visitors would then pass on the information to their own visitors. Since it's considered good etiquette, whenever they use your information, they'll mention the actual source on their pages, and that actual source would be your link.

Encourage and develop online communities

Almost every person loves to interact and communicate, given a chance. Give them that chance and they will heartily link to you. If you publish a blog or manage an online forum nurture healthy communities where ideas flow like wild mountain streams. Primarily two things happen if you encourage a vibrant community: they come back again and again, and they link to even the most mundane posts of yours. I know it's silly, but I've seen this happening. Develop a rapport with your visitors and they'll link to practically everything you publish.

Offer them humour

We're never going to see a day when people will call humour passé. Humour jells with every kind of niche so there is a greater chance of getting linked but if it is niche-specific, healthy humour, then rest assured of tons of back-links. Humour, especially if original, puts your readers immediately at ease and a healthy feeling develops between you and your readers. The current humorous content may not act as a linkbait immediately but it will certainly pave way for future back links because of the positivity you generate. A quick note though: don't be derogatory and don't hurt the feelings of certain communities in order to sound "funny". As I've said, use healthy humour.

Be contradictory

Yes, be contradictory, but not just for the sake of it. Present a quality contradiction -- backed by reliable data -- to some current hot topic and you'll surely attract links from other websites. People often prefer to publish views and then if possible, counter views because it encourages healthy debate and presents people with alternative opinions. Even if you are not sure about the topic, present a contradiction as if raising a doubt. The web masters and bloggers whom you contradict will frequently link to your web page and then discuss the topic further.

Conduct contests

Contests are great crowd pullers because they give everybody a chance to test how much they know or how popular or unpopular they are. Suppose you run a popular bloggers contest. You select 10 bloggers and then let them know that people on your website will be voting on one of them on your blog/website. They'll surely then announce this on their blogs/websites and then encourage people to go to your blog/website to vote. You can easily imagine how much traffic you can get out of this.

Be an authority

Linking to an expert is the easiest thing to do. Be known as an authority in your sphere of interest and people will link to you at the drop of a hat. This means take your publishing seriously and conduct thorough research before you give your opinion. Use real time data as often as you can and always cite examples from highly respectable sources.

So there can be hundreds of hooks to create linkbait content but these are the most prevalent and they can be easily carried out by almost every blogger and website publisher.

Now how about promoting your linkbait content? There are two scenarios: you are already famous and attract tons of traffic, or (like me) you are not so famous. Now, if you are already getting tons of traffic you don't really need to resort to linkbaiting (but there is no harm in it) so I'm assuming you don't get much traffic. Here are a few things you can do to promote your linkbait content:

Be active on other communities

If people don't know you, how are they going to first, come to your blog/website, and then link to your content? Be an active participant on other blogs/websites and be helpful. The more people you can draw to your blog/website, the better is the chance of them linking to your content. Make sure you don't spam the communities and when leaving messages and comments if you can use your link (including keywords), all the better.

Approach people directly

Write an email to more famous bloggers and website publishers in your niche informing them of what you have written. If it interests them and can prove relevant to their visitors they'll certainly link to you. But don't nag them and don't send them more than two emails (in case they missed the first one). Be selective, and only write to them if you really think your link can be useful to their visitors.

Create search engine friendly content

The search engines are a sure-shot way of getting highly targeted traffic if you optimise your posts well. Use the right headings, use proper anchor text and all the legitimate SEO tactics you can think of to draw maximum mileage from the search engine traffic.

There could be countless ways to promote your linkbait content, but these are the most important ones and you can start working on them from day one.

In conclusion, what matters is that quality, and content are always going to remain king. Continuously come up with quality, highly relevant content and people will link to you enthusiastically.

You welcome to download this article in PDF format for your own use and for re-distribution, so long as the PDF remains intact, as is.

RSS Updates

To be advised whenever content is amended to reflect the latest SEO Marketing trends or new content is added to the knowledge base, subscribe to our RSS feed