Do you need bait to get a link?
Obtaining links to your site (still important as of today) is hard work. We all know the obvious methods and some of you may know some other more advanced techniques too. A commonly used term in the “be creative and people will link to you” approach is “link bait”.
Link Bait by its definition is producing something that is either sensational or interesting enough to warrant a mention and a link to it from another site. The overarching goal could be branding, or a PR stunt etc etc. But the SEO’s objective is quality inbound links, ideally in volume.
So, what types of link bait are there? And in my personal favourite order list:
- Infographics
- Videos [Funny, Outside the Box]
- Top x Lists
- Controversial Topics
- Complete Guides and Reports
- Interesting Polls and Surveys
- Topic Specific Recaps and Roundups
- Interviews
- Free Tools and Software
- Awards
- Giveaways, Freebies, and Sweepstakes
- First to Discuss
- Widgets
- First to Cover Breaking News
- Inside Look/Previews
– a favourite of mine. This is when you design a pictorial way of showing something exciting.
– always a winner – hard to achieve true fame, but if you are good they are impressive in how far they can fly.
– if you are working on content syndication strategies, quick easy, accessible lists are always a favourite. They must just tap into the human psyche
– “no such thing as bad press”
– data is king. If you are the expert in a field, produce an industy report e.g. Hotel Price Index by Hotels.com. This has so much mileage
– more data – everybody loves to know that 64% people love to give opinions in polls! These are easy for bloggers and journos to take and fill up space easily
– if you attend an event or conference and can do a digest – others who are lazy to take notes or others who couldn’t attend will find it useful
– if you are able to access people or companies of interest, others will find it interesting too
– got to love a freebie. Also here can be “how to’s”, if you find a keyboard shortcut or a new feature share it
– if you are issuing an award, then all nominees will link to the award page, and if they win, more links, plus the industry pundits will pick it up too
– mass approach – timeless way of PR, also competitions fit in here
– Innovation and Expert status mean people cite you as a reference
– either gratitude will get you a link or you could embed a link back e.g. wordpress themes
– similar to no.12. Being fast means you are the best/most relevant/authority
– if you represent/gatekeeper to a topic, insider information is of interest to your audience. They are already warmed up and ready to link. Just look at how many links Google blog gets when there is a half-heads-up on, well, anything
That is my list. I thought I would write it down before I forget it. Can you think of any others?
