How To: Linkbait Your Blog
This is post 1 of 5 in a series called, “5 Tips to Increasing Blog Traffic“.
1. LinkBaiting
Linkbaiting is the process by which you write and article or post that makes waves within your industry. To create a great linkbait you start with something interesting, controversial, accusatory, well researched, or unique. You then take this piece of information or article, put a great headline on it (How To Write Magnetic Headlines) and submit it let your readers submit it to Digg, Del.icio.us, and other social media sites. Word spreads like a wildfire and at the end of the day you have had 12,000 page views and 8,000 unique visitors. Then at the end of the month Yahoo! tells you that new page has 47 new incoming links.
Not only should linkbaiting get you some major traffic, it should also net you some pretty good links and a good number of them. There is one crucial key to linkbaiting. Don’t recycle or copy content! Use unique, great content, even if it takes 3 days to write one piece.
Here are a few tips to consider when creating your linkbait:
Remember your existing audience, and your new visitors. Your current audience may like 1 type of post, your new visitors may not. Try to add something of interest in a “Related Posts”, “Recent Posts”, or “Popular Posts” section that will appeal to new visitors and encourage them to become repeat visitors.
Don’t give up. If you are a new blogger without a reputation, you’ll likely have to craft a few great pieces of linkbait before you will get noticed. Don’t worry however, linkbait can be a few months old and still create traffic through links and search engines.
Avoid Spam-type words and actions. Nobody likes spam, not bloggers, not readers, enough said.
Here are some linkbait resources:
Tropical SEO – Can You Compete with Industrial Strength Linkbaiting?
“And link baiting is the fast, cheap, and bulletproof shortcut to those trusted links.”Stuntdubl – The Link Baiting Playbook: Hooks Revisited
“Linkbaiting is all about the bait. In the same way that you can’t catch a giant tuna with a bag of doritos…”SEOmoz – Talking about LinkBait
“SEOmoz has gone fishing for links quite successfully in the recent past. Our recent heavily linked-to projects include…”Cornwall SEO – The Enormous Linkbait list
“I have read a ton of stuff on linkbait over the past year, I thought I would put together a list of the linkbait articles I have come across. ”Link Building Blog – How to get $196,000 worth of links, free
I’ll admit that I came up with that title. Isn’t that much better linkbait, while still being true?
Examples of linkbait in action:
Problogger – 20 Linkbaiting Techniques
Although this post is about linkbait, it is great linkbait itself.SEJ – Search Engine Journal’s 2005 Search Blogs Awards
Great use of Linkbait although in the beginning it was unintentional.Jeremy Zawodny – SearchEngineJournal doesn’t link? WTF?!
This bit of linkbait worked out great for SEJ because everyone was linking to this post.Daggle – Stats Say: Sticking With Gmail!
Great little piece talking about false positives in your spam folder.Scoreboard Media – Bruce Lee vs. The Enola Gay: Who Ya Got, Link Ninjas?
Something critical and controversial always works. Be ready for the fallout.
And one final piece of content that I saved for last because if you skipped everything I said above, but took hold of this, you would have it all!
Andy Hagans’ Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and Social Media Marketing
So get out there and start linkbaiting your niche!
5 Tips For Increasing Blog Traffic » Brandon Hopkins said
March 8 2007 @ 10:20 am
[...] 1. How To: Linkbait Your Blog [...]
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March 20 2007 @ 10:48 am
[...] spam is one of the fastest ways to make sure nobody reads your blog and that your quality content doesn’t get the respect it [...]
» Brandon Hopkins said
March 20 2007 @ 11:20 am
[...] 1. How To: Linkbait Your Blog [...]
5 Tips For Increasing Blog Traffic Project Complete! » Brandon Hopkins said
March 20 2007 @ 1:21 pm
[...] 1. How To: Linkbait Your Blog [...]
66 Ways to Build Links in 2007 » Brandon Hopkins said
March 21 2007 @ 1:11 pm
[...] 2. Write great linkbait. (This is the ultimate for 2007.) The Link Baiting Playbook: Hooks Revisited Andy Hagan’s Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and Social Media Marketing How To: Linkbait Your Blog [...]
PatrickB said
March 21 2007 @ 2:47 pm
Good article. There are a lot of people out there who don’t know about linkbaiting and want a way for people to see their blog or website. This way is not only effective but relatively easy and has a positive impact, unlike spam…
Deel 15 van de zoekmachine optimalisatie maand: Creeer een Linkbait | Kletskous said
March 22 2007 @ 5:51 am
[...] hier nog veel meer ideeen op voor het creeeren van een Linkbait of liever nog, bedenk zelf iets [...]
Phill Midwinter said
March 22 2007 @ 8:04 am
Cheers brandon, very useful
DonX said
March 29 2007 @ 2:01 am
[...] 2. Write great linkbait. (This is the ultimate for 2007.) The Link Baiting Playbook: Hooks Revisited Andy Hagan’s Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and Social Media Marketing How To: Linkbait Your Blog [...]
Why I Blog » Make Money Online with Brandon Hopkins said
April 9 2007 @ 11:10 am
[...] Sense of accomplishment – I love writing a good article, or piece of linkbait and getting 75 trackbacks and 200 links. That makes me feel really good, and is fun when it [...]
David Paul Robinson said
April 9 2007 @ 4:35 pm
Good tips and good linkbait in itself
Marco said
April 28 2007 @ 11:33 am
Please read my article on linkbait for a fundamental view on it. Comments are appreciated.
What Everyone Ought to Know About Linkbaiting | Pajama Professional said
April 30 2007 @ 2:51 pm
[...] If you want to know more about linkbaiting, just Google and you’ll find more than you could ever read. For starters, try these articles: Andy Hangan’s Ultimate Guide to Link Baiting The Enormous Linkbait List 20 LinkBaiting Techniques Filthy Linking Rich How To Linkbait Your Blog [...]
Hur ökar man antalet besökare till sin blogg? | Webmastern.se said
May 28 2007 @ 9:59 pm
[...] How To: Linkbait Your Blog [...]
Fun vs. Profitable - Finding Your Niche » Make Money Online with Brandon Hopkins said
June 1 2007 @ 6:03 pm
[...] Those will draw in more visitors and will capture a lot of clicks just with the title. Those post should probably be pictorial with a lot of content to make them major linkbait. [...]
Deb said
August 16 2007 @ 7:00 pm
Wow…Brandon! I have spent a few hours tonight on your site and I know I will spend a few more. I am learning about SEO and blogging and your site it fabulous! Thanks for the effort and information…I’ll tell my friends!
Nair said
November 21 2007 @ 10:10 pm
Great Stuff !!!
Thanks for the information, it’s a really useful SEO tip.
Nair
Linkbait Tactics That Actually Work said
December 18 2007 @ 8:38 am
[...] How To: Linkbait Your Blog (brandon-hopkins.com) 50 [...]
Pensacola Real Estate News said
January 26 2008 @ 6:40 pm
Thanks. Need to learn more about linkbaiting. This is one concept I’ve never looked into. Gosh knows I have enough to do just keeping the blog going and getting links. Thanks for the great SEO info. I could spend a lot of time on this site.
PS3 said
March 14 2008 @ 2:43 pm
Linkbaiting is often written about in negative terms. I regularly see people writing off a post that others have written or a comment others have left as ‘just being linkbait’.
I personally don’t like the term ‘linkbaiting’ on some levels as it does seem to have negative connotations. ‘Baiting’ has a sense of trying to trick or trap an unsuspecting person or thing into doing something that they don’t really want to do. While this is accurate with some forms of linkbaiting it is not true with others.
seoreef said
March 16 2008 @ 3:05 pm
Linkbait is difficult when you are just starting out. However, once you have the leverage, it’s a walk in the park.
JC @ cheap tvs said
December 9 2009 @ 9:07 am
Funny how the best link bait blog posts are about link baiting.