For some weird reason when I think of link baiting, I picture some mysterious unknown being lurking in the shadows. Then, when you least expect it, it entices you back to the abyss from which it came. Forever lost to the spell it put upon you.
Link baiting, in a lot of ways, is similar to my weird interpretation. It is often viewed as a sneaky way of trapping people into doing something that they are not aware of, or might not want to participate in. This can be an accurate description for some forms of link bait, but not all forms of link baiting are used in this manner.
What Is Link Baiting
Link Baiting (also known as linkbait, link bait, etc) isn’t anything new to most people familiar with link building tactics. It simply means to get links from other people on something you have posted. Before I continue with some of my suggestions, I want to mention a few points.
- I don’t want this to come across, nor do I support link building as being used in unethical ways. Because link baiting is dependant upon the ideas of each individual, there is no way to completely define how link baiting should or shouldn’t be used. Some SEO companies flat out refuse to offer it as a service.
- These are some ways that I have used (ethically) or seen other people use to gain links. Not everyone uses these tactics for the purpose of gaining links in return. They are simply providing informative content to readers!
Generate A Report
When you are brain storming on ways to generate link bait for your home business, you want to start out by narrowing it down to one specific area. This will be extremely targeted and get you the biggest bang for your time. Say, for example, you have a business that targets the weight loss niche. You have found information about a weight loss pill that causes a serious side effect. You can generate a report with what you have found, and post it in all the heavily visited social media and news sites. If people like what you have posted, they will link to it on their own site for their readers to follow.
Have Original Or Unique Content
This could probably fall into the same category listed in reports. The idea with this one is to come up with some unique strategy or idea that no one has mentioned before. You could type it up in an article form and display it on you website. This one is a hard one to do, just because you are competing with a hundred billion other people that might have already come up with the idea three months ago.L
Make A Free Tool
This one can be fairly easy to do. Try thinking of some things that people in your niche might like to have to make their life easier. When you solve a mutual problem through your free tool, you will generate a ton of links that could possible make you an authority in your niche. This is also a positive way of contributing to your niche and gaining more traffic.
Use a Widget
There are webmasters that might not be technically inclined to post a link to your particular post. Giving them an easy way to post a link to your site will generate you a higher backlinks. You can make a widget on the report you did about the weight loss pill. Make this widget available for others to quickly post to their content.
Start A Contest
Creating something for people to participate in is a good way to get backlinks. Make it more interesting by adding in some prizes for the winner. This one can fall under the shady area to some. I have seen some websites that make it mandatory to post the link to the contest on your own site in order to participate. This might not go over to well with some people. Making the mandatory link to your website might hinder you from getting the exposure you are hoping the contest might generate to your website. The general rule of thumb I like to give out is if you really think people will support what you are doing, go ahead and add the mandatory link.
Creating Fun Awards
Put together an awards ceremony for those in your niche. Generate a survey widget for webmasters to put on their site about an award they are trying to get for having the best blog content. After all the votes are in the winner gets to display a badge of honor for bragging rights. Make the awards for things that people would think are fun to display and participate in. I will leave the imagination up to you on this one. The important part is to make it fun for both visitors and the owners of the site.
The sky is the limit on things that you can create for getting links. There are many link baiting techniques I haven’t mentioned. I would love to hear what others have to say about link bait. Please feel free to leave a comment or technique that you have seen used.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Some great ideas but allways be aware of the time these sort of thing take to set up you. Go for quick links first.. you wont get 50 links in a way through link baiting!
It doesn’t seem easy as it looks. But I’ll follow your advice.
Thanks for the kind comments on my site, Josh. Really appreciate it. And this one is a great article. Jason Katzenback….hope that I spell his name correctly, always do the contest thingie. And, Mark Ling have lots of free tools in his Affilorama website, which just forced me to register ^-^. Good job, dude.