Ten Common Techniques to Link Baiting
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Further to my previous post on "Grab Links for Your Blog by Link Baiting", I would like to write more on this method, and give ten common techniques for link baiting activities.
1. Podcasting: Make a podcast that give useful tips, discusses hot topics or information within the industry your blog belongs to is a great baiting tool.
2. Interviews: Conducting interview to someone well known in the industry where your blog belong would certainly be worth linking to. In Adsense, these big guys include Darren Rowse, Joel Comm, John Chow etc. (when will I be the next one? LOL)
3. Award Search: Awards search are another way to bring in traffic and links where you let your participants post entries to their blogs with a link pointing to your blog.
4. Tools and games: Create a new tool or games that other bloggers may use to their blogs that contains a link to your blog. But that is not a easy task unless you know much about programming.
5. Content: Articles and blog posts are a great way to go about link baiting. You need to use your imagination to make your post linking compelling.
6. Video: Creating a funny or informative video can create quiet a buzz. Indeed, vblogs are getting more common in Web 2.0.
7. Giveaways and contests: These are great for a quick boost in traffic. Giveaways need to have an associated monetary value.
8. Blogs and forums: These are usually overlooked as a form of linking baiting, but they are one of the earliest forms of link baiting.
9. Guest bloggers: Let me post a post on your blog and you can post on mine for a cross promotion. It's a great way to get a link as well.
10. Lists: List are very popular because they are a list of something of value that people want, all in one place.
1. Podcasting: Make a podcast that give useful tips, discusses hot topics or information within the industry your blog belongs to is a great baiting tool.
2. Interviews: Conducting interview to someone well known in the industry where your blog belong would certainly be worth linking to. In Adsense, these big guys include Darren Rowse, Joel Comm, John Chow etc. (when will I be the next one? LOL)
3. Award Search: Awards search are another way to bring in traffic and links where you let your participants post entries to their blogs with a link pointing to your blog.
4. Tools and games: Create a new tool or games that other bloggers may use to their blogs that contains a link to your blog. But that is not a easy task unless you know much about programming.
5. Content: Articles and blog posts are a great way to go about link baiting. You need to use your imagination to make your post linking compelling.
6. Video: Creating a funny or informative video can create quiet a buzz. Indeed, vblogs are getting more common in Web 2.0.
7. Giveaways and contests: These are great for a quick boost in traffic. Giveaways need to have an associated monetary value.
8. Blogs and forums: These are usually overlooked as a form of linking baiting, but they are one of the earliest forms of link baiting.
9. Guest bloggers: Let me post a post on your blog and you can post on mine for a cross promotion. It's a great way to get a link as well.
10. Lists: List are very popular because they are a list of something of value that people want, all in one place.
Labels: Link Building, traffic
(Read more...)
Grab Links for Your Blog by Link Baiting
Monday, April 14, 2008
It took me several days to write this super long post, and so please enjoy.
Have you every found a method for other bloggers to link to your new blog? I'm sure you did. You probably were doing this by requesting exchange links. Yes, link exchange will work but aside that it's a time consuming activity, the number of links you gathered here is limited unless you want your blog to become a directory link for all other blogs.
My question now is - how are you going to get hundreds or thousands of natural links pointing to your blog? You may answer - have a high quality content post/blog. You are just partly correct. This may just give you a few extra links but not hundreds or thousands. You must not only create a high quality content post but high quality content with linkbaiting strategy mechanism. Yes - linkbaiting is the answer. This can deliver hundreds or thousands of natural links pointing to your blog quickly.
Successful bloggers often said, if you want to have a successful blog, make something worth linking to. Linkbaiting is recognized as the most effective way to build links for a site.
But, remember, linkbait is Not Just About Getting Links. Many people think linkbaiting is all about getting links, but that's not all. For the vast majority of web marketers, three unique elements define the goals of nearly every project - traffic, conversion and branding. When implemented properly, linkbait is a great strategy for achieving two of these three goals (traffic and branding) directly, and the other (conversion) indirectly.
The process of branding involves identifying successful ways to get in front of your industries airways, building some content and promoting it.
Tip (If you are a solo blogger, one good technique of branding is to make your name as your domain name like what Steve Pavlina did with stevepavlina.com. But if you plan to sell the domain one day, you will find it harder to sell if it's your name.)
How to Generate Link Baiting Ideas
Many people think that creating link baiting ideas is a tough job, but not at all. While it demand some creative thinking, many bloggers did it all alone. I will feature some of them below, how they generate linkbaiting ideas and their successes. For now, I will borrow the words of Scott who made a great post about generating link baiting ideas. His 4 four-stage approach include:
1. Write Down Everything. This is the mental hemorrhaging phase wherein we all just blurt out any and all ideas that come to mind. Don't censor or edit yourself during this phase; take down every idea no matter how bizarre, idiotic or far fetched it may sound.
2. Breakdown Your Ideas. Once you've squeezed every last drop of creative juice from your head, it's time filter everything out. It's a good idea to breakdown each idea (no censoring or editing yet) into its Concept and Content components. That is, what is the format (Concept) for the suggested LinkBait (tool, widget, top ten list, how to guide, blog post, etc.) versus what is the subject (Content) of the suggested LinkBait (Wii, iPod, PPC ads, pigs, celebrity weddings, etc.). Separate these into two lists.
3. Evaluate Content. Ignoring your Concept list, critically evaluate your Content list. Are there time-sensitive ideas? Are there some that can wait for a relevant piece of news to complement them? Are there ideas you'd really like to write about? Are there ideas that can go into storage for a dry-spell?
4. Mix and Match. Once you've prioritized the Content, you can now mix and match it with your Concept list. No story/content is beholden to the original format you brainstormed it in. Is your story something that might make Digg? Then consider the Concepts that do well there: top ten, how to, etc. Can it be interactive? Perhaps a tool or poll Concept would be effective. By marrying your priority Content to the most appropriate Concept, you can optimize the effectiveness, reach and novelty to your intended audience.
Hook Your Readers with Linkbait
Hook is an element that draws readers into your blog. And in order to bait a link, you need a hook. According to Nick Wilson, there are 5 popular varieties of hook. Together with the specific examples, these are:
1. News hook
* A genuine Scoop. Get to the news first
* A compilation of news, as above, its a resource aswell as a news hook.
* Expose a story for a fraud, or to be flawed. You really have to know your subject to do that, but links flow like water if you can debunk a popular meme
2. Contrary Hook
* Be the only one in your niche to find something to not like about a story, or like about a story/product.
* On the same theme, post "Why is WRONG about..."
3. Attack Hook - This works much the same as the contrary hook, you just get to be much, much ruder.
4. Resource Hook
* A comprehensive list of blogs in your niche - link out, and links will come in, i promise.
* A practical/useful or even fun tool related to your niche
* A How To based on your niche
* A compilation of news stories on a theme. Sprinkle a little analysis in there, and you're good to go.
5. Humour Hook - These kinds of hooks are just too easy.
* Search flickr, or photoshop a bizzare pic of your subject
* Post "10 thing i hate about..."
* Post "You know you're a when..."
How to Format Your Link Bait to Be Effective
Effective link bait comes with a certain format. You need to do things to make your link bait more effective such as:
* Make your link bait EASY to link at.
* Make your idea look polarized so you will get quality links from all angle.
* Make your link bait look comprehensive.
* Cite research, further reading, and link out to related resources from within your content. It makes your story look well researched and associates your work with other trusted names or brands in your field. You may even want to cite a few people that you want links from.
* Dress up your link bait using quality design and / or relevant
The Amazing Indirect Value of Linkbait
Link bait rarely makes much money or directly pays for itself from the direct traffic. However, it has amazing indirect value.
* People are hungry looking for high quality content. You can not only win several links but as well as increase in readership.
* You will gain mindshare and brand recognition amongst a group of people who have significant authority even if people do not link to your link bait right away.
* Links gain from linkbait are seen as votes or signs of trust by many search engines such as Google who uses authority centric relevancy algorithms.
* In Google, getting a link to any part of your site will help make all pages on your site more authoritative.
10 Linkbaiting Techniques
Here are 10 linkbaiting techniques that are commonly used:
1. Podcasting: Make a podcast that give tips, discusses news or information within the industry your blog belong is great baiting tool.
2. Interviews: Conducting interview to someone well known in the industry where your blog belong would certainly be worth linking to.
3. Award Search: Awards search are another way to bring in traffic and links where you let your participants post entries to their blogs with a link pointing to your blog
4. Tools and games: Create a new tool or games that other bloggers may use to their blogs that contains a link to your blog.
5. Content: Articles and blog posts are a great way to go about linkbaiting. You need to use your imagination to make your post linking compelling.
6. Video: Creating a funny or informative video can create quiet a buzz.
7. Giveaways and contests: These are great for a quick boost in traffic. Giveaways need to have an associated monetary value.
8. Blogs and forums: These are usually overlooked as a form of linking baiting, but they are one of the earliest forms of link baiting.
9. Guest bloggers: Let me post a post on your blog and you can post on mine for a cross promotion. It's a great way to get a link as well.
10. Lists: List are very popular because they are a list of something of value that people want, all in one place.
Tips for Linkbait Success
I'd like to borrow the words from Rand Fishkin in his post entitled Leveraging Linkbait. He outlined 7 tips of linkbait success. There are:
1. Find Appropriate Linkbait Portals. Identify those news outlets, blogs or social media sites that you're seeking to get a link from. In the areas of technology, Digg, TechCrunch and Slashdot are great candidates. For humor or offbeat news, Fark and Reddit may make better choices. Depending on your content, sites like the popular blog Boing Boing, Yahoo!'s Site of the Day or Netscape may make good choices.
2. Understand Your Audience. Normally, you’re building content targeted to your site’s visitors—people who want your products, services or content. But for linkbait, you need to also appeal to an entirely different audience—one that can help your site achieve mass appeal in the niche that you select. I advise reviewing the coverage you see for other links in your area; using del.icio.us tags and blog archives can help with this process.
3. Brainstorm Effectively. You want to find ideas that are so compelling, they blow you away. Imagine pitching your idea to a writer at the New York Times; would he or she be likely to write about it? If so, you've got a gem.
4. Build Beautiful Bait. The user experience, graphic design and usability of the content you build need to have the look and feel of success. A professional layout and tasteful headlines, graphics and embedded content will go a long way toward selling your audience on your content's worthiness.
5. Create a Reputation. Linkbait is difficult to launch the first few times if no one on the Web has heard of your brand. Once you've spent some time in the blogosphere and social media space, you may find that a lot of your content goes viral without any effort on your part. Thus, creating a reputation is an important part of making linkbait successful. If you need some help, try leveraging industry contacts that have pull with prominent bloggers and respected profiles at social sites.
6. Grab Their Attention. Writing the headlines and initial descriptions to submit to the social sites, emailing bloggers and appearing in search results is a critical part of linkbait. Many readers will see your headline, and in the early phase it's critical that they follow your link and help to spread your message. Check out Brian Clark's two posts on writing great headlines, here and here.
7. Don't Be Manipulative—and DON'T SPAM. You might have to try linkbaiting several times before you get good at the process; in the meantime, make sure that you don't burn bridges by spamming bloggers with email requests to cover your piece, or repeatedly tagging your own content at the social media sites from the same IP addresses.
I have used several days to write this post, and if you like it, please share it with your friends by linking us back, or digg/stumbleupon it. Thanks!
Have you every found a method for other bloggers to link to your new blog? I'm sure you did. You probably were doing this by requesting exchange links. Yes, link exchange will work but aside that it's a time consuming activity, the number of links you gathered here is limited unless you want your blog to become a directory link for all other blogs.
My question now is - how are you going to get hundreds or thousands of natural links pointing to your blog? You may answer - have a high quality content post/blog. You are just partly correct. This may just give you a few extra links but not hundreds or thousands. You must not only create a high quality content post but high quality content with linkbaiting strategy mechanism. Yes - linkbaiting is the answer. This can deliver hundreds or thousands of natural links pointing to your blog quickly.
Successful bloggers often said, if you want to have a successful blog, make something worth linking to. Linkbaiting is recognized as the most effective way to build links for a site.
But, remember, linkbait is Not Just About Getting Links. Many people think linkbaiting is all about getting links, but that's not all. For the vast majority of web marketers, three unique elements define the goals of nearly every project - traffic, conversion and branding. When implemented properly, linkbait is a great strategy for achieving two of these three goals (traffic and branding) directly, and the other (conversion) indirectly.
The process of branding involves identifying successful ways to get in front of your industries airways, building some content and promoting it.
Tip (If you are a solo blogger, one good technique of branding is to make your name as your domain name like what Steve Pavlina did with stevepavlina.com. But if you plan to sell the domain one day, you will find it harder to sell if it's your name.)
How to Generate Link Baiting Ideas
Many people think that creating link baiting ideas is a tough job, but not at all. While it demand some creative thinking, many bloggers did it all alone. I will feature some of them below, how they generate linkbaiting ideas and their successes. For now, I will borrow the words of Scott who made a great post about generating link baiting ideas. His 4 four-stage approach include:
1. Write Down Everything. This is the mental hemorrhaging phase wherein we all just blurt out any and all ideas that come to mind. Don't censor or edit yourself during this phase; take down every idea no matter how bizarre, idiotic or far fetched it may sound.
2. Breakdown Your Ideas. Once you've squeezed every last drop of creative juice from your head, it's time filter everything out. It's a good idea to breakdown each idea (no censoring or editing yet) into its Concept and Content components. That is, what is the format (Concept) for the suggested LinkBait (tool, widget, top ten list, how to guide, blog post, etc.) versus what is the subject (Content) of the suggested LinkBait (Wii, iPod, PPC ads, pigs, celebrity weddings, etc.). Separate these into two lists.
3. Evaluate Content. Ignoring your Concept list, critically evaluate your Content list. Are there time-sensitive ideas? Are there some that can wait for a relevant piece of news to complement them? Are there ideas you'd really like to write about? Are there ideas that can go into storage for a dry-spell?
4. Mix and Match. Once you've prioritized the Content, you can now mix and match it with your Concept list. No story/content is beholden to the original format you brainstormed it in. Is your story something that might make Digg? Then consider the Concepts that do well there: top ten, how to, etc. Can it be interactive? Perhaps a tool or poll Concept would be effective. By marrying your priority Content to the most appropriate Concept, you can optimize the effectiveness, reach and novelty to your intended audience.
Hook Your Readers with Linkbait
Hook is an element that draws readers into your blog. And in order to bait a link, you need a hook. According to Nick Wilson, there are 5 popular varieties of hook. Together with the specific examples, these are:
1. News hook
* A genuine Scoop. Get to the news first
* A compilation of news, as above, its a resource aswell as a news hook.
* Expose a story for a fraud, or to be flawed. You really have to know your subject to do that, but links flow like water if you can debunk a popular meme
2. Contrary Hook
* Be the only one in your niche to find something to not like about a story, or like about a story/product.
* On the same theme, post "Why is WRONG about..."
3. Attack Hook - This works much the same as the contrary hook, you just get to be much, much ruder.
4. Resource Hook
* A comprehensive list of blogs in your niche - link out, and links will come in, i promise.
* A practical/useful or even fun tool related to your niche
* A How To based on your niche
* A compilation of news stories on a theme. Sprinkle a little analysis in there, and you're good to go.
5. Humour Hook - These kinds of hooks are just too easy.
* Search flickr, or photoshop a bizzare pic of your subject
* Post "10 thing i hate about..."
* Post "You know you're a when..."
How to Format Your Link Bait to Be Effective
Effective link bait comes with a certain format. You need to do things to make your link bait more effective such as:
* Make your link bait EASY to link at.
* Make your idea look polarized so you will get quality links from all angle.
* Make your link bait look comprehensive.
* Cite research, further reading, and link out to related resources from within your content. It makes your story look well researched and associates your work with other trusted names or brands in your field. You may even want to cite a few people that you want links from.
* Dress up your link bait using quality design and / or relevant
The Amazing Indirect Value of Linkbait
Link bait rarely makes much money or directly pays for itself from the direct traffic. However, it has amazing indirect value.
* People are hungry looking for high quality content. You can not only win several links but as well as increase in readership.
* You will gain mindshare and brand recognition amongst a group of people who have significant authority even if people do not link to your link bait right away.
* Links gain from linkbait are seen as votes or signs of trust by many search engines such as Google who uses authority centric relevancy algorithms.
* In Google, getting a link to any part of your site will help make all pages on your site more authoritative.
10 Linkbaiting Techniques
Here are 10 linkbaiting techniques that are commonly used:
1. Podcasting: Make a podcast that give tips, discusses news or information within the industry your blog belong is great baiting tool.
2. Interviews: Conducting interview to someone well known in the industry where your blog belong would certainly be worth linking to.
3. Award Search: Awards search are another way to bring in traffic and links where you let your participants post entries to their blogs with a link pointing to your blog
4. Tools and games: Create a new tool or games that other bloggers may use to their blogs that contains a link to your blog.
5. Content: Articles and blog posts are a great way to go about linkbaiting. You need to use your imagination to make your post linking compelling.
6. Video: Creating a funny or informative video can create quiet a buzz.
7. Giveaways and contests: These are great for a quick boost in traffic. Giveaways need to have an associated monetary value.
8. Blogs and forums: These are usually overlooked as a form of linking baiting, but they are one of the earliest forms of link baiting.
9. Guest bloggers: Let me post a post on your blog and you can post on mine for a cross promotion. It's a great way to get a link as well.
10. Lists: List are very popular because they are a list of something of value that people want, all in one place.
Tips for Linkbait Success
I'd like to borrow the words from Rand Fishkin in his post entitled Leveraging Linkbait. He outlined 7 tips of linkbait success. There are:
1. Find Appropriate Linkbait Portals. Identify those news outlets, blogs or social media sites that you're seeking to get a link from. In the areas of technology, Digg, TechCrunch and Slashdot are great candidates. For humor or offbeat news, Fark and Reddit may make better choices. Depending on your content, sites like the popular blog Boing Boing, Yahoo!'s Site of the Day or Netscape may make good choices.
2. Understand Your Audience. Normally, you’re building content targeted to your site’s visitors—people who want your products, services or content. But for linkbait, you need to also appeal to an entirely different audience—one that can help your site achieve mass appeal in the niche that you select. I advise reviewing the coverage you see for other links in your area; using del.icio.us tags and blog archives can help with this process.
3. Brainstorm Effectively. You want to find ideas that are so compelling, they blow you away. Imagine pitching your idea to a writer at the New York Times; would he or she be likely to write about it? If so, you've got a gem.
4. Build Beautiful Bait. The user experience, graphic design and usability of the content you build need to have the look and feel of success. A professional layout and tasteful headlines, graphics and embedded content will go a long way toward selling your audience on your content's worthiness.
5. Create a Reputation. Linkbait is difficult to launch the first few times if no one on the Web has heard of your brand. Once you've spent some time in the blogosphere and social media space, you may find that a lot of your content goes viral without any effort on your part. Thus, creating a reputation is an important part of making linkbait successful. If you need some help, try leveraging industry contacts that have pull with prominent bloggers and respected profiles at social sites.
6. Grab Their Attention. Writing the headlines and initial descriptions to submit to the social sites, emailing bloggers and appearing in search results is a critical part of linkbait. Many readers will see your headline, and in the early phase it's critical that they follow your link and help to spread your message. Check out Brian Clark's two posts on writing great headlines, here and here.
7. Don't Be Manipulative—and DON'T SPAM. You might have to try linkbaiting several times before you get good at the process; in the meantime, make sure that you don't burn bridges by spamming bloggers with email requests to cover your piece, or repeatedly tagging your own content at the social media sites from the same IP addresses.
I have used several days to write this post, and if you like it, please share it with your friends by linking us back, or digg/stumbleupon it. Thanks!
Labels: Link Building, ttraffic
(Read more...)
I'm Joe Li
From Hong Kong
