Jun 25 2008
Link Baiting
Link baiting is a great way to build traffic to your site. However, many webmasters have no idea what link baiting is.
Linking baiting is writing or doing something on your site that will cause others to want to visit your site and link back to your site. There are many ways to do this. Many sites do link bait with widgets and badges that are added to a website or blog with a link back to a site. Good examples of this are social bookmarking sites like Digg.
Another example of link bait is writing something that is current breaking news. Many people will find it interesting and link to it. This is a little harder unless you have an inside track because news spreads so fast on the Internet.
Creating an unusual list or great tool that others find useful will get people to your site and wanting to link to it. One example is my post on here about checking for no follows. I have no idea how to incorporate the script in my post so I linked to the original creator’s blog because it is a helpful resource for my readers.
The final and most common way is to write something very controversial that will cause a stir and cause people to read it. This could be political, something funny, an attack on someone famous or any other idea. I wrote an article on my other blog on a religious topic. My plan was not link bait but it caused quite a stir and I had tons of traffic and lots of comments. This to me proved that it works.
If you decide to do link baiting, make sure you spread the word about your article. This can be done by placing it on news sites, social book marking sites, and on related forums. Link baiting is only good if others see it.
Yes, social bookmarking really works for our website, also forum posting and blog commenting. I would also include this as part of link baiting strategies.