The importance of Link Baiting, link building, Social Media marketing
Friday, June 12th, 2009‘Link Baiting’ is yet another buzzword that seems to have become a popular phrase in SEO/social media marketing. It’s strange, when the term is mentioned I often draw an analogy with my childhood days when we used to go fishing down the local canal.
Friends and myself would haul our fishing gear (rods and baskets) for miles, along the canal bank, to find the best ‘patch’ to set up for the day. We would intuitively know where the best patch was, either by word of mouth from fellow anglers or we would look for an area of the canal that was potentially teeming with fish. I say potentially because as we well know with fishing (if you are an angler) a lot of things happen under the water, so you learn to trust your instinct for where the fish are. This might be a small ripple or other indications that conditions appear to be right. These conditions would depend on how clean the water is, the depth of the water, safety in numbers, where the fish would gather, what kind of cover the fish have and where the location poses no threat.
Preparation and checks would be next on the list. A good angler would then check his equipment; rod, reel, line, float, weights, hook, bait and depending on the size of the fish, a landing net. Next, the preparation of the water, to attract the fish, this would entail using a catapult to launch balls of fish bait to the selected target area. The next thing to prepare would be the type of hook you use (size) and also the strength (breaking strength) of the fishing line. For example it would be no good trying to catch a large fish with a small hook and a line to weak to hold it and the same principle would take affect for a small fish but in reverse. When all preparations are in place the game or sport begins.
In many ways (SEO) link baiting is similar to this analogy where in-bound links are encouraged by preparation and hard work and maybe a little luck to entice the catch. The next question should be what bait (bait linking) are at our disposal as a resource to lure in-bound links to a customers site. The following list could be used as a guide:
- Current news baiting - Continuous, up to date news on breaking topics with expert commentary on the topic, products and service.
- Controversial baiting - You can also say something controversial to generate discussion – introducing debate into a topic that will encourage reasoned response. Check your facts and make sure you know what you are talking about or you’re going to get some serious reputation management issues to deal with.
- Resource baiting – Build authority by resources that are available to all, social media sites, directories, blog sites and create your own blogs or RSS feed. There are plenty of ways that can establish that you are an expert in your particular interest or have a knowledge that will help others to promote there product or service. And, in the process attract a whole bunch of links at the same time.
- Humor baiting- Write something funny about your industry or the people in it. Everybody needs a good laugh now and then, it alleviates stress and helps bring approachability. A little self-deprecation is great to show people you don’t really take yourself too seriously. Create a site that is purely for fun and allow the links to flow in
- Ego baiting. Create a site that allows other bloggers with a voice to express their ideas by offering them significant exposure.
To summarize Link bait - Link baiting simply put, is content that is interesting, useful, funny or otherwise so outstanding that it becomes alluring to bloggers and website owners, who set up links from their pages to the original material. It’s a good way of improving your site’s inbound links and therefore it’s value in the eyes of search engines.
