Who Else Wants to Build Links and Rank High in Google
Link Baiting
Posted by Adam Hayes
Who Else Wants to Build Links and Rank Higher in Google
Link Baiting has become common place to increase organic inbound links and rank higher in Google. There was a great article by Andy Hagan but he broke his site to pieces, so I had to do some digging to find it again. Here are some of the best from his article with my comments throughout.
Content is still king. But if you venture into my little world, you’ll find that packaging is queen, promotion is the crown prince and a baity title is the Sword of Excalibur.
Start thinking. Anything can be link baited. Sell a special kind of Dacron pillow? Maybe you need to write "101 Secrets to Sleeping Revealed." The idea of thinking outside the box is critical when coming up with great link bait.
The point is that your topic has a link bait piece (or a dozen of them) waiting to be written. Granted, some topics will require a bit more creativity in coming up with baity content. That’s fine.
It's all in the Title
I've already posted about the importance of your article heading and quick ways to come up with the perfect title by using eye catching words.
Delivering what you Promised, Quickly
Well, content is only crowned as king when it has focus. Focus comes from the title. In the title, you are making a promise to the reader: here’s what you’re going to read/learn/achieve in this article. All your content should be devoted 100% to meeting (or exceeding) this promise. Anything else no matter how "valuable" is fluff and should be cut out. Readers do want in-depth resources and advice, but they want it in a concise, focused serving.
Provide a "hook" in the content. Here are some basic types of hooks:
- News Hook. The news hook is when you are the first to scoop a story; everyone who carries the story will then (theoretically) link to you as the original source.
- Resource Hook. The resource hook occurs when you make an extremely helpful piece of content that everyone will naturally want to bookmark (like this one!). This may be my favorite hook, because as opposed to the news hook, it encourages people to link to and bookmark it for a long period of time. Content that sits there and naturally obtains trusted, relevant backlinks passively? Isn’t that the original white hat SEO dream?
- Contrary Hook. The contrary hook is when you refute a common myth in your niche. Most little areas of the blogosphere hold certain beliefs to be self-evident; all SEOs know that META tags are dead; all Web2.0 designers know that writing validated code is the right thing to do. Calling these people wrong will usually incite them into talking about you, and linking to you.
- Humor Hook. People love to laugh, especially at people in their industry or niche.
- Tool Hook. A good link bait tool has one of two characteristics: 1) It is actually useful; or 2) It feeds bloggers’ egos.
- Award Hook. No official awards in your tiny niche? Why not host them yourself?
- Giveaway Hook. Anyone who has been to an SEO conference recently (or any other conference for that matter) is stocked for life on pens, highlighters, key rings, and loads of over freebie junk. Companies fight to give trinkets away at certain events because, when directed towards the right audience, giveaways are a great way to drive sales and get a return far better than any ordinary advertising.
- Research/Statistic Hook. Sometimes just compiled numbers, or any kind of scientific survey, will get a lot of link love, especially in an under-studied area. And while a scientifically-conducted study with valid methodology will often get better links, the (sad?) truth is that almost anything can pass as “research” on the Internet.
Socialize
Today the buzzword is social media. Everyone wants to comment on every piece on mundane life. From Tweets to a new Facebook status, everyone wants to connect. Great ways to communicate are right at our fingertips and growing every moment. Why not socialize about your link bait?