The way we use the internet is changing drastically. We are very much in amongst the social networking boom and for businesses it would be stupid not to take advantage of it. One of the most effective ways to do this is through link baiting.

Link baiting is a relatively new phenomenon in the Search Engine Optimisation industry and is a way in which to generate natural links to your site. This is accomplished by creating something that will naturally attract back-links for your site by getting people to discuss it online. People will discuss it on forums, blog about it and post it on social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us.

Link baiting therefore is of great benefit to SEO as links are a major part of getting your site to rank well in the search engines. However on top of this, link baiting can also attract visitors to your site that not necessarily found you through the search engines meaning even better traffic levels to your site.

But how can you go about link baiting? Well there are many things you can do and many factors can play a part including budget and the product/service you sell as well as many others. Link baiting is your chance to be really creative and there are so many things you can do from simple ideas to the more elaborate.

The simplest and most cost effective is to write some content that expresses an opinion or idea. This can involve debating an idea that goes against the majority of other people’s opinions. People may link to this for numerous reasons including to argue back or to draw people’s attention to the ideas you have expressed.

In more creative terms the ideas are endless. To generate these ideas the best advice to give is to sit down and brainstorm some ideas. Think of as many ideas as you can no matter how crazy they are as the crazier more often than not can end up being boiled down to the big final idea and on top of that does make the whole thing a lot of fun.

To get you started here are some ideas that will help get your creative juices flowing:

• Add fun and games to your site
• Create a competition
• Write humorous material (perhaps focusing on something within your industry)
• Create/post videos
• Write up to the minute material on a certain topic such as latest news events expressing your opinion
• Write regular interesting/funny articles: over time you might develop a fan base
• Do something that no one has done before (like make the world’s biggest sandwich)
• Add amazing/interesting/funny photography
• Post expert advice within your field such as tutorials
• Create and online tool for people to use
• Create interactive facilities to engage users

To help you a bit further here is a list of some sites that demonstrate some good link baiting techniques (see link baiting really can generate natural links!):

• Example 1
• Example 2
• Example 3
• Example 4
• Example 5
• Example 6

These are just some basic ideas and of course there are many more examples out there. Remember be creative and be crazy. The beauty of link baiting is that it is fun and at the same time can pay dividends for your sites traffic.

Posted In:

Link Baiting, Link Building, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media Marketing