Link Bait
Link baiting (or linkbaiting) is the latest buzz word in the SEO world and has come to be the preferred way to natural link building.
It means to create something that naturally attract backlinks for your web page by getting people to talk about it, discussing it on forums, blogging about i, posting it on del.icio.us/Furl/Digg/Shoutwire and linking to it from their sites. It also attracts a lot of visitors.
Here is an excellent article: The Art of Linkbaiting and Linkbaiting for Fun & Profit.
Here is a list of ideas:
- Make a valuable resource (lists, special reports, history of, how to, etc.)
- Interview (e-mail/phone) prominent people and publish it.
- Build a useful tool
- Write an interesting article
- Run a newsworthy ‘event’ such as a contest
- Test something new that has not been done before
- Be the first in doing something on the internet
- Write something controversial
- Be the first to write the latest news in your niche
- Be the first to expose a scammer
- Disagree with an authority
- Write some funny humor
- Make an interesting picture
- Be the first to research and document something
- Make a theme, plugin or piece of software
- Make a tool that others can put on their sites but that links to you
- Make a joke about a known person
- Make a resource that is just in time for a major event
- Write an outrageous theory and back it up with logics
- Write useful comments on something that is happening
- Give something valuable for free
- Coin a new acronym in your niche and get people to talk about it
- Become an expert in your niche and write valuable information
Useful resources on Link Baiting (many of the tips above taken from here):
- Case Study from SEJ, 1,960 links during one month for running a contest
- Link Bait Ideas thread on SEO Refugee
Please comment if you have more info on link bait.
Jim Westergren is a company owner from Sweden who lives together with his wife and son. Some of his interests are SEO, web development, writing and
i need more practice in linkbaiting.
Awesome advice, very good info on how to get natural links. This is something I am working on, but need to explore some of the other opportunities like contest, having software on the site, or some other resource.
All the best,
Jack
Very good list of ideas! But many of this ideas very hard to make
Make a joke about a known person. This method I like best… But seriously I wish I could write some good articles, have a lot of interesting things to say, but unfortunately my English is not perfect…
Good list of ideas – just need to put them into practice now.
best wishes
Very Nice list several I haven’t thought of thanks.
Someone posted – “Very good list of ideas! But many of this ideas very hard to make”
I disagree, it might be hard to do them all at once and maintain them, but one at a time real easy. write articles, and example write an article about this article. It’s real simple to do, just use your imagination.
Very interesting info. But people should see your site before linking it. How to suggest a site for auditory?
(sorry for poor english)
Great article, i was doing this naturally and didnt even realize it. Besides the socialization sites that you listed
i get great deal of traffic from reddit.
Good Luck
Way to go, Link baiting is what we at foot health needs…
Point taken and will start doing something about it.
Good list of ideas – just need to put them into practice now.
Best wishes
From Medical Site Admin
Heaheha..Make a joke about a known person. This method I like best… But seriously I wish I could write some good articles, have a lot of interesting things to say.
Thank you for the wonderful idea.
I am a beginner in SEO. Link biat is mystical and here is one example:try to search”Teak outdoor furniture” in the google, you will see on top is discount furniture which gets quite lot of links from a visitor counter which is used by some small websites and not ever related to this field. He just beats all his competitors. This is amazing and I wonder if search engines really do care about the relevacy of one side links!!!!!
Teakita: I think site can be banned for such tricks in SEs.
Well, unfortunately not.
Links are amazing in Google, just search for:
free stats
web tracker
hit counter
web stats
invisible stats
And you see the same site holding the number 1 across the board. This was done by the power of links, same as discount-teak-furniture.com but on a much higher level.
just now viewed this aritcle on link bait. Nice one. but if u do a link bait for a site, then the theme of the site may be disturbed even though u are doing well with your link bait. As i am new to this seo need more briefing on this.
Great article. Easy to read very difficult to do well!
Coming up with something new, usefull and unique is one of the most difficult parts of being a webmaster. IMHO
Does it count as linkbaiting when a site like http://pathofchoices.com links to itself within itself?
No, see again the definition of link bait.
Link baiting is not really considered a new technology or a new way to approach a large pool of visitors, it has been done before. On a previous edition of our website, we have posted columns of “Latest News” featuring reviews of cellular gadgets that only a limited number of websites would review or offering features on your website such as product review. Information within product reviews is absorbed by search engine bots as useful data and therefore your probability of being labeled as a content rich website would be high despite the fact that you are in the business of selling goods, not information.
My link bait. Make a funny comic strip.
Really useful information.
My Super 8mm telecine site has no outgoing links so I can’t swap links and try to get link backs whereever I can including bookmarking which seems to help a lot. I thought that social bookmarking abd tag+ping are useful.
You can bookmark my site too if you find it interesting.
cheers
Jon
Thanks
This a good article an makes explicit something that we all know implicitly in a fuzzy kind of way.
Helps keep at the forefront of my mind when writing.
It encourages to post some of my more controversial theories/ideas.
Thanks! I used this info on my own website, http://www.akaneon.com, and now the traffic won’t stop coming! Thanks, Jim!
excellent article …
I should implement it to my website.
There was a link exchange service called “linkfart” a while back. The site is no longer around. This was obviously an attempt at linkbaiting, but I guess the stench in the site’s name was too much for people to bear.
You have got good ideas i like that one the article submission and some tool or software for link development
this is a nice post on link m certainly going to create a tool for link bait hakns
thanks for a lovely post
I like it.It would be more inspiring to me if i could see any of pictures about it.
this is the best information i got about the link building echnique through inka baiting
I dont know but why i don find such informative and profitable blogs so often,I suspect blogging world is becoming so small that we cant find such lucrative blogs like this one.
Thanks for those ultimate tips. These tips are going to be very helpful for webmasters.cheers…….
Nice links and explanation, I was looking for a good explanation for this kind of SEO method of some time as most websites and people discuss it quite vaguely. Nice ideas BTW.
I pretty much guess that this article in itself is a link bait
Thanks for the info
Very nice article. These are some very helpful tips.
Nice techniques of link baitd thank you
Link baiting would appear to be a perfect counter-point to longtailing. With longtailing, you would choose topics where you could pick up easy and highly qualified search traffic merely by virtue of the title. Then, if the contents of the page satisfied the link baiting criteria, you have a double whammy effect working in your favor. The original hit could occur as a result of a happenstance Google hit, and a link garnered, and an accelerator effect could kick in.
Great ideas … I create one and announce it here.
The internet is so vast that writing even the smallest article in my field is very difficult as all areas seem to be covered one way or another.
I think it is not so much what you do, but rather how much of what you do that is important. Volume seems to count a lot. I have read about Google leaning to themes and LSI, but I stll feel that a large number of back links will still do the trick.
Hi Jim…
In here everytime i get to hear many new things on time and in a proper manner…Thanks for such more support…
I too thinking on how to proceed with Link Baiting …
Great ideas for getting free natural links. You’re link-baiting us. Thanks, Jim.
Hi Jim,
This Link Baiting concept is still new to me. Hope I can learn a bit about it and use it for a better purpose for my site.
I suppose “link baiting” is just another name for the old “content is king” mantra.
Thanks, a lot of useful info.
That’s really cool. I think I should start doing this stuff on my blog too!
Great article.
I was looking for tool that will increase my popularity, and after I read this and similiar articles I must say that that only way to be featured on the top of search results is “be unique”
Thanks
nice idea. very enlighting
I think Link Baiting is one of the hardest things to do! It requires you to have something that people perceive as valuable and its popular enough that they wont just rip you off and steal your text or images or whatever it may be .. great post though, between this article and the link building service .. I have new material to work on!
thanks for giving so many ideas for link baiting. Have you try it all ? which is your prefer one ?
Finally a good list on linkbait. I cam here fro your link building post which I am also learning a lot from . Thanks I will write a snippet for you from one of my blogs.
Thx for the nice list. As I´m trying to receive Links more “naturally” these tipps are very nice to reed and gave me an impression of what to do.
A very good page, full of facts!
create a video on youtube is also a good tactic of linkbait.
I’ve definitely seen an increase in traffic since writing a tool that helped people – it’s an online page generator (in php) that they can then go and use in forum signatures. Because posting a link to “their” page helps THEM, they want to do it. These pages are hosted on my site, though, and exist in a template that has links to other pages on my site too, so it benefits them AND me. I plan to write more tools like this to get people linking.
Well I wana must say that. This blog is very imformative for me and I m very glad full for this blog owner. And I must say this to blog owner u make more this type blogs and we get more information abt this. Thanks
It’s a new idea to get some natural links, site helps to download the games
I am fond of your web site! Good luck, good work!
Many tips i got here. Need practice now about link bait
Thanks for all post
Good list of ideas. Thanks again.
This is probably reverse link baiting, you could call this fishing
Wonderful advice, I will implement this right away, thanks!
Blogs are mean to give you somethingworthy and practical,wholesomewords,beneficial ideas and successfull tricks and tactics,i think i have with quite much things while reading this one.
This ideea is preaty cool, i am going to use it to promote my site http://www.zaams.com too.
Thanks a lot
This is probably reverse link baiting, you could call this fishing
thanks for your “recipes”
good luck
Great Idea!
Jim, your list of activities for linkbaiting is great and exhaustive.
But I’d like to ask what if the site is static and its content is rearly updated for there’s nothing to update in fact? Thnx.
Jim, your list of activities for linkbaiting is great and exhaustive.
But I’d like to ask what if the site is static and its content is rearly updated for there’s nothing to update in fact? Thnx.
good luck
Wonderful advice, I will implement this right away, thanks!
I’d like to ask what if the site is static and its content is rearly updated
i think i have with quite much things while reading this one.
I’ve definitely seen an increase in traffic since writing a tool that helped people – it’s an online page generator (in php) that they can then go and use in forum signatures. Because posting a link to “their” page helps THEM, they want to do it. These pages are hosted on my site, though, and exist in a template that has links to other pages on my site too, so it benefits them AND me. I plan to write more tools like this to get people linking.
What a terrific article! This has helped very much! From someone who HATES asking questions!
One of the best forms is “Make a tool that others can put on their sites but that links to you”. Can definitely go viral, like YouTube videos.
Great article! I have a couple of questions though: a) does Google have existing penalties for the term ‘linkbaiting’ and b) what do you think of the term ‘linkbaiting’?
Link baiting is a new and progressive method of increasing link popularity.The above given points are very useful but it involves a lot of hard work,writing high quality content and proper popluarity.palcomonline is a web design,development and hosting company based in noida,we provide expert seo services.
hi there,
can anybody tell me how can a site having less content comes on top.I have visited many sites and hv found that lesser the content the more is it ranking.Where as it is said content is the king
Thansk
palcomonline.com
Dear Oyun and Yarisma! Copying my words and using them without even quotation just to get the link from jimwestergren.com is nonsense! Not a single idea of your own, ha? Are you aware at all of what link baiting is???
Best Article! As i myself is new in the field of seo and updating my knowledge base.
Link bait is also on of the seo’s work nice one hope works for me also.
Thaks for sharing the information.
Dear chat and haber! Copying my words and using them without even quotation just to get the link from jimwestergren.com is nonsense! Not a single idea of your own, ha? Are you aware at all of what link baiting is?
Link bait is also on of the seo’s work nice one hope works for me also.
One of the best forms is “Make a tool that others can put on their sites but that links to you”. Can definitely go viral, like superalem haberler
Nice to read a very new concept of link baiting from you…I would like to see some more posts from your end for better link baiting understanding..
Thanks again for this gr8 post…
Well thank you for giving me a new way to promote my blogs and website.
this is a great art for link bait..that really helps a site to have much quality backlinks..link baiting will be more effective if you’ll just gonna be creative..great post..
funny.. I’ve only tried a few of those. I should try more!
Link bait is also on of the seo’s work nice one hope works for me also.
Thanks for the article. clear and stright forward.
Those list of how link bait acquired was really helpful, I already did some of those and it did great on the site I’m working with. I enjoyed reading your article.. very informative. Thanks
This is a valuable information, i follow this information for my web site promotion to target ranking
this is very useful thanks!
Very interesting and informative. Thank you.
Thanks to you…
Nice to read a very new concept of link baiting from you…It will be increase page rank of our site.
..
Thanks again for this great post…
Thanks for the article. Very interesting and informative.
Thank you.
Thanks for the article. Very interesting and some great information.
Thank you.
Great Article…I found it interesting ….Time to put the concept into practice
I’m Walking on Eggshells here, Because I’m new to all of this. However, what you have offered here whether it takes some work to figure it all out looks well put together. This is my Comment. My question though is a tough one it seems for all of whom i have asked and it is this….
What if you created something & because it has never been done before, how do you market what i call ” Ghost Products “? Thank You for the info you Provided.
funny.. I’ve only tried a few of those. I should try more!
I have not try all of them. Emm, maybe its time for me to try..
Thanks btw for great tips.
These are great ideas. Thanks for the very informative article.
These are wonderful ideas. I will be sending clients here and linking your page to one of my articles.. that is if you don’t mind. I have been working online for over 20 years and I appreciate information like this. It’s free and very informative. Thanks
Great list! I have been trying to get this whole link baiting thing going and coming up with ideas when you are just getting started is tough (at least for me!).
Being the FIRST is great but not easy. The link bait ‘Be the first to write the latest news in your niche’ can work even if you’re not the first. Sign up to Google Alerts to get the latest info on your niche and post re-written versions on your blog, website or article as quickly as you can.
SE’s tend to index any ‘News’ or Article’ sections of your site frequently if you post regularly.
Running a contest is only useful if you already have enough traffic, otherwise it is a waste.
Thank you for your explain about the link baiting, i think i get some idea of it now
Really I like It So Much!
You have listed some very creative ways to begin to build a base for traffic. It is sad to spend alot of time, effort, and hopefully talent on something like creating informative, beautiful lenses or websites and no one ever can find them.
Among the multi-millions of webpages and articles available online, it is nice if someone gets to enjoy the fruits of your labor aside from the big powerful search engines and web companies who control the net and make the rules.
Maybe this should be the subject of a new lense or blog post.
Cheers,
Mia
Thats completely awesome post.
Thanks.
This must be good way of SEO today.
This is an excellent way to get good PR fast. Thanks.
I actually did one post that it attracted so many viewers. I’m not sure if I can call it link bait or just luck =)
Anyways, thanks for sharing this.
Very informative and helpful.Thanks a lot for sharing it. I find it very useful coz I myself is looking for alternative ways to promote my site. I am hoping that by following your tips i will make good at it. More power to you.
Thanks for sharing the information. Now it’s the time to implement and then measure the effectiveness.
Great article . I was searching it thanks …………
Write an article about linkbaiting?
Thuis is very simple and effective technique for your site. Interesting
Awesome advice, very good info on how to get natural links. This is something I am working on, but need to explore some of the other opportunities like contest, having software on the site, or some other resource.
I’m just starting to do SEO and this looks great! Thank you!
Great review of what link bait really is. There are tons of methods of doing this. Finding the right one for you can really help your online traffic. Take satellite tv for pc for example. Word of mouth can really make sales. check out http://www.satellitetvforpc.ws to see what im talking about
Hi,
Your articles are good but I need your help. I will be looking for a link building expect that can help link site to PR5 and PR6 site.
I will be glad to hear from you. I can be contaced on cougoji@gmail.com
thanks
chuks
This ideas are very usefull and the article contains full list of them for those, who cannot get them by their oun head.
Unfortunatlly, this ways takes effect mostly in popular subjects. Then you deal with something very unpopular, rare and highly tailored, I guess, there is nothing to do to get volume of backlinks.
Thanks for post
Nothing better than giving something away for free to encourage a bit of link baiting, always worth a look…
Excellent, common sense advice. I try to follow it at every turn….I suggest others follow suit…
What type of tools can others put on their sites ?
Interesting read – i’d not heard of this before will have to give it a trial!
great amount of information here, very very useful indeed – it’s just hard to know where to start really
I think it’s quite clear that that the term ‘link baiting’ is a catchy new term for something that has been around for ages, ie; creating content on your site that is worthy of note and encourages and inspires discussion on other sites.
It’s just been given a name now!
useful information.i am trying to follow up the ideas overhead,but i feel its very hard to make it practical
regards
aartha,truehotdeals.com
Yes, this is one of the best ways to build links. The ideas are really good, thanks for the post
Link bait is also on of the seo’s work nice one hope works for me also.
Thanks for the list, based on this i have done a little research and discovered another (and found in you’re comments) another resource on this subject. The post from CornwallSEO (http://www.cornwallseo.com/search/2007/02/09/the-enormous-linkbait-list/). The ideas on this page and that one have got me thinking in new directions.
Tar!
Brilliant post, thanks for the help. cheers
The title is also a really important part of Link Baiting. Don’t forget to create a good title before publishing your link-bait-post
Good Post, Cheers!
still learn about that… thanks for the info..
Keep up the great work. Stumpled across this site by accident but i love it. Great articles on seo and it helps loads. This one about link baiting is a great idea. Thanks
Link baiting is one of the best way to build links for your site. It’s free and really effective
Quality Inbound links are most important for getting good page rank in Google. This (Link Baiting) is also great way of link building and post is so informative and useful.
Thanks for sharing this cute post.
All the best…
Safdar
great amount of information here, very very useful indeed – it’s just hard to know where to start really
Great Idea!!! I will try it
great ideas.
i am going to put this into practice with my filmmaking / video advertising website.
Great information! you’re the man! ehehe..
# Interview (e-mail/phone) prominent people and publish it.
Danke, das ist meine Anregung!
Nice list. I immediately got excited and went to work on a quality piece of “link bait”….I failed.
http://www.jiba-jaba.com/hello/why.aspx
Great article – we are getting a few videos make and publishing them to a number of diffferent sites to try and push browsers to our site – just trying to market our site virally… hope it works
Hey Guys you can also start this, start posting blogs or articles for your e-zine and if your content is really good, you will realize the power of link baiting and then you forget the link building.
Interesting post, this will help me a lot.
Thanks man…
Great thanks for the list.
I have tried link baiting by creating lists a number of times and failed. I think i want to try my hands creating a useful website software.
HI
I would like to thank you so much because this really great.
and this info this beat for my work thank you again.
Hi
Great post
I was looking for information on link bite on internet and i found it.
Very very useful tips.
This post will help many people looking for the help in link bite.
Hi
As an SEO Expert myself i know how important link bite is.
Your post will be like gold for SEO new comers.
I’m really new to SEO and link building, also first time I’m hearing the term link baiting.
Lot of good information about link building and trying to learn as much as possible to impart knowledge to my web site
Thanks
Excellent tips, I’m going to put them into practice.
hi i like your blog.very nice to read your blog! i always visit your blog. visit me at here
thanks so much…..
Thanks for sharing this great article about link bait. We specialise in SEO / Web design and this will help us a lot.:)
Hi, linkbait is a new word in SEO which is replacing word link building. It can easily catch the attention of genearal public which is a target in SEO. like I use this word for http://www.design2express.co.uk and found it great .
Thanks
look at this german website. It is all about linkbaits and marketing 2.0. Very good articels
sorry, forgott the link http://www.linkbait.de.
and have a look at the “linkbabe”
I am going to incorporate to a team of journalists who are able to create quality articles. The selection of the same is not easy.
I’m so glad that you brought this topic up as it is so important especially when people are just beginning blogs or websites for profit. You can definitely tell that it’s the BUZZ in the SEO world because everybody’s comin’ up with content on it. I even wrote an article here http://designdevmag.com/2009/09/29/links-site/ Anyway, great article and keep up the good linking work!
some great inspiration thanks, gona put this into my SEO videos.
Very nice post
Link baiting is very powerful. I found writing lists to be the best way to get backlinks. Of course, there are other techniques such as the ones you mentioned which are pretty good
All in all, I love link baiting. And I believe that every serious IMer should use this powerful technique!
Cheers
Johnny
Very interesting info. But people should see your site before linking it. How to suggest a site for auditory?
(sorry for poor english)
Does it still work like it used to though?
some great inspiration thanks, gona put this into my SEO videos.
wow! great post about link baiting I’ve found so far thank you for this info, I’m new to this blogging thing so this article really helped. tnx alot.