What is Linkbaiting?

admin | October 31, 2008 | 0 Comments

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Linkbaiting is a new concept that emerged in the SEO industry a few years back. When somebody refers to a block of content as linkbait, he means that the content was specifically created to attract many links. Linkbaiting is considered to be one of the best ways to build links due to the ability to attract a high number of links in a short period of time.

Building a successful linkbaiting campaign is hard; it is more of an intellectual struggle than the rest of the link gathering strategies. By this technique you create content that can easily draw people’s attention to it. With the attention focused on your content, the number of incoming links increases dramatically. By talking about your content, the users generate links to it.

A linkbaiting campaign focuses on target audiences that are known as link friendly in the SEO industry. Among them we can mention the social media aggregation sites, news sites and blogs with a high level of influence.

Types of linkbaiting

There are many types of linkbaiting; among the most important ones we can mention the following:

Informational hooks (resource hooks) – They refer to well documented articles that solve a major problem. They can be articles that simplify the day-to-day work done in front of the PC, fix problems that the Internet surfers experience daily, present the background of hard-to-explain trendy terms. Informational hooks can also be tips and tricks that target a wide audience, top 10 lists (or something alike), how-to tutorials or well-documented resources created for a special upcoming event. Even a few well documented articles presented as free information made it as informational hooks. The main characteristic of an informational hook is that it must be helpful to somebody.

News hooks – they refer to fresh content, analytics, interviews or citations that have the quality of spreading in the same manner as the news. They can even be lists of up to date information found on the web, compiled to fit a specific niche. They are not necessarily official news released by the media; they are simply new content appealing to the public. The news hooks can be represented by stories that expose irregularities, that reveal flaws in the well-known systems or that disclose fraudulent attempts. In the news hooks category fall: the articles in which the author presents something he saw, and that no one else saw; that present new contests or competitions; articles or tests that uphold or fight the well known myths; well documented articles about new trends and even interesting comments about things that are happening. A few acronyms and invented words made it as news hooks, as many people talked about them. The main characteristic of a news hook is the fact that it brings new and appealing content to the public.

Evil hooks – the author says something that is not appealing on a subject of high interest. The evil hook can be created by the common blogger but it must be made from the point of view of an expert, and thus bring heavy arguments to sustain it. It can even be an article that has a very controversial subject (in which you defend the opposite point of view of the masses) or one in which you disagree with the authorities. The evil hook presents a bad thing to force a discussion on that subject. The main characteristic of the evil hook is the fact that it says something bad about something that is known as good, to draw attention to the writer.

Humor hooks – this is the easiest hook to develop, many start with this one in the pursuit of links. They are funny stories, jokes, pictures or videos. A few good humor hooks started with mocking cartoons and sketches. The good side is that humor hooks are easy to create; the bad side is that they can’t really draw high authority links.

Tools and Widgets hooks – they refer to those utilities that help you do everyday tasks in a more simple way, or the ones that you install on your webpage/blog to show useful information to the visitor. The tools hook covers those Web applications that scan, reveal, build or inform the user with something useful. They must be easily accessible and appeal to the wide audience. They are more like the informational hooks, but served under a different cover. The widget hooks are among the most powerful linkbaiting hooks. They are scripts or badges that are embedded/inserted in the user’s website with a link pointing to the source. In many cases the link offers more information on the desired topic. The power of these widget hooks comes from the fact that the developer controls the keyword through which the link is made.

These are the most important linkbaiting types. There are many that fall just between these categories, and many that are closely related. A few examples: the attack hook, the contrary hook, the fear hook, the eye candy hook, the ego hook, the incentive hook and the ridiculous hook. Be smart in choosing them because with the right kind of hook you can always get the right kind of fish!

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