Backlinks


What is link baiting?


Linking baiting is a powerful marketing and search engine optimization method. Link baiting is generally described as content or feature provided by a website that will bait visitors to put links on other\their websites, blog, forum, etc. You can view an official blog post by Google's Matt Cutts where he talks about link baiting (View Article). Link baiting is not a black-hat SEO technique; it can be used very successfully with white-hat SEO practices.

There are many different types of link baiting; these are referred to as hooks. You usually will see different results in the type of hook you use. There are one of two results you want to occur when you attempt to link bait something. You either want to provide some sort of content or tool people will want to link to, or create something people can add to their website, blog, forum, etc that provides a backlink to your website. Below are a few of the different hooks (type of link bait) people use when link baiting.

 

Link Baiting Hooks

  • Tool Hook: This is when you create a online tool or web application that would be useful to many different people. The trick is to make a "unique" tool or web application that you can't find anywhere else. It is hard to use the tool hook with something people can find on 5,000 other sites.
  • Humor Hook: Humor can be a very effective way to link bat. This is done by creating unique funny stories, jokes, pictures, movies or cartoons. You would then make it to where people could add this funny content directly to their website, blog, forum, etc. This would of course provide a backlink to your website.
  • Infamous Hook: It can be hard to believe that some of the most unpopular content can receive the most attention. This method is used to create content that is usually sensitive in nature and very negative or derogatory. You would then cycle this content around so it would create a lot of controversy and in return receive a lot of attention.
  • Information Hook: This is when you create very "useful and unique" content; this information would only be first found on your site and be beneficial to a large audience of people.

 

The search engine optimization results from link baiting can be very rewarding. Major search engines use inbound link quality and quantity to help determine their search results; among many other factors. Using anchor text properly can increase the value of these inbound links. Use as your anchor text the keyword(s) or keyword phrase you're trying to rank for on search engines. You might also notice an increase in the Google Pagerank value of the web page being link baited.

 

See Also