This article is provided by Yesup SEO, an established SEO services.
Linkbaiting involves creating really great content to attract or “bait” links for improved search engine rankings. Increased exposure for your company and your website, as well as more branding opportunities, are obvious benefits. Linkbaiting content which enables a site to become a valuable information source for the industry community will lead to greater credibility and improved future standing. User accessibility enables your site to realize higher engine rankings.
Linkbaiting may be generally defined as developing really strong website content to essentially attract or “bait” links for search engine rankings. The term itself actually employs a fishing analogy to describe how sites position great content – the bait – to “reel in” these engines.
Although linkbaiting may not drive the same quality (i.e. qualified) traffic to your site that other more sophisticated SEO tools might, it is still a very valuable exercise. Increased exposure for your company and your site, as well as strong branding opportunities, are obvious benefits. Ensuring that your site’s very best content is picked up the engines and site viewers who can distribute it is the real key. That great content may make up only 5 to 10 per cent of your entire site content, but it is the type of information that will get your site noticed.
The first step in developing great site content for linkbaiting is to research and develop a concept or idea that hones in on your market audience. It should be an idea you can readily distribute them and that they find appealing, so they will be motivated to link to that special content on your site.
Successful linkbaiting often involves webmasters publishing their own content, on company site blogs or on sites such as Digg, Delicious, and StumbleUpon. Strong linkbaiting can be readily achieved by webmasters who develop interesting and original ideas, and from that develop well-written information which is both relevant and valuable to the industry community they belong to. Strong linkbaiting often means devising content that does not promote your company or site, but rather serves to inform people and significantly contributes to the community’s knowledge level. Self-promotion is frowned upon, and will often backfire and negatively impact on the reputation of the site and the company.
Really strong linkbaiting takes it a step further, and features content so thought-provoking that it can actually open up an online dialogue or discussion. With great linkbaiting you can ensure that you insightful content draws interest in your industry community, in the audience you really want to target, and that those people actually respond to it. Then these people can offer up their own opinions on the subject at hand, and a two-way conversation or multi-layered conversation is well underway. An informative conversation open to other points of view invariably encourages others to put their own two cents in.
Your linkbaiting efforts are definitely enhanced when you submit your content to sites such as Digg, Delicious and StumbleUpon. Make sure that it is good content, however, because if your first submission(s) are below par you might not get a second chance! These sites have developed into strong information communities not only because great reading stuff is on them, but also because they have strong content filtering systems. What this means is that bad content may make it through the wringer once, but probably will not make it through a second time.
Make sure your linkbaiting efforts pay attention to local search and local markets; smaller websites looking to increase their local exposure and accessibility often do not take full advantage of the benefits of strong baiting.
To draw on the fishing analogy again, your linkbaiting “hooks” should focus on information, information and more information (as long as it is relevant). The most effective linkbaiting is that which posits itself as a valuable source of information to its industry community, lending itself to instant credibility, as well as improved standing when offering up future information. Ensuring easier access to your site for both visitors and spiders is one of the great benefits of linkbaiting, and that is a good thing.
If you have any questions about this article, or wish to offer suggestions, please contact us at Yesup SEO, an established SEO services.