You’ve seen the term more than once, most likely. When looking for blogging jobs, some ask for a number of linkbaiting posts per month. When reading other blogs, people would talk of linkbaiting and some would exclaim how a particularly interesting post was a “linkbait.” To simplify it (though it’s never so simple, believe me), linkbaiting is a way to steer some interests and give people this desire to link to your post. So how does one identify a linkbait? Simple. If a post wants to make you link to it without forcing you into it, then you just found a linkbait.

I believe linkbaiting is one of the best things ever thought of with regards to marketing techniques. Thinking of ways to promote ones blog and bring the traffic streaming in could be quite time-consuming and I believe that regular albeit well-place linkbait posts could help tremendously. Of course, not all linkbait posts were written for enjoyment purposes — some border on the hateful and many would even go as far as to purposefully cause a scandal just for the post to generate incoming links. Unscrupulous means aside, linkbait posts are highly useful and in the long run, might generate long-term traffic if your succeeding posts manage to hold your readers’ attention.

So what makes a good linkbait post? I believe this warrants its own post, but since I just introduced the term, I’ll give a glimpse to what I believe are good linkbait posts. Lists, I think, are at the top of the list (no pun intended). If you take a look at the posts on the front page of Digg, you’d see that most of them are a collection of links for a certain niche. Other samples are sensational posts, breaking news, well-researched posts, and contests among many others.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 2:23 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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