This article is about a technique called link baiting. If you don’t know what that is, read on and you will understand what exactly link baiting is and the benefits that come with it.
Link baiting is simply writing content that would seduce visitors to link back to your article. The benefits of getting backlinks are twofold – Search Engines rank your pages higher in the search engines and you get more traffic as a result of people clicking through the links.
This technique is though not unique for every blogger and therefore you should not expect to get a surge of traffic at least during your first ten to twenty link-bait articles. It requires that you test and evaluate what works and what doesn’t before you get it just right.
Why do you need to experiment? The people that come to read your articles are highly unique and different from the people that read your competitor`s blog for example. They have different demographics (country, city, age, gender, income, etc.) and different psychographics (values, opinions, political views, lifestyles, behaviors, etc.).
What might work for other blogs might not work on yours. This is why you need to test, measure, and find the combination that works best in your case and for your target audience.
Here are a few steps that you can follow to create good link baiting articles.
STEP 1: SEARCH FOR A HOT TOPIC IN YOUR NICHE
In this step you should find a topic that is hot within your niche right now and write about it. You can see what is hot on social media or what is being shared a lot right now. Here are these two methods in a bit more detail.
Here is the first one. Visit your niche`s top blog and read through the latest articles. Is there an article that is being shared more than the rest? If so, you found a hot topic.
The second method that you can use is simply to identify trends in social media. Just below the Twitter Search you can find topics that are hot right now. If you login into your twitter account, you will also see trends on the left side. You can customize the trends based on location. If you are in the United States, you can see specific trends for the US. If you are in the United Kingdom, you can see those as well.
If you are a Google+ user, you`ll need to perform a search before you can see the trends. The trends are not based on your search query. Here is a snapshot of where you can find them.
STEP 2: WRITE THE CONTENT
This step is not that difficult… or is it? Here are some things tips that you should implement when writing your link-bait article.
– Do not just rephrase the article and post it on your blog.
– Add something new, something insightful and something of value.
– Why would a reader read your article instead of the other one?
– Add a humorous picture. – like the one on top of the article
Here is an article by ProBlogger with 20 Linkbaiting Techniques that you can use on your blog including quizzes, contests, humor and controversy.
STEP 3: EVALUATE AND REPEAT
A couple days after you`ve posted your link-bait article check your statistics to see how you`ve done. If you don’t see the expected results, don’t worry. Just repeat the process, tweak it a little, and see how you`ve done this time.
Just be persistent in your efforts and you will succeed. A failure is nothing more than an opportunity to learn, get up and do better.
I would like to hear what`s your link-bait strategy. What works for you? Also, did you find this article useful? What would you improve or add?
Leave a comment in the box bellow.
