An expert guide to SEO link baiting

February 20th, 2007

Over the last couple of months you have probably heard of link baiting or social media optimisation. If you haven’t time to get reading. Since then a number have posts have appeared regarding the subject, however none as good as “Andy Hagans Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and Social Media Marketing“.

In the guide Andy covers all aspects of Linkbaiting including why, how and what to linkbait. Of particular interest was his bit on linkbait hooks as covered below
“News Hook. The news hook is when you are the first to scoop a story; everyone who carries the story will then (theoretically) link to you as the original source. To get a scoop you don`t need to have insider information (though that doesn’t hurt); you can just be the first site to publicly predict something or to reach a controversial conclusion. Bonus points if your scoop is ‘true’ too then many later-proven-to-be-false scoops will make other bloggers and writers hesitant to reference you again.
Resource Hook. The resource hook occurs when you make an extremely helpful piece of content that everyone will naturally want to bookmark (like this one!). This may be my favorite hook, because as opposed to the news hook, it encourages people to link to and bookmark it for a long period of time. Content that sits there and naturally obtains trusted, relevant backlinks passively? Isn’t that the original white hat SEO wet dream?
Contrary Hook. The contrary hook is when you refute a common myth in your niche. Most little areas of the blogosphere hold certain beliefs to be self-evident; all SEOs know that META tags are dead; all Web2.0 designers know that writing validated code is the right thing to do. Calling these people wrong will usually incite them into talking about you, and linking to you.
Humor Hook. People love to laugh, especially at people in their industry or niche. And most niches have so little levity that almost anything will get you a chuckle and a link. You can even directly cite influential people, and if done in a gentle way, they’ll generally be flattered into linking to it.
Tool Hook. A good link bait tool has one of two characteristics: 1) It is actually useful; or 2) It feeds bloggers’ egos. (Very few examples can do both.) Firefox plugins, free design templates and financial calculators are all examples of tools that have received thousands of valuable backlinks. None of them are too hard for a decent programmer to create.
Award Hook. No official awards in your tiny niche? Why not host them yourself? You can either have a more legitimate award with significant organization and actual prize money like the Bloggies, or you can basically nominate everyone in your niche and hope that half link back to you out of enthusiasm for the community, as with the Search Awards. Both tactics work well. The reason is simply that people like positive recognition and they LOVE rankings. Awards get linked to because they help to legitimatize other people it helps the winners when they promote you. Ah, human nature
Giveaway Hook. Anyone who has been to an SEO conference recently (or any other conference for that matter) is stocked for life on pens, highlighters, key rings, and loads of over freebie junk. Companies fight to give trinkets away at certain events because, when directed towards the right audience, giveaways are a great way to drive sales and get a return far better than any ordinary advertising. The Internet is no different. Text Link Ads gets a lot of love around the blogosphere because they offer a free coupon for new clients. Aaron Wall seems to give away an AdWords coupon every other week how else can you get such branding, traffic and links with a $50 piece of paper?
Research/Statistic Hook. Sometimes just compiled numbers, or any kind of scientific survey, will get a lot of link love, especially in an under-studied area. And while a scientifically-conducted study with valid methodology will often get better links, the (sad?) truth is that almost anything can pass as ‘research’ on the Internet.”
Source:Andy Hagans Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and Social Media Marketing

Well worth a read…

Entry Filed under: SEO Industry, News and Views, SEO, PR Syndication