April 20th, 2010 by Nick

There are so many terms which keep appearing in the world of SEO and link baiting, or link bait, is one of them. The reason this phrase has come into our lives is because of the increased use of blogs and published articles, as these are the best way of using link bait to attract visitors to your site.

Link baiting basically involves using various devices to attract traffic to your website. It usually involves posting a blog or article to your web page which is in some way relevant, new or exceptionally interesting to people. The theory is, that if you can create a story which is interesting enough, people will pick up on it and proceed to your website. The term refers the article as the bait, as it is the content which rouses interest and attraction, whilst the link is what captures people and takes them to your website.

You may be thinking that link baiting is a form of deception and there are rumours that it is a ‘black-hat’ technique as you are luring people to your site. The truth is however, that done correctly there is nothing untoward about link baiting; it just consists of standard link building strategies with a bit more creativity behind them.

There are a few tried and tested methods of creating effective link bait articles and these are based around several genres of blog or article. Remember that link baiting needs to entice people, so content needs to be relevant, interesting and quite often, entertaining.

News stories are one of the most common forms of link baiting in search engine optimization, especially if you can comment on really up to date news issues. If you are a good researcher and factual reporter, then finding breaking news items or disagreeing with certain news of that day or week can be a great attraction for people browsing the web. Anything that offers personal views or opinions is also good as it sparks online conversations and intrigue.

Controversy is also a fantastic way of attracting visitors to your site. Depending on how brave you are, you can take this as far as you dare. From simply giving an opposing opinion to something or blatantly verbally attacking someone or some instance, anything truly divisive that results in conflict may provoke interest or anger of various kinds, and good or bad, they are all effective ways of getting traffic to your site.

If news is too factual for you and controversy too daring, then opt for the humorous approach. Everybody loves a laugh and everybody enjoys reading something funny, so if you can create a funny link then that will guarantee you some hits. The great thing about funny posts is that it is a lot easier to add other sorts of files rather than just articles. You can post videos or images or simply write a funny poem or tale. Humourous tales are also quite likely to get passed around more amongst people which increases your hits and popularity.

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