What is a link Bait?

My definition for link bait is “content or a feature in a website designed to spread virally and attract links”. According to Matt Cutts link baits are “anything interesting enough to catch people’s attention”.

Link baits can be videos, texts, images, coupons, freebies or anything. To create a link bait you need to come up with something that can attract people, something which people will like to link to. It need not be expensive or time consuming. It can be a humorous picture or a controversial article. Even a single tweet can go viral. Whatever it is, a link bait should provide the reader something new and exciting, something unique and worth sharing.

Top 10 Link Baiting Methods

1. Write articles related to upcoming big events:

Publishing an article related to an upcoming popular event has got good chances of going viral. For example an article predicting the winners of a popular football match can spread like wildfire. And yes, I haven’t forgotten ‘Paul’ the octopus, who successfully predicted the winners of recent World cup football matches. People usually go looking for information on upcoming events and this gives you a chance to come up with your link bait idea.

2. Create lists:

This is a very common method of link baiting. Websites like http://www.toptenz.net/ and http://listverse.com/ are famous for such link baiting techniques. Making a top 10 or top 5 list is very easy when compared to most other link baiting techniques and this is the reason why they are so popular.

3. Create infographics:

Infographics are a combination of data and their graphical representation. They are very informative and easy to understand. You can include information contained in 10 pages of text in a single infographic. Their attractiveness and efficiency in conveying data makes them great link baits.

4. Write a controversial article:

We see this in our daily lives. People and products intentionally create controversies to get attention. The company ‘Apple’ is well known for using this trick (Ofcourse their intention is not to get links, but to gain attention of people). Just before their every product launch the blogosphere is filled with controversies about the product and its performance. Writing a controversial article gains the attention of people and of course more links.

5. Free services or gifts:

Offering a free service or gift to people, if managed properly, can attract links. The website Freeseoreport.com is an example of this link baiting technique. By giving away seo analysis reports for free and requesting people to review them freeseoreport.com has won a great number of links. Similarly making a simple but useful tool and letting people download it from your website for free cause writers to link to you.

6. Run a contest:

Running a contest and offering either a huge prize or no price at all can make news.

7. Make a low quality, hilarious video :

Watch the video below and think of a reason why it got more than 1 million views.

8. Conduct a deep down research on anything and publishing it:

This link baiting technique is very suitable for gaining niche oriented back links. Do a deep research on anything in a particular niche and publish your findings. Those who are interested in that niche will definitely link to that content.

9. Create and publish interesting images:

Cartoons, funny pictures or serious pictures can play the role of link baits. Just see how many funny pic emails you receive a month. That alone tells you the link baiting ability of images.

10. Write something first:

Write a review of a product or a service before anyone else does it. Be the first to tell people how the product/service is. This can be powerful link bait especially if the review is about a popular gadget like a mobile phone or laptop.