I have read a lot about what is being called “linkbaiting.” The Search Engine Journal defined Linkbaiting this way:

Linkbaiting is one of the most universally effective tactics for promoting a site, both for search engine rankings and short-term traffic boosts.

Blog SEO defined it this way:

Linkbaiting is a habit of writing good content with the sole purpose of getting linked to it.

Good content will get you incoming links. Writing good content will get you incoming links. I considered my own habit of linking to other blogger’s post. And it is the content of that post that catches my eye. Not who else has linked to it. Not the tags they use. It is the content. For example, take the two links above. I used those links for the content of those post. Nothing more, nothing less. The Search Engine Journal gave some guidelines on what content to write about to get those link backs.

Understanding what content, features, and subjects are “in” with the technorati (the web-literate individuals, not the blog aggregation site) is a subjective, but important piece of the linkbait creation puzzle.

There’s that word again, CONTENT. The Blog SEO provided 2 ways to be good linkbaiters. The first hint is:

Know what’s up You need to know what’s going on on the Web and know what’s hot. A good way of finding out is checking out the popular searches on Technorati.

Taking the first hint, let me expand. One of the blogs I do is the Kansas Family Law Blog. I am providing a professional service on that blog. It is not my goal on that blog to generate traffic for ads, as you won’t see Chitika ads on that blog. One of the ways I decide what content to provide is to know what is going on. But not by checking out the popular searches on Technorati. What I do check out, are the searches I find my readers are doing by checking the stats of my blog. While checking those stats I can determine what actual searches are being typed into Google or Yahoo. I take those search requests and make them into post. In checking my stats nightly over a short period of time, I can usually see a pattern of what questions are being asked. Taking those questions and doing a post gets me traffic to my blog. It is not linkbaiting, but it does get me traffic, which is our goal. I am also following the first hint mentioned above, I am keeping up on what is hot and writing content to match what is hot. The second hint is:

Promote your article If you feel that you’ve created something link-worthy, the next obvious step is promotion. Things become easy when you are a well established blogger with thousands of readers, but what if you’re not. SearchEngine Journal recommends that you contact a few well known bloggers in your niche and ask them to critique your article. Please don’t ask for a link because your request will most likely be ignored. When you get an e-mail back with some criticism, be ready to make changes and e-mail them back thanking them and announcing that you’ve made some adjustments. Most likely they will talk about it to their readers.

The second hint is a good one, but it all goes back to content. If you provide good content, you will get noticed. And those that notice you will link to your blog. Let me take my professional service blog again for an example. When you do a blog that is really a niche marketing blog, you end up developing a so called network of other professional service blogs. We take advantage of RSS and have our news-readers set to catch ever new post our professional service blogging friends do. If there is something there that catches our eye, we post about it and of course give them credit. For me, I know those that I follow provide good content. You can tell by their blog design and of course the posting they do. Take a look at some of them: Alabama Family Law Blog South Carolina Family Law Blog In my humble opinion (again), if you are doing a blog that is a niche blog, you will develop a following of others in that niche. And, by default, you will get incoming links from those fellow niche bloggers. Of course, remember them and do some outgoing linking to them. There has also been a lot of talk lately about asking for links. Let me just state, I get emails each week asking me to link with someone. I read everyone of those emails. And if the blog provides GOOD CONTENT, I link to them. Remember this, the results you get will be directly reflective of the work you want to put in. This will not be easy and it will take some work. If you are just starting a new blog, the work in the beginning is more than you will do down the road. You will need to post and post and post early in your blogs life. But you will get noticed and it will pay off. CONTENT is the key, not baiting others with slick tricks or spamming. Related Linking Articles: • Law Blogs work when you get links to your law blog.