A Spot Of Linkbaiting Will Help Reel In Your Customers (Part 2)

Research

It’s also about identifying those who link, what kind of content do they link to. It’s the market that makes the content. You may have come up with a great idea, but the truth of the matter is that your readers will ultimately decide what exactly you publish and that your ideas will come from research. Research is the key and if you don’t spend enough time researching your market, then you will probably fail.

Distribution

You then need to show the content to as many potential linkers as possible, the viral nature of social media can help out and a powerful online network is essential. To those who have no access this is like hitting a brick wall. But it can be solved by taking the time to build a network, or buy the people who have built that network.
It’s important to realise when considering adding linkbaiting to your strategy that it takes a specific skill to create something worthy. Linkbait which is successful usually has a degree of simplicity that makes its creation seem effortless. But the reality is that creating something which appears simple is actually quite a complicated process.

When creating linkbait, this 3 step process should be adhered to

1.    Find who links
2.    Discover what they link to
3.    Show the linkers the content

Successful linkbait must contain the following elements:

1.    Attention grabbing
2.    Entice the reader to consume the content
3.    Instil a reason for the reader to share content

Linkbait is not a sales message whose intention is to get you to buy a particular product. The whole purpose of linkbaiting is simply to get you to link by using emotional triggers. Many times it has been said that we do not buy rationally, but that we buy emotionally. Therefore we must not treat linking any differently, it has to serve the purpose of reaching the linker and in turn activate the right emotional triggers.

If you have defined your online marketing problem as too few links then employing linkbait as an element of your whole strategy may be the solution to your problem. It has to mesh with your other online marketing elements such as PPC, Search Engine Optimisation, link buying, blogging, article writing, social media, etc.  Of course having a brilliant website in the first place will help and if you get your web design just right, it’s a good beginning.

It is very important that it should not in any way harm your branding strategy. Naturally the whole tone of your linkbait should never be detrimental in any way to how your brand is perceived. So if you are a bank and you want to create a piece like, “Great Gadgets Bankers Buy with their Bonus”. In the current climate it doesn’t sound like a good plan at the moment. Although I am sure it will get the banks links, linkbait should not be about links at any cost.