What is link baiting?
Link baiting marketing refers to a link building method where you can encourage people to link to you by mentioning them or something dear to them. The idea is that if you mention someone/something in a positive or negative way, you can provoke a response. When this is used to target bloggers, you will often get a response where the blogger will link to the original mention. The more controversial the post you create and more it can cause many people to get involved, the more potential links you can create.
How to link bait?
Now before you go out and spread hate to a whole bunch of people realize that’s not the way to go about link baiting. If you write something bad about someone you are more likely to bring down a blogger’s wrath than help your link building. They say elephants have long memories; well, bloggers have even longer ones. So if are going to link bait keep it to positive or allow your users to do the negative baiting for you.
To begin link baiting, first consider the topic. One way to find topics that interest people is to use Twitter’s trending topics. It shows the most popular topics that many people are tweeting about. For example as I write this the one of the trending topics is the movie Avatar. I’ll use it as an example topic.
Now to create the bait, you must create a controversial post that begs response. Asking questions provokes responses and asking for interaction does the same too. For example you can poll people where they loved it or hated it. Even more effective is to compare it to another movie and ask people, which was better. People will get really passion it about it. For example: Which was better Stars Wars or Avatar?
Link Baiting strategies: Top 10
- Write something controversial
- Expose online scammers
- Write a quote
- Write something funny, create funny video or picture
- Build a useful tool or app
- Create a free eBook
- Create a contest
- Create a conspiracy theory
- Coin a new phrase
- Do an interview or mock interview with someone famous
If none of these ideas work for you, create a religious cartoon depicting Mohammed doing something zany. Of course, you might want to be bit careful with that idea 
Link Baiting Marketing Summary
Good link baiting brings lots of benefits including: In bound links, user interest, and 15 minutes of fame. Link baiting is one way to energize the Internet and really motive people to take interest. The strategy that works best is to have fun and avoid doing anything that wouldn’t want your mother to see. If it is something where you aren’t comfortable associating your name, then it’s probably a bad idea.
Any questions about linking baiting strategies and link baiting marketing, please feel free to contact me at 905-417-9470 or by email at allanp73@gmail.com
