January 20, 2007 20:12
Category: Link Making
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The other day I come across an 'Internet marketing consultant' who keeps a battery of 'keyboard operators' (I term them so, for all they do is what they are asked to without the bother of asking why) whose only work is to submit articles to thousands of article directories.
The reason: getting hundreds of backlinks for the article writers.
Unknown to my consultant friend, this ploy unfortunately doesn't work any longer. These days search engines are known to put heavy discount on links generating from 'duplicate' contents, which means backlinks from same article hosted in different websites do not at all count much in the eyes of search engines.
That being so, what would you do to generate backlinks that point to your website?
Enter linkbait or linkbaiting. Though bereft of a good definition, the term loosely translates as doing to your web content whatever it takes in order to automatically attract links from other sites. You may wonder what all you can do indeed to increase your website's attraction!
Of course you'll not like to paste a porn picture on your website, which though may attract lots of visitors, will not get you backlinks from those who matter to your website. What's the way out? To begin with, get a feel of what linkbait actually is. Refer Matt Cutts' year-old article, SEO Advice: linkbait and linkbaiting.
I feel the term got known after Matt mentioned it last year January. Many seo-practitioners have after that spoken their mind on the subject. A particularly thought-provoking article, Why Aren't You Using LinkBait?, was authored by Kim Roach of SitePro News in July last year.
In that she said that mere good quality contents are not strong enough link-pullers. Instead, she dealt on 4 'hooks' that have potential to generate backlinks. They are news, controversy, resources and humor.
Later, many thoughts came pouring out as to how a website can be to attract links. Darren Rowse's article, 20 Linkbaiting Techniques, is a nice elaboration worth reading. He also provides other good resources that deal on the topic. Few interesting are:
- SEO Book's Linkbaiting or Link Baiting?
- Performancing's The Art of Linkbaiting
- ISEDB's Linkbaiting, How hard is it?
Well, my reading is that you need to have good contents in the first place, something like a 'niche' library where visitors would come often in search of genuine information. It could be that in short run, your website doesn't attract links because it may be lacking the 'twists and curves'. In the long run, it would pay off.
It is important not to miss the actual flow of traffic for the sake of links. Why? For, unless you've enough sustained traffic, links won't materialize. Note I've used the word 'sustained'. The idea is short-term attractions do not fetch sustained traffic. And if traffic is sporadic and comes in bursts, you're not likely to generate enough backlinks for all your efforts.
Lest you think I'm a content-crazy person bent on proving the 'worth' of contents, let me tell you if you have the foresight to create a fantastic technology-dependent user-friendly site like Ning, YouTube or even XE.com, the currency conversion site, you may not ever feel the need of endless contents.
It's your call, dear.
