What is Link Baiting?

Now you’re probably wondering how you can use link baiting for your activities in the online world. I’ll be happy to answer that! But before I get to it, I’ll briefly explain what actually linkbaiting is.

What is link baiting?

What is it about?

What’s important, the content you create and share should be attractive and unique enough for users to want to link to it themselves. Basically, it has to be a “bait” and encourage users to share your content with the rest of the world. For more examples of such content, see below.

Link bait vs click bait

You should note that while there is often a thin line between them, link baiting doesn’t correspond to well-known in the world of marketing, and not only, the concept of clickbait. So what is the key difference between these two techniques? Goal.

Linkbait

When it comes to linkbaiting, it is important that users that are interested in your content should link to it and recommend it to others.

Think. You are just at the beginning of your journey with content marketing and you need some practical advice about the industry. You find an article online with that title and you think, “Yes, that’s exactly what I was looking for!” The article turns out to be informative and extremely helpful so once you’re a real marketing content ninja you decide to share your knowledge with others. How? For example, by linking to it in your own article. That’s what link baiting is.

Clickbait

Clickbait, however, ends with clicking on a link, the content which is not always as interesting as its attractive title might suggest. This method successfully encourages to visit the website but not necessarily to stay on the site or create links to it.

So clickbait doesn’t have a very good reputation – you could say that clickbait is like a nice cover of a worthless book. A nice cover may encourage you to buy this book but would you recommend it to others? Probably not.

But! Note that even though the mentioned above terms link bait and click bait are not exactly the same, when used properly, they can perfectly work in synergy. Just think about it: you have two tools – one will attract user’s attention and the other will effectively keep it. So if you create an attractive and valuable content for your clickbait title, you have a better chance that your content will not be echoed by users – what’s more, it will be shared by them.

Several link baiting methods

Link baiting doesn’t really have a clear strategy – actually there are lots of methods. You may take different actions depending on who is the target of your message and on the way you communicate.

You could say that link baiting is closely connected with good content marketing – because eventually it is attractive and valuable content that will make users link to your website, right? That’s why it’s good to keep this in mind when planning your link baiting strategy. If you want to learn more about content marketing and what to consider when creating content, check out our blog post.

So, since we already know the basics, let’s move on to how we can bait our links 😉 Below I present some methods.

Article

Well, it’s not about just writing an article and posting it on your blog. That’s not the point! Remember that you should meet users’ needs and make them feel that it is you who has given them answers to all of their questions. Create substantive content, filled with practical knowledge. Avoid overly specialized language – be clear and understandable to everyone.

News and real-time marketing are perfect for this type of content. People like to know what’s going on and be up to date with all the news. On the other hand, evergreen content (i.e. something that people will always be looking for), such as tutorials or ebooks, can also be a good solution.

You can also consider guest posting – there are many advantages of this solution. By publishing a guest post on your blog, you open up to a new audience, who will visit your blog because of the author, expand your contact network and give yourself a chance for more (good quality) links to your website.

Contest

Depending on your business, consider what kind of contest might be both attractive to your audience and beneficial to you. I think most of us like to play and, even more, to win 😉 It’s quite clear here – only your creativity limits you (well, unless you decide to organize a contest on a really big scale, then money will also play an important role).

Contests not only have a great impact on user-generated content (UGC) but are also a good way to get links. How to use the power of this method? I’ll give you a simple example.

You’re organizing a contest. The participants may win, let’s say… free entry to the training in your company. There are just two terms of participation. Each person must:

1. follow your profile (Facebook, Instagram, etc.),
2. share the contest post on your profile with a description in which he or she will describe in a few sentences why they want to participate in your training (with a return link to your page, of course).

Done!

Infographic

Quite often we prefer watching, rather than reading – that’s the fact. When creating content, it is worth keeping in mind that attractive graphics can, literally, be worth more than a thousand words.

If you have created a report or a chart, the graphical presentation of the results will definitely draw much more attention than a block of text. Why? People love lists! After all, this is a much more comprehensible form. Besides, we don’t always have enough time to review extensive reports – we get rid of the problem if we just take a look at the infographics.

If you want to know more on how to create iconographic, check tips from Visme: https://visme.co/blog/infographic-tips/.

Interview

An interview may be another link baiting method. The most important thing is that you think carefully with whom and how you want to do it. You’ll really find a lot of interviews online, some of them are better, others worse – we’re obviously looking for the better ones.

That’s why it’s so important to consider the topic and the questions because they (and, of course, the answers) may make people want to share your interview with other users. You can invite a real icon or a person who is currently popular. You can choose a timeless topic or more current issues – the choice is yours.

But remember, there are lots of interviews that became viral just because they were so bad that people couldn’t resist from sharing them with others. Well, I would say that this is not a good PR. Users link your interview, that’s true, but you don’t keep a good image anymore.

Video

While thinking about this example, just try to recall how many times you’ve shared a video on the web. Cute dogs, heart touching commercials or all kinds of tutorials… it really works! Think what kind of video content you could create and engage your audience with it. Let’s roll!

To sum up

These are just some of the methods that can help you encourage users to share your content and link to the website.

Even though this type of content can be a really good bait for links, you should also keep in mind that not always the content that seems to be a link bait will be linked by others. That’s why – as always – I advise you to test and check various solutions, because who knows, maybe one of them will be a key to your success.