What’s this thing called “linkbait” anyway, and how will it help you promote your company or website online? Basically, linkbait involves creating some kind of content (anything from an article to a video to a sound clip / podcast to an image to whatever the hell you can manage to stick online these days). That content is supposed to be so appealing that people just naturally fall all over themselves to find ways to link to it. So is linkbait just a fad? Will site visitors know it when they see it and leave? Or is it a fab marketing tactic that might be good for more than just link-building after all?

How it Works

First, let’s get something straight. Just because you slap a pretty new name on something doesn’t make it new. Linkbaiting is old news. It goes back to the oh-so-true “content is king” mentality on the Web. If you create and offer original, high-quality content that will appeal to your target audience, they’ll find your site, visit your site, and keep coming back. As it turns out, they’ll also link to it. Good stuff.

There are a few keys to making content linkbait material, including:

1. The content entertains or educates the readers, viewers, or whatnot.

2. The content is able to grab attention (using articles as an example, often with a catchy headline or following a traditionally popular format - such as top 10 lists or 101 Tips lists).

3. The content has the potential to either incite discussion or controversy (not necessarily required, but it certainly helps).

Fad or Fab?

FAB - Here’s why - Like I’ve already mentioned, linkbait is nothing new. The best content producers have known for years that quality content brings natural backlinks, so it’s already been standing the test of time (as much as anything can do I suppose in the everchanging Web). It simply has a new name.

While I believe wholeheartedly that most linkbait really is just quality content, with some extra emphasis put on making it appealing with headlines and formatting, there are definitely some who try to take advantage of linkbaiting tactics to manipulate and deceive, precisely because they can incite discussion or controversy like I mentioned above. As a marketer with actual ethics, I certainly don’t support this kind of marketing (as in blatant lies and the like as a shock and awe tactic). I also don’t lump it in with the vast majority of linkbait as far as my Fab judgement goes. Things like that are reputation-killers. If you mislead people one time too many (and sometimes that’s only once), you can lose trust and interest in your site and company, which will do more to set your marketing / PR efforts back than forward your position with incoming links. As with any kind of marketing tactic, fad or otherwise, never forget to look at the big picture before acting like an ass.

Michael of Britopian.com recently put it this way (which I liked) in a forum, and agreed to let me share his view with you.

“I guess my only immediate thought to link bait is that as long it has value to the readers (i.e free tool, download, or simply a great piece of content), I have no issue with that at all. Sometimes, I think that link bait (from the marketers point of view) is over rated and doesn’t produce the ROI as some other potential marketing tactics.”

Wanna Learn More?

ProBlogger has some excellent posts and links covering the topic of linkbaiting in more detail if you’d like to come up with some linkbait ideas for your own website or company.

Categories: Advertising / Marketing / PR
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