Under normal linkbait circumstances you find something that appeals to as many as possible within your sector (or within the sector you'll publish toward).
For this technique what I propose is that you custom tailor the linkbait to one recipient, virtually guaranteeing a link.
Linkbait Process For One Specific Target
- Identify you goals. What does success look like? Are you working on a keyword link? Name recognition? Authority building?
- Identify your target. Make it worth your while. Ensure the target supports set goals you've set.
- Audit the content of the site. Take about 15-20 minutes to preform site searches. Click through on the contextual links. Find the passion of the site (and plan to do them one better) or find the content hole. And don't worry, there's always a content hole be it deep or shallow.
- Create the content. Meet the identified need as best as you can. If possible -- and only if it makes sense in context of the content and the site on which it will be published -- add a relevant link to the target site.
- Publish the content.
- Promote the content as you would under normal circumstances. Let 1 business day pass for the target site to notice and pick up the content.
- Contact the target site, if appropriate, and suggest where they can use the content you created.
Conclusion
Linkbaiting is a good win-win link building strategy too valuable to waste on large-scale "see what sticks" campaigns. Use it to attract a link from a particular site by custom tailoring your linkbait to their needs, desires, or passions.
Other Great Linkbait Resources:
About the Author: Ruud Hein
I love helping to make web sites make it. From the ground up if needed. CSS challenges, server-side scripting, user and device friendly JavaScript tricks search engines have no problems with. Tracking how the sites perform and then figuring out how to make that performance and the tracking better.
I'm passionate about information. No matter how often I trim my feeds in my feed readers (yes, I use more than one), I always have a couple of hundred in there covering topics ranging from design to usability, from SEO to SEM, from life hacks to productivity blogs, from.... Well, you get the idea, I guess.
Knowledge and information management is close to my heart. Has to be with the amount of information I track. My "trusted system" is usually in flux but always at hand and fully searchable. My paid passion job at Search Engine People sees me applying my passions and knowledge to a wide array of problems, ones I usually experience as challenges. It's good to have you here: pleased to meet you!
