Blogging to Fame!

Hook your reader so much that they start a blog to talk about you. This might not always be the case, but atleast they can link to you. Linkbaiting (link baiting, linkbait, link bait etc) is a term that has increasingly being used around the blogosphere, and I have already dedicated my previous post to it.

You can see in the following technorati graph the increase in its use. (source)
Posts that contain Link Bait per day for the last 30 days.



The quantity and quality of inbound links are two of the many metrics used by a search engine ranking algorithm to rank a website. Linkbaiting is a way to build high quality links which should be relevant to your site. So this would solve any questions of it being good or bad. It is considered to be a white hat optimization method almost universally. Part of successful linkbaiting is devising a mini-PR campaign around the release of a linkbait article so that bloggers and social media users are made aware and can help promote it.

Ethical Linkbaiting

When I was defining hooks in the last post, you would have realized that you can devide them in majorly two categories, the nice and the naughty(I would not call it nasty, as it solves the purpose). Lets talk about the nice here.

Learn about your subject so much that you could easily be termed as expert in your field. Though it wont be easy but if you are successful in doing so, everything you say will be termed as a link bait. Here are some ways which will be helpful to you in doing so.

1. Build a good content site related to your niche. Write articles- 101 ways to do [insert topic here] and a 10 ways to help you with [insert topic here], 25 myths about [insert topic here]. These have been going on for years and is still effective and easily dugg and bookmarked.


2. Be innovative. I know that’s not easy as well. People have been innovative enough to invent a button that does nothing all and yet being linked extensively.


3. Use quizzes and contests- Quizzes, surveys and tests have long been popular and interesting with web users and if you’re smart about the way you design them (giving people a button to place on their site for example) they can be quite viral. People are willing to participate in and you’ll find that some will if you organize some contests. Give a worthwhile prize like a free membership of your site, a free e-book or a free report which normally sells at $25 and above or the course you are about to launch.This will add a competitive element inceasing the participation rate and obviously the incoming links.


4. Perform surveys and studies that make people feel important. If you can make other people feel important they will help do your marketing for you for free. Salary.com did a study on how underpaid mothers were, and they got many high quality links.


5. Swap some links- Oops! What did I just say? Swapping links with other blogs will not only increase your visibility but also increase your Technorati rank way up.
6. Develop some ethical tips and tricks about your niche that are a rare knowledge. Talk about them and be authoritative. This knowledge will come with experience I agree, but experience comes when you start doing it. So start sooner.


7. With the above point, there goes one more advice. Be a pioneer to say or do something about a common problem, or just anything useful and you would be linked heavily. You can even gain some links from authority sites. Being second, third or fourth will drown the effect.


8. Be generous while reviewing other blogs. People would not only link happily, but also recommend you.


9. Tools make a good link bait. Text link ads have set up a good example through their Blog-juice calculator. See, I just linked it. It made authority blogs like Problogger.net link it. They also provide widgets along with it to announce your blog juice to the world and secretly link back to it.;-)


10. Humor adds interest to anything. Like I talked about in last post, whether it be a cartoon (Hugh does this well - I’ve seen his blog linked to numerous time today alone), a funny photo, a story or even a title that gets a laugh - people enjoy humor and like to pass it on (it’s something we’ve been doing for centuries in the stories/jokes we tell).
11. Freebies- Apart from giving something valuable through contest prizes, you can even give useful freebies to download through your blog/site. This attracts others to link you and talk about you quite easily. (Do not forget useful here though.)

The Not so ethical or Unethical Linkbating-

I cannot imagine why do you want to know them. Here are a few link buiding methods that may destroy your brand or get your site banned/penalized/filtered from major search engines, or both.

I will still make a good use of them by providing you, how you can use these by making them ethical.

1. Comment Spamming-
Unethical way- Commenting on blogs just to get a link back. Start marketing your own site hard on your first blog comment. Add no value to the comment section. Mention nothing other than you recently posted on the same subject at _____ and everyone should read it. Carpet bomb dozens of blogs with this message.

Ethical way- Comment on blogs related to your niche and give some good advice on the comment. People will find you and will link you back if you are regular to their blogs and add value to it.

2. Using trackbacks for nothing atall-
Unethical way-Just linking to a blog which uses trackback to gain a link back without saying anything useful at all.

Ethical Way- Same as above, advice bloggers on how they can improve their blog or provide some other useful links related to the subject, and then pinging for trackbacks. They may like to talk about you and some of your reader may write about you as well.

3. Weird headlines-
Unethical way- Saying something just to attract linking for eg. Why Google is a monster and copying and pasting somebody else’s article in it.

Ethical way- Why Google is monster is a good headline, only when you can justify what you are saying. Providing strong reasoning for your statement will not only make it ethical but will make you popular and it will sure be a good linkbait.

4. Sue somebody-
Unethical way- Something like what RIAA did. You can read about it in RIAA Lawsuits Hit 71 Year Old Grandfather, 12 Year Old Girl and then writing about it in your own blog.

Ethical way- No ethical way to do this. You can sure be the first one to break out such a news to the world, if some else does it, through your blog.

5. Letting the cat out of the bag-
Unethical way- Talking about your company secrets, in your posts. This may bring you fame but it will take away your job for sure. Find out how Dooce word got its meaning.

Ethical way- You want me to suggest ethical ways to do that? You can instead read Blogging fame for a common employee.

6. Talk nuisance about somebody famous-
Unethical way- Just doing the above is unethical. It will gain you pretty good links for sure but could land you in hot waters. People despise big mouths which talk without realizing what they are saying.

Ethical way- You can present your own opinion by posting "Why [insert prominent blogger name here] is WRONG about...". You will again have to quite particular of what you say and very cautious. The ethical way here can still not be foolproof.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with link baiting. If you are creating Link Bait for no other reason than to attract links in hopes of also attracting search engine rankings improvement via those links...well, good luck. That’s what EVERYONE is doing. And those types of links wont help you long if at all. But go ahead and try it. While you do, why not also add some really useful content and tools to your site that will help your users accomplish something?

These are only sweet 17 ways of linkbaiting but you can keep coming back for more. I’ll soon be talking about it again in future.

Till Then,
Happy Blogging,
Divya Uttam

Related post:- Blog Optimization-Make your Blog a Linkbait

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Technorati Tags:- LinkBaitingBlogging, Better Blogging, Blogging Optimization, Optimize Blogging

Labels: 5S' of Blogging Success, Blogging Fame, Linkbaiting, Viral Marketing/Referal Marketing

Ever gone fishing? Oh a poor joke indeed!

What is a Linkbait?

Linkbait as the name suggests is doing something on your site to attract incoming links voluntarily. Just the right mix of content, information about what’s popular and getting links from others and creativity on the rocks will give you a perfect cocktail of linkbaiting and fizz for your readers. People have been in love with the subject and you can find articles on it all around the net. When we talk about relevant incoming links to be a vitamin to all our SEO related weakness, linkbaiting is the powerhouse of vitamins.

If you want your links to grow naturally, be patient. Today, you have 10 incoming links, 20 tomorrow, 21 the day after, and then 25, the needle sticks there. You try harder, and you have 50 other links. Can you imagine the time it will take to get a 100,000 links or more? Maybe even more than a seed to grow into the tree. When you want to make a fortune on internet, you better be quick.

It took me full two days going through every possible and relevant article on net about the subject (You don’t expect me to be dreaming about it one night and coming up with a post, do you?). I read about the different hooks(came up with that bad joke from here), and 101 ways to do linkbaiting(which itself was trying to do so). All of it made sense and most would be effective.

Telling you to make your site good would be so vague that I should rather say nothing at all. It would not solve anything. We can talk about content here, but aren’t you aware of it. If not you can read it in Blog Optimization: Content and its Supremacy. It can certainly gain you links, but the only difference here is that your content has to be viral. And you can add the Fame ingredient in it.

Lets talk about the various linkbaiting hooks -

In order to bait a fish, you need a hook. Here we will do it for incoming links.
Hooks come in variety of flavors, some of the more popular would include:

• Informational/Resource Hook
• News hook
• Creativity Hook
• Tool Hook
• Evil/Contrary/Attack Hook
• Humour Hook

Spice it or mix it and you can easily get newer flavors. Linkbaiting really means providing something that end-users enjoy, for whatever reason. There are literally thousands of ways to go about creating something that hasn’t been done before and making sure others find out about it.

Informational/Resource Hook

Some rare Tips and tricks or any personal experience through which your readers can benefit. Link exchange with a good list of blogs in your niche would help gain visibility. If you manage to get one good link from a popular blogger, rest soon will follow. Review other blogs, appreciate and advice them. A Free How To report based on your niche, can also help you getting one way incoming links.

News Hook

You will have to do some journalism here. Like every journalist will like to get the News first hand you also need to get a genuine scoop. Get to the news first, if you are not the news. A compilation of news and presenting it with your own analysis will give it a personal touch and bring it fame. Its a resource as well as a news hook. You really have to know your subject to do that, but links flow like water. If you can expose a fraud or popular spam, nobody else had noticed, you are going to make it big.

Tool Hook

Give other website owners a useful, fun or cool tool that they can use on their blog that points back to your own. A prime example of this was the blog worth tool that Dane from Business Opportunities developed that tells how much a blog is worth based on Technorati’s API (used by thousands of bloggers (google shows 27,000+ links pointing to it) - most of whom posted the button that the tool provides (with a link back to his blog).

Evil/Contrary/Attack Hook

Write about something that you did not like about a product or a popular blogger. Be sure to have strong reasons for it. You do not like something is not attention gaining but a WHY can do wonders if people seem to agree with you. Be sure to be unique, though. You can get much ruder, but it may attract strong opinions which are against you. It can pull in traffic but if it goes against you, the annoyance of your audience can be killing. They may abandon your blog forever.

Humor Hook

These kinds of hooks are just too easy. Search flickr, or photoshop a bizzare pic of your subject. Funny thing is, those things always get links, it's like people never seem to tire of them. You can visit Blaugh.com and check out the page rank as well as the cartoons posted there. People love it and even I do. It also provides a widget where you can display its daily cartoon on your own blog. A tool hook is used here.

Use your story as a bait. If the fish doesn’t bite it, it does not mean the fish is lazy or greedy. It means your bait is not tasty enough. You have to hook your readers up and reel them in. Be hypnotic, be creative and be innovative.

One more thing to keep in mind is, there has to be fish in the pool where you are. No traffic means no effect of these techniques. The next article would deal with the ethical and not so ethical ways of link baiting.

Till then Happy Blogging,
Divya Uttam

Bookmark this article:-

Technorati Tags:- LinkBaitingBlogging, Better Blogging, Blogging Optimization, Optimize Blogging

Labels: 5S' of Blogging Success, Blog Optimization, Blogging Fame, Linkbaiting, Viral Marketing/Referal Marketing