Link baiting tips, ideas, experiences, and lessons learned

[notarynow]

Looking for tips, ideas, experiences, and lessons learned from other SEOs regarding link baiting. Our site is relatively new (launched in January) and would like to learn from others on baiting our content in ways which sites will link to us.

Thanks,

Shane

[Ken_Jansen]

HI Shane,

Interesting and unique content, or content with different spin on it. An infographic,  see SEOMoz's inbound marketing graphic as an example. Write or design something that someone would want to read and pass on to their friends, coworkers, or customers depending on your business.

I attend a lot of networking events during the month, well seems like a lot to me anyway. I take notes on the questions that come up about tech, seo or real estate. My favoriites areas to write about. Then I compose  a brief summary of the answer, with screen capture or graphics if I can, and post the link to the information on the group's forum. Hey - here is a summary on how to use the twitter hashtag and 3 reasons why you might use it.  Just be helpful and it will come back to you.

Marketing Profs and Hubspot have some great resources on ideas on how to build or write content that others might like or link to.

I hope that helps.

[RyanOD]

My experience has taught me a few things about linkbaiting...

The link bait world is a competitive one. Rolling something out that is so-so just won't cut it. Link bait has to be stunning in some way. Maybe I'm telling you something that is obvious, but in my experience, it really isn't to a lot of people. Figure out what is going to make people want to link to your linkbait (design, content, proprietary research, humor, etc.) and do everything you can to make that aspect of it outstanding.

I think a lot of linkbait campaigns try to do too much and in the end deliver a broad, but mediocre campaign. Rather than try to hit a grand slam (especially when you are new to this), depending on your experience and skill level, I recommend you do several campaigns each of which focuses on one thing and tries to do an outstanding job with that one thing. Yes, there are some marketers that can do more, but they typically have a lot of experience and knowledge gained through trial and error. Over time you'll be able to expand into bigger and more complex linkbait projects.

Share your linkbait with as many parties as you can prior to rolling it out to see if what you think is amazing really is. If you know any skilled designers or UX specialists, get them to take a look at your linkbait and give you feedback on the presentation and usability.

If you have any connections at major blogs / news portals, call in a favor to get your linkbait campaign off the ground.

What kind of following do you have on Twitter / Facebook? Do everything you can to build that following leading up to the launch of your linkbait so you can leverage your social network to help get the work out.

Finally, read Justin Briggs' post on How to Build Links with Infographics. It offers a lot of good advice around how to roll out linkbait campaigns - regardless of whether they are infographics or not.

I'm anxious to hear what others have to say...

[notarynow]

Ryan/Ken,

Thank you both for the great insight. We are working on our first infographic for our next blog post.

Cheers,

Shane