The Link Baiting Playbook

Linkbaiting is all about the bait. In the same way that you can't catch a giant tuna with a bag of doritos - you're not going to get the attention of important bloggers, journalists, or other folks with some garbage content or news. Do YOU really like reading press releases anymore? Wouldn't you rather spend that time reading something fun, entertaining, insightful, interesting, or informational? Let's take a look at the different hooks available to linkbaiters (or viral marketer's if you prefer that school of thought), and hope that you can find an angle to approach link acquisition for YOUR business. In the

• News hook
• Contrary Hook
• Attack Hook
• Resource Hook
• Humour Hook
I'd like to add a few new hooks to Mr. Wilson's fine original observations - the "ego hook", and the "incentive hook", which I'll gladly review and exemplify below. The common thread with linkbaiting is that you MUST be Purple Cow - if you can't bait with stuff that people will talk about, then go back to link begging. Make that top 10 list a top 100 list. Spend a few extra hours on research. Go the extra mile on something extraordinary, instead of just something good. Introduction - A note on titles, target audience, and school of thought. The importance of good titles cannot be underestimated. For folks take linkbaiting seriously take titlebaiting seriously as well, and understand that a great title is half the battle of a successful linkbait campaign. I suggest several reads and references to CopyBlogger's magnetic headlines series. Studying direct marketing headlines, as well as technorati and stunt train seo marketing manifesto Linkbaiting Hooks Revisited - with NEW Additions! THE NEWS HOOK Fast, up to date news on breaking topics with expert commentary on the topic. Pros of this hook: It's generally pretty easy to aggregate news and offer commentary. Doing so frequently and with dedication will establish you as an expert. Cons of this hook: It can be quite time consuming and redundant. You can't reinvent CNN without getting Doc Brown to help you invent time travel first. If you go too broad you won't succeed. If you go too niche, you will have a hard time finding a substantial audience. Ideas for this hook: Go niche. Don't start another SEO news blog. Brian Mark is becoming the Oneboxer. Pick a small piece of growing real estate, and make it big by covering every piece of relevant news and nothing else (except your value add commentary). Be the first to report anything. Examples of the resource hook in action:
• Search Engine Journal
• Top 10 reasons PPC is better than SEO vs. 11 Rising Barriers To Entry for Small Businesses on the Web vs. Nofollow - the leper of blogging vs. Cons of this hook:It's not generally fun to make enemies - I don't really want to sleep with one eye open for some extra links (unless it's a helluva LOT of links:) Ideas for this hook: Generally dishonoring some type of closely held belief system works pretty well. You're on your own here - If you really want to piss people off - I'm sure you can find a way - just make sure you have some good anchor text in your title if you're gonna sell your soul. Examples of the attack hook in action:
  • Shoemoney is pretty Soy makes you gay
  • Aaron Wall gets sued for blogging
  • Political bloggers are exceptionally good at the attack hook (perhaps without even knowing it)
  THE RESOURCE HOOK This is my favorite hook. There are plenty of ways you can truly be a resource. In any industry there is a lot of opportunity for conducting ground breaking research, aggregating important information, filtering important information, increasing productivity, creating widgets, creating tools, and a variety of other things that can establish you as an expert and attract a whole bunch of links at the same time. Pros of this hook- You can build something useful that you will be referenced for often. Cons of this hook- It can be very time consuming and monotonous aggregating information into a single source. Someone may figure out a better way to do it while you are in the process. Gaining critical mass and acceptance as the expert may be difficult. It can take a lot of work to do something truly resourceful. Ideas for this hook: Rand's idea for creating a web analytics comparison - and is currently working on it. You can bet it will be one of the most well linked marketing documents of 2007. Eric also did a nice job creating a Google custom search, which is a great way to approach the resource hook. Write an extensive guide to anything, and spend some time on the research, and delivery format of your research. There's opportunity for this everywhere. Examples of the resource hook in action:
  • Must read search marketing blogs
  • Top 21 signs you need a break from SEO
  • Web 2.0 company generator
  • SEO jokes
  NEW! THE EGO HOOK Everyone loves to talk about themself or read about themself. I think the old saying goes "the sweetest word in any language is the sound of your own name". I certainly like hearing when people say nice things about me. Offering people significant exposure to express their ideas (IE - giving them a soapbox where people might listen) is a common component of the ego hook. Letting people talk about themselves, their ideas, or their company with your assistance. Pros of this hook: You can sometimes get links and exposure from big bloggers. Everyone likes to talk about themselves. Cons of this hook: Some folks have been baited one too many times, and may just ignore you. Nobody really likes a brown noser. Ideas for this hook: Awards, interviews, sucking up. Examples of this hook:
  • aggregating all the information in a single place - nice work.
  • Drinkbait
  NEW! THE INCENTIVE HOOK Pros of this hook: If you give people a motive to talk about you they likely will. Contests have worked for ages. Cons of this hook: Getting the idea past the legal team. Bloggers sometimes SEO scholarship by Andy Beal
  • Reviewme
  Closing Notes
  • EDIT. EDIT. EDIT.
  • Categorize your content into readable well chunked content that folks that skim can read and decide to re-read.
  • I can assure you that not very much great bait is written in just a few hours.
  • Descriptive pictures certainly help to emphasize the points made in your content.
  • TIME your launch effectively with social media submissions
  More baity goodness:
  • Brian
  • MLB's
  Shameless self promotion: Comments Tag: Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Yahoo! My Web | Furl Bookmark Murdok: independent marketing consultant from the SEO school of thought. Todd earned a bachelors of business adminstration from Northwood University in 2003 while running an web design and consulting firm Webmasterworld and

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