Behold the King of Linkbait.
King of Linkbait
Linkbait
Before you create Linkbait content you have to Ingest your Niche
Linkbait by it’s nature has to be exceptional. It has to be remarkable to attract the links. This of course is relative, it’s relative to the other content which is being produced in the niche you are targeting.
As this is the World Wide Web we are talking about, most content is utter garbage. Sure, some niches are more rich and competitive but most of the time the majority of content is excreble. You just don’t see it, most of us see mediated content that comes through a recommendation or crowd sourcing.
Your content will have to be in the top one or two percentile of quality to have any chance and when I day quality I don’t mean it’s all shiny and polished. Usually you have only a short window of time to push your content and this is why it must be better than anything else in that niche at that time.
To be able to do this you must know your niche. If your blog or website is a passion then you are already on the way, but if you have identified the niche as an opportunity to be plundered then you have to roll your sleeves up and get stuck in.
You have probably already researched the niche well enough to get a toe hold, but now you have to identify those topics that trigger links from authority websites in the niche. What I do is create a Linkbaiting Road Map, this is a process where the niche is mapped out to identify linkers as targets, topics, and styles which work etc.
It’s quite a process developing a Linkbaiting Road Map and it’s something I am going to go into detail about in Linkbait Coaching
iPhone 4 Problems can be made into Linkbaiting Opportunities
Right now there is a problem with the iPhone 4. Engadget has a nice piece on it.
Lets leave aside the iPhone must-buy-on-first-day addiction, which is actually an exceptional marketing mind job although try to find someone who bought an iPhone to say, “dude, I just couldn’t help myself”, what I hear from people are the words, “well I had an iPhone 3 and…..”
The point I am making here is not to poke fun at the first buyers but to underline the fact that Apple is a highly profitable brand to linkbait. It’s a passionate brand and whether you think they are just a corporation like Microsoft or BP and their duty is to the shareholder – you would be right, but you are missing the point.
When content about Apple is published, it has the potential to get noticed by vast amounts of people who have the power to link to your site. These are the people you must stimulate to link.
Happening right now is a problem with the iPhone 4, it’s a huge embarrasement to a company like Apple and is already being taken advantage of by Nokia.
Nokia get the linkbaiters award of the day. They saw the opportunity and understood the social space, they probably don’t need the links but they will steal some of Apple’s thunder. Not quite ambush marketing but very clever.
Now, you have your site, or you may have a clients site. There is probably no niche where you can’t fit in a story like this, you simply have to be creative.
If I didn’t have to go get ready for a product launch tomorrow we could expand more on this and I could give you examples of niches that are hard to get links for could take advantage of such stuff.
This is exactly the kind of thing we will talking about at Linkbait Coaching
10 Link Bait Tips
If someone asked me what are the 10 best linkbait tips around, this is what I would tell them.
1. Define why you want to get links. This will provide information about how to go about it, the more information you have the better.
2. Define who you want to get your links from? If your answer to this is, “I just need more links”, try to understand that it is easier to get links from a specific target than a general one. If you want a link off authority news media, such as the BBC, Telegraph etc. it becomes easier to target those sites and the people that run them.
3. Define the people you want to get links from. People give links, not websites.
4. Define the type of content that people you want links from link to.
5. Define the type of headlines that the people you want links from link to.
6. Create your content slowly, make many drafts and many false starts. The first thoughts you create tend to be the same as everybody else. Create exceptional content.
7. Stand out, don’t be like everybody else, even if it means getting a slagging. Powerful linkbait will disrupt and break out of your intended target base and go uncontrollably viral. Strap in and enjoy the ride.
8. Linkbait for scanners not readers. People will try to impress you by telling you they read on the web, even if they are telling the truth they are in a small minority. People who use the web mainly scan, this has been proved by countless testing. Make your content easily and quickly digestible, segments of text, bolded subheading, imagery, video etc.
9. Shake things up. Don’t be afraid to annoy people, subjects usually have a number of interested groups. One group may hate what you did with a wild rage. Focus on the silent majority. Good linkbait always attracts haters who are bitter about other peoples success. Concentrate on the objective, if a whack job links and says what an idiot the creator of the content is, consider job done.
10. Download the voice recorder for your iPhone. Whaddya mean you don’t have an iPhone? When you are walking, at dinner, watching a movie, taking part in a triathalon, record your linkbait ideas. Imagination seems to work best when allowed to roam and ramble.
11. Link bait is about getting links, that is the objective. Not adulation on twitter, not people saying nice things about you, not having an seo rockstar invite you over for tiffin, not avoiding the whack jobs on social sites. Focus on the links, stay on target.
12. Understand the psychology of people. For example when making a list of 10 you will always find someone will point out the fact you have gone over. This is indicative of predictive behaviour, people tend to be creatures of habit and repeat the same thing over and over. Even though I have pointed this out the temptation for someone to highlight the mistake is just too tempting.
Target your Linkbait Audience
Rather than produce your content first and then go look for an audience for it, why not find what the audience wants and produce content for that audience?
It’s amazingly obvious and so simple that it shocks me to see that the majority of people blogging, producing web content and even linkbait do not seem to do it.
I understand why this is. I have done it myself, I still do it. It’s because we think we know what people want us to write. It comes down to the ego. And there is nothing more egotistical than a blogger.
Here’s the thing. It’s not what you think you know that is important. It’s what you know. Most times your knowledge will not live up to your desired results.
You have to go out into the woods and sniff the trees.
It may be that you have spent so much time in your space you have built enough instinct and experience into your mind set you can just crack one off whenever you want. An article that is.
When faced with writing for a subject I know little of I spend hours and hours researching, you have to burn bytes to be able know what you are talking about, or at least convince people you know what you are talking about.
Most people do not invest the time in their subject or their target market to produce a piece of content which will get links. Which is great, because all we have to do to rise to the top is to simply read, read and read some more.
Soak in that information like a sponge. Suck it in and digest.
Your target market for a piece of linkbait should by studied, observed, examined, scrutinised, watched – to enable you to kno their desires, prejudices, proclivities, ambitions etc.
What are they fond of, what fascinates and excites them? What is it that motivates them to click through to a story, to link to a web page, to even take out their credit card from their leather wallet to buy your home made Gooseberry Jam you have started to sell online.
It’s simple, but I constantly see content where the target audience has been given the attention of a gnat on sugar coated crack.
Know your target audience.
Lloyds Bank is Pants
Great piece of linkbait from the BBC. Why?
It’s great because it got me to link, it got me to link because it both amused and made me angry. At first I thought such silly thinking by a bank should be publicised and I should post about it. But then I realised I had been motivated to link to the story. It’s distracting to call it baiting as in linkbaiting, but the story made my link finger itch.
I realise I could chose a better headline than this, but I wonder how many people search for “Lloyds bank is pants”? I guess I will find out.
The point is, invoking an emotional response is a powerful way to get a link. The story is helped by being on the BBC rather than a rag like the Daily Mail.
Actually I can’t really call it linkbait, it’s merely a great story.