Spend a little time. Search for “how to write linkbait”, or “how to create linkbait” and you will soon get hit by a bunch of how to’s.
You could bypass all that and go check out my list of linkbait articles.
After a while a pattern emerges in the step by step guides to linkbait, and it seems there isn’t that much to learn.
However, there is a crucial, secret, million dollar, ultimate tip which I have not yet read on any SEO blog or marketing website.
And that is to Fall in love.
Go find yourself a man or women and fall head over heals for them. I don’t mean in a pubescent “I gotta get me some” kinda way. I mean in a heart-aching-blood-pumping-nothing-gets-in-your way kinda thing.
This is not hippy-dippy- artsy-fartsy, weak-minded, bohmian rubbish. This is hardcore, psychological, peering into the soul of the human psyche kinda stuff.
The stuff that inspires songs lyrics like these.
When a man loves a woman
Can’t keep his mind on nothin’ else
He’d trade the world
For a good thing he’s found
If she is bad, he can’t see it
She can do no wrong
Turn his back on his best friend
If he puts her down
When a man loves a woman by Percy Sledge.
Reaching deep into yourself is important for a writer and writing linkbait is no different to writing a seminal pop song. Attention, the hook, inducing emotion, create action. It’s no different, it’s exactly the same structure.
- Get Attention
- Create Emotion
- Inspire an action
OK, linkbait maybe created simply because a writer is trying to pay off his gambling debts and not get his legs broken by the mob. And the song is something that derives from the whispers of the mind, some call art.
But the two are connected
And yes, a souless, list building, wallet watching, marketeer with the appetite of a T-Rex can come up with something to get on the front page of Digg. But how many “real links” will such a stunt get? That’s what we are talking here, right?
How many long term, authority, mortgage paying links will a crass piece of manipulation get?
Much better to develop a multi layered piece of link bait which will last long after the final Digg has been Dugg. When selling linkbait to clients, I always advise go for the evergreen version.
Something that builds over time.
Compound interest is very interesting, go ask Warren Buffet.
Saying all that I just wrote a list which made the front page of Digg. Oh hum.