Most website content is pretty dreary stuff, not the kind of thing you would care to link to. I read some attempts at linkbaitand I feel embarrassed for the writer it?s so bad.
You may be able to mod_rewrite, perform keyword analysis, put the H1 tag where it should be, but can you take the English language and use it to make your thoughts melt into a readers brain, to have your words dance a merry jig inside their skull? Can you increase another human beings? heart rate simply by choosing the correct letters to slap on their monitor?
Can you excite your user to the point where they absolutely, positively have to enter their email address and start receiving your newsletter?
Writing linkbaitis writing. If you cannot write you will not get far. If you cannot write on an emotional level you will not connect with your reader. When I say emotional, I don?t mean sobbing into you hanky at the end of E.T. type of emotional. I mean the intense mental sensation, positive or negative that inhabits our being causing you to make decisions not based on logic.
Purchasing is purely emotional. You may think buying that 50? Plasma screen is logical as it?s the only way to watch Zombie Dawn of the Dead. But the reality is that purchases are driven by emotion.
Reading the content of a website is a purchasing decision, paid for in the currency of the readers attention. It is not free content. What more precious thing is there than time and yet you are asking people to trade an amount of their finite lives in exchange for reading your content.
SEO is talked about as a black art, but there is no blacker art than holding a persons attention using mere words, to go to the next stage and get them to then link to you is an enormous act.
If your content is mediocre, it is worthless. If it is good, it?s something you can build on. If it reaches out on the emotional level and zaps your reader right between the eyes then maybe you got something.
When I built this blog I decided to let the content be the main driving force to get links, and it?s doing ok so far. Around 4,700 backlinks according to Yahoo is not bad after 5 months. The point is, I am not the greatest SEO in the world, but I know I can write. So I used that. I concentrated on what I am good at.
Here?s a list
- Use what works
- Identify your strengths
- If you can?t write get someone to write for you
- Not everyone is a writer
- Plug into to someone?s emotion and you have their wallet
- Linkbait works
I am now offering linkbait creation to the SEO and online marketing community. If you are interested in helping your client get links, get in touch.
Work out how much 20 of the cheapest paid links will cost you over a year. A good piece of linkbait will achieve that at the very minimum.
Email me, lyndon at cornwallseo.com