Red Evo made a comment on a guest post I wrote for Searchenginepeople.com. I ask what would you call linkbait if you couldn’t call it linkbait, his reply was “good content”.
No. Linkbait is not good content. Linkbait is exceptional content. All your content should be good at least I hope it is. Linkbait is the kind of content you spend ten days crafting. If you did that with all your content you wouldn’t get much done. Linkbait is targeted at a specific target, whilst content is simply targeted at the users of your site.
Someone else claims linkbait used to be called, “Killer headlines”.
No, a killer headline is part of what linkbait is but it is not what it is.
Yura asks a sensible question about using linkbait just for links, well that’s what linkbait is. It’s a tool in the seo tool box you use to get links. That is it’s purpose. If you want to get another outcome you use another tool.
What this tells me is possibly that the seo community still does not get linkbait. It does not surprise me , over at linkbaitcoaching.com the first questions I usually get aksed is “how can I build my network so I can game digg”. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it’s not as important as other components of linkbait.
You cannot really blame the seo, they tend to be an odd sort. Getting excited over web traffic stats and obsessing over keywords. I know because I am one, or rather was. Can’t really call myself an seo anymore.
The jump that the seo has to make from what they do to creating linkbait is quite a big one. It’s something I am learning whilst teaching how to linkbait. But once an seo does get it, they have an edge over their neighbour who doesn’t.