Link Baiting – 96 Different Strategies: PubCon Las Vegas Dec 2007, Day 1

Link baiting is a topic that makes some people snicker when they hear it. However, the complexities and subtleties are fascinating. Did you know that there are 12 types of links? Moreover, there are eight types of link bait to get those 12 types of links? That means there are 96 different strategies to get links. This session will look at the eight and the 12.

Moderator:

• Jake Baillie

Speakers:

• Todd Malicoat, Independent Marketing Consultant, Meta4creations, LLC
• Andy Hagans, Strategiest, Text-Link-Ads
• Bill Hartzer, Search Engine Optimization Manager, Marketnet, Inc

Kicking off the discussion is Todd Mailcoat, Independent Marketing Consultant, Meta4creations. He is here to talk about 'Hook combinations for successful linkbaiting'. He's talking about viral link distribution. B-Real of Cypress Hill is his poster child. And then Mailcoat quotes Kid Rock.

95 Theses – Clurtrain.com is a must-read. Some linkbaiting methods will fail, don't worry. It's a 2 step process

1. Target the distribution channel, get peoples attention. Target Diggers or Reddit users first.
2. Target (link markets) Webmasters, keep their attention.

Present are many distribution channels in the form of

• blogs
• email
• social media
• other sites
• Of course traditional media

Mailcoat mentions hooks. The are:

• News hook
• Contrary hook
• Attack hook
• Resource hook
• Humor hook
• Ego hook
• Incentive hook
• Picture/video hook
• Sex hook

The trick is to make combination of these that works. Meaning, Ego + Resource hook. For this read a few of GrayWolf's articles.

Humor + Picture + Resource = icanhascheezburger.com and LOLcatz.com

Editorials = Attack or Contrary Hook + News Hook = Bill O'Reily and Stephan Colbert (real life)

Mailcoat talks about the 12 kinds of Links:

• Presell page
• Authority
• Directory
• Run of site
• One way links from friends or related sites
• .edu and .gov links
• Radio television

Crucial to know the audience you are targeting to. Some helpful Digg tips are:

• Know the audience
• Submit crazy titles
• Stretch relevancy – a new twist on an old topic is the only way to get an old topic some new eyballs
• 8 diseases that give you super human power – great example of an extreme linkbait

Mailcoat shows Yahoo! results of a post he wrote that has 1500 links. In the end, asking for those links would take forever. Don't give up. Persistence is key. In the end, it's all worth it.

Next up is Andy Hagans, Strategiest for Text-Link-Ads who will tell us about linkbaiting and social media traffic.

Know the Community you are getting into:

• Watch and learn
• Learn their attitude, lingos, etc
• Involve in the community first so that later you can later manipulate that community

How to Bait digg users

• Digg users are very sensitive to anything that even smells spammy or SEO
• Most things he submits doesn't even have ads at all on it and things still get killed

How to bait Reddit Users

• Target: Politica junkies galore
• Topics: environment, conspiracy theories, etc
• Tasers – seems to be a story everyday about Tasers
• Reddit users do not overlap with Digg users.

How to bait del.icio.us Users

• Target: librarians and information junkies
• Resource hook works wonders 101 xyz….
• Easiest to manually spam. Only requires 10 manual bookmarks

How to bait StumbleUpon Users

• Target: I'm bored, waste my time
• Make it pretty, images above the fold, formatting, etc – all above the fold.
• Leave a call to action at the end of every page.

Niche social site Users that help

• Hugg
• Dzone
• Sphinn
• Tweako

Andy states that the ego hook works well with bloggers. For eg: Top 100 Pet Bloggers, you don't really need social media, just a little ego stroking.

Quick Tips for Success:

• Put up the social media buttons.
• Launch everywhere at once, not even within a period of a week. Make all of them work together, not singularly.
• Baits flop regularly. Do it continually. Most of the times 50% of link baits flop.

Inspiration sources:

• eBizMBA
• Mashable
• Media sites themselves
• YouTube: StumbleUpon Bait

Last up is Bill Hartzer, Search Engine Optimization Manager from Marketnet, Inc.

• Link Bait
• Bill likes to use breaking news as bait
• Target the group in niche or topic
• Tel them something to make their work easier
• Point out an error, such as My Funniest PPC Keyword Mistake" for example.

Only target sites that will link out

• Apparently, Blogstorm Tracker is a good tool that helps in tracking which sites receive links.
• Else, use Yahoo! Search and then click on it.
• Technorati or other blog search

Andy states there's no need to reinvent the wheel

• Make a twist on an old tried and tested idea
• Update old posts link to the previous article and discuss about recent developments
• Press Releases in your niche industry should inspire
• Start with Yahoo! And Google alerts.

News always helps in linkbaiting

If you don't have a blog, get one, post regularly and make sure you submit it to social media

Go back and edit and update the post or article

Add images, logos, screen captures

This method helps in getting "market share of links."

Speed is key

Catchy Headlines. Always essential.

Putting together Linkbait, social media and organic search is the most potent. Involve yourself in the community. Regular voting, commenting, submitting is key.

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