Online Marketing Expert Margaret Jules talks about the important topic of creating great link bait – something online marketers are always fishing for.
Interested in a ton of “natural” and free links pointing to your website? Here is how to go about fishing for traffic using the right online bait.
1. Anything worthy of link bait has to be fresh, vibrant and juicy
Just like fish, people are attracted to something lively, tasty and colorful. Info graphics are a great way of combining any creative visual skills you have with “insider” knowledge. If you have an angle on a certain topic, AND can display it visually (a picture’s worth a thousand words remember), then you can potentially attract a ton of links.
There are no limitations in terms of topics that infographics can’t be used to highlight. Whether it be finance, fitness, marketing or gaming, you can always find a way of displaying information that people are looking for in a graphic. Infographics are great as you can allow people to embed the image and link with a snippet of HTML code on their sites, blogs, or Facebook pages. It is quick for the user, and they need no knowledge of how to use hyperlinks and anchor text.
2. Go against the grain
If you see a trend developing in an online community, write something that goes directly against it. So for example, if the latest craze in dieting is to eat 5 or 6 small meals a day, write an article on how you could do better eating just one large meal. As long as you give compelling evidence for your position, it will gather more attention and links than a hundred articles regurgitating the current trends.
Take blogging “gurus” as another example. The guy in the blog comments that sticks out from the guru’s sycophants, and actually opposes what he says, usually gets the most attention! The point is to have something valid to say that you can back up with proof, and not just be controversial for the sake of it.
3. Invent an online cocktail
One of the greatest bloggers I ever came across in the internet marketing niche, was a guy who posted videos explaining the complexities of search engine optimization. No boring whiteboard presentations, but an “in your face” animated and sometimes slightly slurred explanation of what works for online marketing. The information was spot on though, and the beer critiques he gave were very entertaining. It was a great way of mixing business and pleasure and he got a lot of attention for it.
People tend to conform. But if you can find a way of presenting quality information on one subject, by mixing it up with something completely different, you will stand out from the crowd. Plus it will be more fun for you to produce.
No matter what format you use, whether it be video, podcasts, text and graphics, if you can come up with an entertaining cocktail of topics you will get linked to. The important thing to remember though, is that one topic must piggy back on the other. So with the beer blogger described above, the beer was secondary to the information, but spiced it up a little.
There are hundreds of other ways of creating great link bait, but I think the above three are the most fun!
About the Author
Margaret Jules is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on environment and technology. Besides this, she is fond of books. She recently did an article on etree. These days she is busy writing an article on right brain left brain test.

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