Summary: Consider linkbait as part of your linking strategy to help drive traffic to your website and develop brand awareness.
Although keywords are a vital aspect of SEO, you and your website are going nowhere fast if you do not develop a link strategy. Links are everything in the SEO world because they are the connectors on a vast network that help guide traffic to your website and build a following.
Considered to be one of the more recent additions to the SEO toolbox, linkbait is defined as a way to create content that can go viral by attracting links from other trusted websites and blogs. The effect can yield remarkable results for the company or individual who has developed it. It is the idea that content and links work together to generate more leverage and attention because it provides visitors to your website with the most in-depth and memorable information that they can find anywhere. Linkbait can bring you relevant and targeted traffic as well as increase a web brand’s loyalty and equity, and build sustainable relationships with search engines that can help further your online marketing efforts.
This strategy involves a comprehensive combination of content and links, involving blogs, articles, tools, widgets, videos and badges. Although a linkbait strategy can be time-consuming to creating, the return on investment can be evident in the speed in which it spreads on a viral basis across the Internet and is passed on by site visitors who relay the information to what becomes an increasingly larger audience.
There are a number of places in which to give your linkbait and viral content some legs on which to grow into a life of their own. Numerous social bookmarking tools help to promote your content by linking to it, such as Digg, Delicious, and StumbleUpon.
Other linkbait strategies to consider include:
- Authority lists of the top blogs in a specific industry or subject niche related to your business that also contain badges for convenient ways in which other bloggers can add to their own sidebars on their website. This is a win-win that will help the other blogs you are promoting as part of your authority list in which they can often return the favour to help your viral efforts.
- Free WordPress themes can build your own web brand and drive traffic to your website because the theme reflects your business and operational philosophy. In this way, the WordPress theme works as an extension of your brand’s identity to further saturate the market with what you represent so as to stay at the top of minds of visitors so they can pass on information and directions to your site.
- Content Sharing is another way to stimulate more links to your site. When visitors realise that they can access valuable and useful information for free and then share it with others through a link to your site, they are more likely to visit your site as well as pass on their find to others.
- Contests are a great way to attract attention because everyone wants to win something. Offering a daily or weekly contest for money or prizes can help get the word out quickly. It is a positive and fun to get the visitors you are seeking and they may be likely to share with their friends or colleagues, especially if they have won something.
- Lists and More Lists are what human beings seem to find comfort in as more information is thrown at people on a daily basis. By providing visitors with lists about specific topics that relate to your business sends the message that they will be able to get a lot of valuable information in one place about many options related to a product or service. If they are well-crafted and relevant, these lists will most likely be discussed and shared with other people who will eagerly visit your site to take advantage of the content you’ve created.
All of these strategies share some key concepts: the content aligns with the business service or product as well as the brand to maintain relevancy and target the right type of visitors. This also ensures that the content is consistent in its message and provides many different ways to share similar content and create linking possibilities that will exponentially grow traffic and enhance your SEO strategy.
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