What is link baiting?
As the name suggests, link baiting is creating content that is specifically designed to persuade people to link to it.
If you want a more in-depth understanding of this topic, check out the FAQ section below:
Question #1: How does link baiting help with SEO?
Link baiting helps with SEO by increasing the number of backlinks to the content that you want to rank.
You see, the number of quality backlinks is one of the metrics Google uses to gauge the quality and relevance of your content. The more quality backlinks your content has, the more credibility and authority you get, which, in turn, helps you rank higher in search.
Question #2: How can I improve the effectiveness of it?
You can improve the effectiveness of your link baiting using a variety of techniques, including:
- Being controversial. This means crafting content that encourages your audience to think, form an opinion, and discuss their opinion with other people. This gives them a compelling reason to share your content with people who will most likely do the same.
- Being eye-opening. Another way to get people to link back to your content is to ensure that you present some never-before-seen (or heard) element in it. This would make your audience more likely to share your content because doing so would make them look good for being in the know.
- Being funny and/or interesting. Sharing something funny or interesting makes people look funny and interesting—which means if your content is funny and/or interesting, there is a bigger chance that people would share it with their family and friends.
- Being helpful. Finally, you can also increase your odds of having your content shared by simply ensuring that it has something of value for your target audience. This is because sharing useful content, just like sharing eye-opening content, makes people look good for trying to help other people.
Question #3: What are some examples of effective link baiting formats?
Below are some examples of effective link baiting formats:
- Infographics. Infographics are a great way to relay complex concepts or processes in a simple, easy-to-digest format. This means people will not only be more likely to consume it but also share it with their family and friends.
- Interactive content. Games, quizzes, and other types of interactive content are also a great way to generate backlinks—especially if these games are designed to make people look good in the form of high scores or any other form of ranking system.
- Reports. These are also great link baits because they are extremely easy to make controversial, eye-opening, interesting, or helpful.
- Useful tools. Things like calculators, generators, and simulators are also a great way to earn backlinks from your target audience thanks to them being helpful by design—which, again, makes them naturally shareworthy.
- Guides. Just like useful tools, guides are also share-worthy for the exact same reason: they are helpful by design. It does not matter what industry you are operating in, if you create a guide that solves people’s problems, then there is a big chance that they would share your content.
But what about trending topics? Are they not effective link baits as well?
Well, the short answer is yes. Trending content does have a high potential to generate backlinks. The only problem is that once the trend dies down, its ability to get the job done dies with it. This means that while you can definitely use trending content as part of your link baiting efforts, you need to make sure that you do not overdo it.
At the end of the day, your goal should be to create mostly evergreen content that people might find thought-provoking, eye-opening, funny and/or interesting, or helpful for a long, long time after it is published so you can get more backlinks from each piece of content you publish for much longer.