Link bait is another of those catchy terms that people like to bandy about in the world of SEO. Essentially, link bait is anything that is likely to encourage others to link to it. You create an interesting piece of content and put it on your site in the hopes that others will, on seeing it, feel the irresistible urge to tell others about it.

The idea behind link bait is fairly simple. Create content that is focused on the demands of a specific kind of viewer. Bait the hook well, and your chosen fish will flock to bite it.

When creating link bait, ask yourself a few questions. The old ‘who, what, when, where, how and why’ series comes into play whenever you design content for search engine optimisation. To create strong link bait, the most important questions are who, what and why. Who exactly is your target audience? What do they want from your subject? Why should they read your content? What aspect of your content will make them want to share it with others?

Good examples of link bait are those ‘news’ stories which, underneath, are merely press releases for a business or event. For example, a theatre company performing at a highly competitive theatre festival this year conducted a survey of some of its regular audience members. The question was who would you prefer as a mate, Stephen Fry or Brad Pitt? They transferred the answers into statistics, wrote it up into a news feature and voila, they had national press coverage for their performance on the theme of love.

The above example worked for several reasons. The first is because it contained news that was of genuine interest to the average person. Most people are enamoured of celebrities. The second is because of the chosen subject. Asking audiences whether they’d prefer Tom Cruise over Brad Pitt is uninteresting, but asking whether they would choose a famously handsome partner or one known for his intellect is a slightly different concept. Then, the results were turned into statistics, giving the exercise the appearance of science and authority, and the whole thing is linked back to the company’s event. Most of the ‘research’ reported in the media is sourced from these kinds of publicity exercises, which are absurdly easy to organise.

Other forms of link bait can take a little more effort, such as the design of an application which you then feature on your site. Applications and videos have been more successful as link bait in the past, but as more sites begin to feature them their novelty is wearing thin. Sometimes, the easier things like a really interesting story or a much-needed how-to article are better forms of link bait.

In essence link bait is another term for what you should already be doing on your site. The creation of interesting, fresh content should be a part of your SEO campaign. Every so often, this content will include something with a bit more zing, in other words link bait, in the hopes of attracting more attention. When you need to consider giving the content of your site a boost, talk to us at SEO Consult.

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