Link bait are things that people will want to link to. They can be interesting articles, infographics, games and so on. They are normally aimed at getting links from bloggers, but can equally apply to content that would appeal to forum posters or shared links on Facebook.

Linkbait is very popular as a search engine optimisation method because the links it gains are often very ‘organic’ (or natural), and you are providing (hopefully) good information, or a fun game, that the world can enjoy. People who make linkbait will often try and get their content on sites like Reddit, where they can get tens of thousands of hits – and the bonus of people linking to it.

Types of linkbait content

There are many times of linkbait in addition to what have been mentioned. These include:

• Quizzes (people love to tell others they ‘scored 90% on the … test’)
• Widgets, calculators (handy tools that people can use, e.g. tax calculators)
• Articles
• Infographics

Making your linkbait content

Once you have decided what type of linkbait content you want to make, then you have to decide on what subject matter it should be on. It is a good idea to brainstorm as many ideas as possible here, because if you come up with a rubbish idea it can be a complete waste of time. Try and come up with an idea that:

• People will want to read/view
• Is quick to engage the reader (the quicker the reader thinks ‘this is interesting/fun’ the better
• Is simple to understand – the more people that can understand and use the information the better.

How to promote your linkbait

The hardest part is actually promoting it and getting views & link backs! On the linkbait page make sure you:

• Have buttons like Facebook’s Like, Google Plus button etc
• Have links to vote/submit to sites like reddit, Stumbleupon, etc. (check out addthis.com to do it for you)
• If you use AJAX, make sure people can easily link to it
• If it is a quiz, give the HTML code and BBCODE (for forums) to share the quiz results
• If possible try and encourage people to share the link via Twitter & Facebook. This might be very easy with a quiz!

Make sure that if you use Twitter or Facebook that you actively promote it on there too!

Contacting Bloggers and Asking them to write about your linkbait

If you can find some bloggers in your linkbait’s niche, perhaps try contacting them to see if they would write about it. Just don’t come across as being spammy – only contact them if it genuinely would be beneficial to them to blog about it!