Linkbait

Linkbait is content you make for your webpage in the hopes that other people will link to it. This will create link juice and boost your website’s organic rank. This content can be video, images, blog posts, newspaper articles, anything that catches people’s eye and creates traffic to the designated webpage.

Web communities including Stumble Upon, Reddit, Digg, and Del.icio.us are dedicated to sharing quality content with other members via user submissions, followed by voting. Content with the most votes gets the most attention and voilà! Your link bait has gone viral.

Another option for creating link bait is submitting relevant content to popular blogs. For example, last week Avi snapped a couple low resolution images on his iPhone of a new public toilet being constructed in Madison Square Park. Nothing special, just a couple of guys placing finishing touches on a little hut to pee in. The commuter then submitted the images to curbed.com, a popular blog about real estate in NYC. Curbed posted it, with a link to Avi’s website promediacorp.com. Then New York Magazine caught wind of it, and also posted it on their site too. Now, promediacorp.com is basking in the glory of inlinks & a high CTR, all from a couple toilet pictures.

Another strong example of link bait is myheritage.com, a sleepy site that created a fun celebrity look a-like tool. They made the tool into a facebook application and myspace add on, creating a lots of links back to them.

Some tips for creating viral content:
1. Write a “Tops” list. Everyone loves a tops list. Some interesting ones I’ve seen today include “Top 10 Worst Fast Food Advertising Campaigns” or “10 Great Gaming Inventions in 2008.”
2. Network your web community connections, don’t abuse them. As you gain a rap for submitting exciting content, you can add more “big time” friends who will actually remember you for quality, people who are top Diggers or Stumblers, etc; they will further spread the word.
3. If it’s just clicks you’re after, you don’t necessarily need content related to your original webpage. Toilets and SEO won’t sleep together, but they got the job done for promediacorp.com's clicks.
4. SE Roundtable reminds us to rock the RSS feed, “all sites should sport a little organce button if they want to spread the word” says Debra Mastaler.