The Effectiveness of Link Baiting and Seeding
A great way of driving traffic to your website is by writing link bait. It’s very effective if you can target the right people, but not the easiest thing to do. So what is link bait?
Link Bait and Seeding
Link bait is content that is designed to get links. Not necessarily good content, but content that is worth writing about and linking to. Don’t mistake good content for link grabbing content. Although link bait can be done by writing such great content, you can also enrage people with your writing and get links, or you can make them laugh so hard they have to tell their friends and link to you. Truth to it is it’s an art.
Here’s the deal though - maybe you’ve tried it and failed. That doesn’t mean you weren’t any good. Often, it means you weren’t able to seed it effectively. You can write fantastic link bait but if no one reads it, it’s not going anywhere. You need to seed it, get initial traffic to it. More importantly, the right type of traffic. Your average 13-year-old might laugh but he might not have a website to link to you with. On the other hand he might visit a forum and link to you from a forum page. Those links all count, especially in search engine optimization.
You now have a few options to get seeders. Maybe connect with other bloggers, get them to laugh, link to it, and generate a spurt of traffic.
Another idea, although a little shady and not always a good idea because it can be though of as spamming, register 2 to 3 users on a forum, start a conversation between them all, and then drop your link into the middle of it to get the initial visitors. Or, if these ideas don’t work for you, you can also use a social bookmarking site.
Social bookmarking
All of these systems need to be worked at. You might have to try again and again to get it. Social bookmarking requires you to interact in the community every day and build a profile. It’s like using facebook but as a job. It is a job you have to do with discipline. Once you build a powerful profile, you have a very big asset at your disposal. A powerful profile will automically get votes from people who are friends of that user and allow you to push stories to the front page with more consistency. It’s definitely a long term investment but one that is worth thinking about.
