I receive questions about how to simplify SEO for the ‘non-technical’ person who wants to scale their web business. The reality is SEO is rather straightforward – doing a few things right is the secret sauce.
I am a believer in a ‘Train-The-Trainer’ strategy when it comes to SEO. As a consultant, I spend lots of time sharing my experiences with folks that are eager to learn and get their hands dirty with experimentation. In the end they get to find out what works for them and capitalize on the benefits of those accomplishments. The ‘Train-The-Trainer’ strategy is the same great advice I was told when raising capital for my business in 2004 – when we originally hired someone to help us raise capital. The moral of that story is that “no one is going to be better at raising money for your business than yourself.” It is the same with SEO – no one is going to be better at focusing on your SEO effectiveness and growth than you. Yes, certain components many require outside resources and technology horsepower, yet make sure you are the captain of your SEO ship.
What is LinkBaiting and How does it Help with SEO?
First off, it is important to note that roughly 2/3rds of SEO effectiveness (AKA Google Juice) is related to the quantity and quality of inbound links to your content. That said, focusing on generating those authoritative links in quantity should be a major priority.
The term Linkbaiting is a white hat (legitimate) SEO practice that uses web content and tools to make bloggers and social media users aware of the content in an effort to generate inbound links from them back to the content.
Linkbaiting is NOT about tricking people into clicks, rather it is about helping connect enablers (bloggers/social media users) so they find out about great content and want to promote that content themselves. It can be broken down into simple math – if 100 bloggers write about an interesting article they read on your site – you multiply 100 by the amount of folks that follow their respective blogs. This is how the spread of content happens – very grass roots.
You can think about it like a small public relations campaign.
Below are 5 effective Linkbating tactics?
1) Publish Useful Information – Everyone wants useful information that speaks to their needs. Whether it’s “How to deal with the side effects of Lipitor,” or “How to shave your neck with a Panasonic electric razor,” folks are attracted to useful information. They read it and want to tell their friends all about what they’ve learned – before anyone else gets the words out.
2) Controversial Information – Whether people admit it or not, most folks have voyeuristic tendencies and like to know about controversy. Publishing this type of information will attract readers and linkers. Just make sure it is accurate. A fictitious example could be “Hillary Clinton, Made a Faux pas while speaking in Russia – 3 Things She Did Wrong.”
3) Tools – Web users love when they find neat tools that help them find information they are looking for or simplify a tedious task. There are so many of them out there from shopping/price comparison tools, to mortgage rate tools, to stock performance tools. etc. Once you get to know your audience well – do some targeted research to identify a tool that would be helpful. If you are successful with a tool – links will follow.
4) Statistics – People crave data and love to cite data, especially when it confirms their thinking, strategy, or position on a topic. Use your respective audiences, do some research and publish the data. If the topic is interesting you will get links. What also works is to be first at publishing hands-on commentary to published data. An example of this, “iPhone 3GS sold 1 million units on launch day… a hands-on review of why the phone is hot.”
5) Other Content Types (Quiz’s, Contests, FAQs, etc.) – Slice and dice your content so your customers can consume it in a way that makes it fun. This will generate links.
