What is a Successful Piece of Linkbait?
What is Linkbait?
For those who are familiar with ProspectMX and linkbait, it’s no surprise that link bait and link baiting is a strong marketing tool used to attract new website visitors and more importantly, backlinks for greater rankings on search engines. But the more important question is, what is a successful piece of linkbait?
The good news is that there are several types of linkbait that can be deemed successful. First, like any marketing campaign, you have to know your target audience for the company, product or service you wish to promote. Any marketer or link baiter knows this is a critical element for the overall success of the campaign being put into action. Once you have your target audience down to a science, you can then determine which type or piece of link bait is most relevant to your audience.
Once you decide who to target, the fun part begins. It is now time to decide which form of linkbait is best for your website. Listed below are some of the most modern forms of linkbait flowing through the internet today.
- Useful Web Based Tools/Software
- Lists of Valuable Resources
- Interesting Infographics
- WordPress Themes/Plug-ins
- Widgets
- Just About Anything Funny (Videos, blog post, etc.)
- Press Releases
- Contests
Once you have created your linkbait master piece it is time to market it through the right channels. Remember when we found our target audience, well here is where it makes life a bit easier. Most linkbait ideas are always Digg and StumbleUpon worthy especially if it is funny or controversial. These sites allow you to display your linkbait in front of millions of viewers where it either goes viral or just gets a few hits. You can also market the piece on your social media outlets, broadcasting it to all your Fans and Followers. Other types of linkbait such as blog posts and press releases are useful as well to help with web traffic, rankings and online presence. If submitting press releases online, a few well noted ones are:
- I-newswire
- PRLog.com
- Pressreleasepoint.com
- PRWeb.com (Paid)
How do you tell if your linkbait is working?
If you are using Digg and StumbleUpon to market your linkbait, they provide a system that tallies up how many viewers were interested in your linkbait. The more Diggs or Thumbs Up you receive the more interesting your viewers find your linkbait. If you are using blog posts and press releases to announce your linkbait, your best bet is to use a web tracking service. Google provides this for free, it is called Google Analytics. Within this tracking system you can tell exactly where your website visitors are coming from. You can also track individual URLs (the exact URL that your blog post or press release was listed on) and view how many people are coming from those sites.
Example of a Successful Linkbait Campaign
One example of a successful linkbait campaign was performed by Red Bull, a company well known throughout the Western and European countries for their energy drinks. The company has built their website upon a strong foundation of linkbait. Their target audience is adrenaline junkies who thrive on high risk sports.
One of their most popular contests was the Flúgtag, or in English, Airshow. It was an event where a bunch of idiots decide to launch something off of a pier 30ft over a reservoir of water. What makes this contest so fun to watch is the fact that most participants create flying contraptions that rarely fly at all, and plummet the moment they are pushed off the pier. Once these flights are filmed they immediately become linkbait on the internet and are posted everywhere.
Contests are just a scratch in the selection of linkbait ideas available out there, as you saw when reviewing the “Types of Linkbait” above. But, since Redbull has such a well known brand there may not always need a backlink. All they need to do is advertise their logo, which encourages viewers to go to the website to see more.
Conclusion
So, the result? Any piece of linkbait can be successful as long as you know your target audience, gear the piece to them, and market it well. If you want a jump start with your linkbait piece, check out StumbleUpon for some starter ideas to get the juices flowing. Also, more brains are better than one, so call in some friends or co-workers to discuss creative ideas. It is important to remember that linkbait can be implemented into a project at any time during your products life cycle. It just depends on the form of linkbait you wish to implement.