The Link Bait Article
According to Wikipedia, link bait is any content or feature within a website that somehow baits viewers to place links to it from other websites.
Transparent's readers aren't as prurient as expected. After reading about the search bait potential of the words Britney Spears Naked last month, I planted a suggestive link to "no panties Britney Spears" on our Elvis=Zillow post just to see how many clicks it would get. Only three outclicks so far in 48 hours! Are Transparent's readers puritans? And LOL , good friend Athol commented:
1/13/2007 2:26PM Athol Kay wrote:
Whoa! How did I end up here? I was searching on Britney Spears...
Then, Athol continues today with the perfect complementary post to this one:
I added the MyBlogLog widgets just to see how they looked. Turns out I quite like the "Recent Readers" one... The downside is some of the photos of female readers are luring readers off the blog. Please stop hitting on NikNik.
Yes, NikNik is her own link bait...
(believe it or not, the avatar luring readers off Transparent is...
(Ed Ryb)... :-oA few more link bait observations:
- First reported by Jim at Tomato, here's how Marc Brinitzer's new blog Lending Clarity took advantage of his reality show worthy article "Mortgage Horror Story of the Week: Ripped off by Daughter's Boyfriend" - he baited it through Reddit - check out this New Year's Day traffic spike...
- Niall Kennedy, a San Francisco self proclaimed feed geek, writes a brilliant investigative report on how spam farmers manipulate those social network sites like Reddit and Digg by posting can't miss link bait (tabloid style articles like "weight loss tips") to drive traffic to an irrelevant website. The subsequent traffic boosts its search engine rank and the website is soon getting organic (free) leads for affiliate programs the spammers have subscribed to.
- Famous Agents' Elise wrote one of my favorite articles in 2006 on 21 Keys to Link Bait Success.
- And of course, I (and friend John Harper ) took advantage of Marlow's link-baiting Elvis opportunity to be added into her Carnival of Real Estate spotlight. Thanks Marlow! Your picks were eclectic as usual and a fun read.
Technorati Tags: link bait, real estate marketing, lead generation, Britney Spears, NikNik, traffic spike, reddit, digg, social networking, spam, spam farms, spammer
Oh, I love link bait. I often pepper my posts with pop culture references just to see what happens. But overall, the best link bait is always a tool or tutorial. SEO Book is a genius at developing cool link bait tools and tutorials.
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Thanks for the link love Pat, somehow you made me goofing off sound smart and educated. Impressive.
I've seen one or two posts go crazy on my blog too. Big readership spike, then back to normal +10-15% afterwards.
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Hey Pat, the 'Link Bait' phenom is a funny thing. I wrote a piece last year that mentioned 'Postits'--you know the yellow note things that stick to stuff-
well my stat counter went through the roof and upon further examination, the last 4 letters of the word 'Postits" was the reason. I also just made reference in a joking way how I initially thought 'Hotmail' was something more 'mature' in nature and bam---if you go to Technorati you'll see that my 3 most recent backlinks are all about 'webcams' and 'amateurs' and nothing about real estate. I'm not printing the exact term here lest you'll just end up with more dissappointed web-surfers of your own.
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Hey Geno, whatever you write is probably going to have some sort of link bait connotations because you talk about some funny stuff ... I'm taking your lead and will start peppering my posts with pseudo-obscenities...
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In one of my posts, it was about 'Sex Offenders' - I got more traffic for the Sex part then the offenders. Huh, makes me wonder what you all are searching for..
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I guess I've been in a vacumn all week to have missed this one. I didn't realize my avatar was causing such a raucous. I may be getting some traffic from it, but once they find out I have a real estate tech blog they're gone forever...only the true super high-tech real estate gurus stay around to talk shop...and that's who I'm looking for in the first place!
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Au contraire NikNik... real estate tech blogs rock and you're Tech for Real Estate's virtual Booth Babe!
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I must admit that NikNik diverted my usually clear focus.
Interesting article, Pat.
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As long as we're social networking, I'd like to make an introduction... Brian, NikNik... NikNik, Brian...
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