Everything You Need to Know About Link Bait

Intro

It is a well-known fact that backlinks are important in terms of SEO. They work as one of the signals for Google that help rank the pages higher.

The more backlinks the page has, the more authority it gets to be at the top of the SERP.

Some pages acquire backlinks organically - when the other ones need an additional link boost.

How to create this boost?

It is possible with the help of using link baiting techniques.

In this guide, you will find out everything you need to know about link bait.

Let's cut to the chase!

The Essence of Link Bait

Link bait is the complex of actions that shape content to attract links. In other words, you optimize your content that catches the eyes of journalists/bloggers and lean them towards linking back.

The purpose of link bait is simple - it helps your pages rank higher on Google and drive more traffic to your website.

How does this mechanism work?

There are two aspects:

• Pages with more links rank higher and drive more traffic
• Promote poor pages with the help of internal linking using authoritative pages

You might wonder why link bait works so well. It works due to a principle called "shared triggers" - psychological triggers that make people want to link back to your piece of content.

What are these triggers?

• Emotional (if content brings out emotions, it may lead to linking)
• Public (sometimes people like to imitate others behavior if they can observe it)
• Practical value (people like practical information and actionable tips)
• Stories (people make an emotional connection with and link back to different types of stories)
• Social currency (people tend to share things that can make them look better in the public's eyes)
• Triggers (people like to share whatever information that is top of mind)

Now, let's move further to link bait practices you should be armed with.

Six link bait strategies to use

Frankly speaking, there are a lot of link bait practices. But not all of them are resultative. Therefore, here are seven link bait practices that are worth your attention.

1. Make sure your link bait is actionable

Doesn't matter what type of information your content brings. It should be practical under all circumstances. And your readers would be able to use tips, ideas, and suggestions right off the bat.

For example, at Visme, there is a number of tools that users can avail free of charge:

And if you analyze the URLs of these tools, you will see that they have acquired lots of backlinks:

2. Suggest fresh and unique information

Obviously, people want to get new information. However, it is difficult to come up with something completely unique. Likely, you can find a solution.

How?

Try to cover the same topic but from a unique angle with some brand-new pieces of advice. And the best way to do this is by sharing your personal experience on something.

A well-known SEO expert Brian Dean runs many SEO-related experiments. And some of them (if not all) end up attracting tons of links.

For example, Brian has written a link-building case study where he explains the process of increasing search traffic by 110% in 14 days. This piece of content has acquired 14K+ backlinks:

3. Link bait should evoke emotions

Upworthy is a popular web resource that suggests positive content. Content that evokes emotions. Despite the fact that Upworthy is not in trend these days, people still keep sharing its articles.

And there is a good reason for this.

Every post makes people laugh, cry, get angry, and express other emotions.

As a result, Upworthy's blog posts attract links massively:

4. Add a visual element to your link bait strategy

When someone wants to link back to some piece of content, this person goes through a four-step process:

• See content (the person notices your content)
• Consume the article (the person clicks the post and consumes it)
• Conclude (the person decides whether the post is good or not)
• Link back (if the post is good, the person links back)

Hence, the first step is all about the eyes' perception. Thus, you should make your content visually appealing. Even if the entire information is "so-so", the person might like some visual element within the post.

For example, you can make your own map and get it placed in your post. Just like a blog post from Winefolly on the top world's wine regions:

This post has acquired 400+ backlinks from 179 domains:

5. Link bait should be newsworthy

News has always gained attraction among people. Besides, journalists and bloggers are fond of highlighting topics in trend.

If you go back a few years ago, you will recall a situation with COVID-19 in the world. It was the hottest topic that people were discussing. Different bloggers suggested tips on how to work remotely. And keep whatever business afloat.

For example, a blog post on work during a COVID period has generated 182 backlinks from 53 domains:

How to catch more links using news content?

You can do this by applying a newsjacking technique. This technique revolves around monitoring live news to find opportunities where you would be able to put your brand in front of people's eyes. The best way to do this is by reacting with expert comments.

6. Link to other materials people have already linked to

There are no doubts that you have seen people linking to competing pages. There is nothing weird in it. People have certain link reasons for this.

How to identify the reasons?

You should analyze competitive articles on the same topic. But the goal is to see commonalities in the anchors and URLs of backlinks.

For example, a blog post from Taste of home on fried chicken suggests the exact recipe that people are interested in:

To get this data, you should go to the Keywords Explorer tool from Ahrefs and type your topic. Afterwards, review the "SERP overview" report and choose one of the suggested competitive posts.

Finally, click on the number of backlinks ("Backlinks" column) and pay attention to the "Anchors and target URL" column.

To Sum Up

Don't delude yourself by thinking that "link bait" is just creating visually appealing and unique content. Unfortunately, if you want to catch more links with your content, you should do more.

Link bait needs you to create a robust plan. This plan consists of writing content, finding the right audience who would like it, and content promotion strategy. These steps will help you attract links successfully.

Keep in mind that if nobody knows about your piece of content - it won't acquire any backlinks.

Thus, go ahead and use link bait strategies suggested in this post in your practice!

If you think this article lacks more tips, feel free to share your ideas in the comments.