The concept of link bait is something that you need to become very familiar with. Link bait is some sort of content that is so juicy, so interesting, controversial or compelling that people are going to click on it, like it, share it and link to it.
Particularly for product and service oriented companies, the majority of content that gets created is highly focused on the company goals. This is entirely understandable. However, when creating link bait you want to come from the opposite perspective. Link bait is 100% about tapping into the interests, motivations, fears, dreams and desires of your audience.
Without a doubt the most critical aspect of link bait is having incredible Page Titles and Headlines. This is what people are going to click on, and lots of people will like and share a something with a great headline without even reading it.
With the above in mind, the actual content itself should live up to the hype. When creating link bait, you want to meet some combination of at least 3 of the following criteria (the more the better):
- A very bold claim, stated as fact; a huge promise: This is a statement that will take your reader off guard or out of their comfort zone.
- Some sort of facts that back up the bold claim.
- Identify a massive problem.
- Provide a solution.
- Very easy to consume. Don’t expect people to read a 15 page scientific analysis. It’s great to reference one if you can, but don’t expect anyone to read it. Instead, create a short summary, an infographic, or a video. Expect people to read the first 500-1,000 words. Go ahead and include up to 2,000 words, but make sure that the first 500 are the most compelling and easy to consume. If you are offering a solution, it should be very easy to use.
- Future cast. This means that you want to help the reader understand the potential results and ramifications.
- Use fear as a motivating factor. Media empires have been built upon the use of fear. Understand what your audience fears or is suspicious of, and use that to grab their attention.
- Use passion. What is your audience passionate about? Justify that passion. Feed that passion. Give them something that supports their passion and make it easy to share.
- Motivate them to share it. Provide an incentive. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a monetary incentive or any type of a physical prize (although those can certainly work). But, some of the best work in the world is done by people who simply are doing something that they believe in and feel good about. Giving people a vehicle for doing something that let’s them feel like they have made the world a better place can create an unstoppable force. Just look at what happened with the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.
- Create a movement. Again… the ALS Ice Bucket challenge is easily the most powerful example of this in recent memory. It was fun. Easy to do. Supported a great cause and gave people a chance to give their friends and family a good natured jab to support a great cause. The good news is that there are lots of causes out there and if you and your company can come up with a great vehicle for raising awareness and participation, you could benefit from massive positive publicity.
- Create urgency. A huge key to a successful link bait campaign is the need to engage NOW! Force people to take action quickly once they have been exposed or to either lose the benefit or suffer consequences.
- Give people something that is useful and will really help them in their lives. For instance an ingenious checklist or a “life hack” are good examples of things that can be very valuable in niche markets.
So, now that we have talked a bit about the concept and some of the important elements of link bait, keep them in mind as you go through the rest of the content ideas and link building strategies in this lesson because these are the same concepts that drive clicks and social shares. Every piece of content that you create for marketing purposes should be evaluated against these link bait factors.
With These Strategies Woven Into Your Marketing Content…
Every Important Metric Will Improve!
Next In the next lesson we will discuss why it is so critically necessary for you to .