The first part of this series was a selection of tips on how to use your surroundings to come up with interesting ideas that can lead to great amounts of traffic, attention and links. After you’ve carefully selected the idea of your choice, it’s time to prepare yourself thoroughly and to turn that idea into a content page that’s capable of reaching the audience that you’ve always wanted to target.
Creating Killer Content
There are many characteristics of killer content, most of which are important enough to make or break your launch. Misuse of images, boring pages, bad language or other distracting factors can lead to failure. Remember that a even a flagship is as strong as its weakest link.
Your flagship does not necessarily have to be a boat, by DC3-Detroit
Headline
A superb headline can create a massive amount of attention for just a mediocre article, but a bad headline can result in a killer peace of content that doesn’t get noticed. Make sure to give your content the headline that it deserves, but don’t overdo it.
Also, don’t forget to try to get a related keyword into your headline. Because a part of the webmasters that link to your page will use the original title as anchor text, this will increase the possibility that you’ll end up ranking for those keywords. Don’t force in a keyword, though. A good headline prevails over a keyword rich headline.
First paragraph
Although you may choose to submit your own piece of content to Digg and StumbleUpon (or let someone submit it for you), you’ll probably -and hopefully- won’t submit it to every social media platform out there. If you want to increase the chance of hitting the frontpage of social news sites that you don’t even know exist, you’ll have to make sure that the first paragraph is a great one. People who submit stuff to social media websites regularly -me included-, often use the first (or one of the first) lines of text and use it as the description of the submission. Make it easier for them AND make it more likely to hit the front page by creating your own description that’s disguised as an opening paragraph.
Content
The appearance of a page can either be informational (mostly text), it can be visual (images all over the place), or it can be usable (a tool, or movable objects). Of course, a page can be a mix of the above, but usually, only one will be the upper hand. Make sure
Informational page
If you’ve created an information page, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use images, but use them wisely. The text is the most important of the page, so make sure that the images you use don’t distract your readers. In stead, you could spice it up a notch with graphical text images, a great header, or interesting charts for example. The images must serve the rest of the content. Oh, and don’t forget to use that spell check.
Visual page
If you’re building a page that’s mostly visual, it’s tempting to stuff it with as many images and as many different colors as possible. However, using too many images, a lot of different colors, or even mixing up different styles can make your page look cluttered and unclear. If you focus on a single (or just a few) images in stead, take your time when selecting colors and try to keep the page in a single style, it’ll be much easier to ‘understand’ and to digest. Try to avoid the most common stock images, though, or try to make them look differently in stead.
Usable page The fact that you’re creating a page that’s meant to be ‘used’, doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be interesting to look at. While the focus should be on clarity, ease of use and the end result, attractiveness definitely shouldn’t be neglected.
About page
Nothing is worse than reading a great post on a blog or a great article on a website, and you can’t find the name of the author anywhere. Or his or her email address.
Provide as much information as possible. This will not only look much more professional, but it’ll also help you to build a personal brand and it increases the chance of someone actually contacting you. You might provide a contact button, but if I can’t find out who to contact, I probably won’t give it a try.
Ask for help
I don’t consider myself to be a very good writer and I really suck at programming. Although I’m trying to improve it, I also can’t design very well. Just like me, you probably don’t own all of these skills as well, so that’s why you’ll have to get some help from time to time.
The relationship between the quality of content and the amount of attention is an exponential one. A slight increase in quality (the difference between your design skills and those of your friend/ colleague/ business partner) can cause a massive increase in attention. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, you can’t be the best in everything.
Besides increasing the possibility of success, asking help also saves you time and it can improve your business network as well.
Preparation
Unlike some seem to think, preparation does not start one day before the planned launch. Preparation starts on the day that you decide what you’re going to build, it’s more time consuming than most people think and it’s a key factor in any launch.
Networking does not start after your product launch, press release or whatever you’re distributing. It starts weeks before that. Contact journalists and try building up a relationship. This does not only benefit you now, but it will be an advantage when you’re trying to reach that bigger audience next time as well. A PR pitch has more effect if you know the one you’re sending the pitch to, even if you happen to know this person for just a short while yet.
Try to create a powerful social online profile, such as a Digg or StumbleUpon profile. You’ll need all the luck of the world if you try to reach Digg’s front page with a profile that you’ve created just ten minutes ago.
Use the people you know. Friends, family members or other people in your personal network that happen to know someone that owns a related website or that participates online in any way, might be able to help you promoting your piece as well. Don’t spam them for every thing you publish, though, or don’t look surprised if you have difficulties reaching them again if you do…
Preparing your target list
You’ve already done research in your niche and you’ve probably kept track of your competitors as well. Hopefully, you’ve saved all this data, because this data can jump start your target press list.
Check out which news websites, bloggers and portals have linked to related stories that went hot in the past and you’ll end up with a list of targets that are both interested in the subject and capable of making your launch a success.
Preparation Checklist
Although some of these points may seem silly, there are several things you shouldn’t forget to check. You wouldn’t be the first one that almost launched a very successful campaign, but ended up in a ‘Top 10 Stupid Marketing Mistakes of the Year’ list in stead…
bandwidth
- do you have sufficient bandwidth or do you have shared hosting? email usage & contact info
- is important info, such as your email address, correctly displayed on your website and does it work? double check the page
- double check for things like layout and multiple browser compatibilities. Let a friend check it out, for example. statistics
- don’t forget to include your analytics code on the content page. misspellings
- re-read the entire page word for word to make sure that everything is spelled out correctly.
In short
Even a slight mistake or less attractive feature can turn a great piece of content into an almost great piece of content. And almost great just isn’t good enough. If you can’t make something exceptional yourself, ask help, input or advice from someone who can.
Although some might try to, you can’t create a successful content marketing campaign overnight. Solid preparation is key and this starts days (but more often weeks) in advance. If you want to be successful next week, you’ll have to lay the foundation today and start building tomorrow.
Stay tuned -or subscribe to the RSS- for the last part of this series, which will be titled ‘Launching, Monitoring & After Care’.
There’s no doubt that creating a valuable piece of content is a great way -and maybe even the best way- to attract links. However, when I mention link baiting (or link targeted content), I often get reactions like ‘it sounds nice, but link baiting probably isn’t the way to go for me’, or that ‘building content to attract links doesn’t work in my industry’. Bullocks. In a three step guide (of which this is part one) I’ll try to show you how everyone can come up with great ideas, can turn the idea into a piece of killer content and can make that piece attract great links.
Start Close
While it usually is best to enter a brainstorming session with a blank mindset, it’s even better to check what you’ve got first. Good ideas are often closer than you think.
Things can be closer than you think, by Pictophelia
-Your own website
If your website isn’t a brand new one, you probably have at least a few pages that managed to attract a few or more good links. You can either investigate why these pages got mentioned elsewhere (and use that info for a new article), or find your best one, improve it and launch V2.
- Your own head
What kind of resources are you missing in your niche? What kind of tool have you always wanted to use but couldn’t find? What kind of content would make you go ‘WOW’? Build it!
Brainstorming for Ideas
The great thing about brainstorming is that you can’t brainstorm the wrong way. Of course, there are guidelines you can follow and techniques you can use, but in theory, every method you use to come up with new ideas would be considered brainstorming. Effective brainstorming, however…
Brainstorming, by faroekat
Like I said earlier, it can be quite effective to start a brainstorming session with an empty mind. Because your link targeted mind probably even rattles on in your sleep, it might be useful to invite someone that isn’t that much into links as you are. Some people always invite the client they’re working for, but I don’t think that’s best in every situation. No matter how hard you try, for some types of personality, tunnel vision is an almost certainty. On the other hand, bringing in the knowledge of your client does add extra value.
More tips for your brainstorming session:
Appoint one person to lead the discussion and to write down all ideas.
Record everything to make sure that you don’t miss anything. And to be able to provide evidence to the client that you haven’t been drinking all afternoon, of course
Encouraging your fellow brainstormers to participate, encouraging great ideas and encouraging to shout out everything that comes up is key to a harmonized brainstorm session.
Furthermore, one of the most important things to keep in mind during a brainstorming session is that you shouldn’t settle for the first reasonably good idea you come up with. Good ideas arise pretty quickly, great ideas need time to grow. The best tip I can probably give you is to just start a session. Brainstorm with a few colleagues about a simple item, such as what you’ll be having for lunch or how you can improve your working conditions. You could even be brainstorming about how to brainstorm. Evaluate that session afterwards and learn from it. Experience will lead to inspiration.
Researching for Inspiration
After your brainstorming session, where you’ve probably generated over a few dozen ideas, you might be tempted to drill the list down to the most useful ideas straight away. In stead, letting these ideas soak for a short while and researching ideas that have worked in the past, researching ideas that have failed in the past and researching your niche might be a better solution. Don’t take a short cut by copying the ideas you come across, but use them as inspiring input.
Doing research, by revlimit
Think Social
The voice of the community will show you what might work.
- Use Digg’s search function
Look for relevant articles, posts or pages that have made it to Digg’s front page in the past by entering a relevant keyword in the search box. This might give you some inspiration and it should give you an idea of what might work in your niche.
- Stumble upon related pages
Use StumbleUpon to find pages that are related to the content you want to promote. Check what kind of pages receive lots of thumbs up and positive research. You’ll not only come across at least a few great pages you’ve never seen before, but you’ll also get an impression of popular stuff in your area.
- Your favorite news site
That news website you visit every day (whether it’s a big news site or just a local one) has historical data of what kind of related articles or posts have made it to the front page. Do a site query to find relevant news articles that got mentioned on the news site earlier.
- Social Niche sites
Is it difficult to find related stuff on one of the big social media websites, or are you looking for more targeted traffic? There’s a social media website for nearly every niche, so don’t just refrain yourself to the mainstream sites.
Think Niche
Only here will history, relevance and authority show up.
- Your competitor
Some people can’t stand it when a competitor gets mentioned on a popular news or niche website. In stead of enviously watching how they get all the attention, you could also see this as an opportunity and investigate why they got mentioned. If you don’t follow your competitors on a regular basis (which I can’t imagine), use a nifty tool like LinkDiagnosis to research which page on your competitor’s website has the most incoming links. Investigate why this page managed to do this and use that info in your advantage.
- Research your ultimate link target
You probably have at least one website in mind that you’re dying to get a link from. You know, that popular blogger or that portal that everybody in your niche visits daily. If you can find out which pages on this website have attracted a lot of links or managed to create a lot of buzz,
- Research your ultimate link target’s competitor
If there are multiple large targets in your niche, you can use the best features of both sites to get links to your own. Find out what the most popular/ interesting/ valuable page of link target 1 is and offer to make a better version of that page to target 2. Now find an interesting tool or feature on target 2 and offer to make something similar to target 1. Don’t forget to mention your own website as the source or author, of course.
- Respond to your ultimate link target
Did the website you’re after just release a great post or did it fire up a heated conversation? Respond to it. Whether you agree or not, responding to a news item or adding something to a discussion can be a great way to attract links from the initiator, participants and/ or other related sites.
- Contact your ultimate link target
It doesn’t get more simple than this. Contact the website you want to get a link from and ask them what kind of content they’ve always been looking for. Build it, let them know where it is (or you could even offer your link target to let them host the entire piece of content) and you’ll get the link you were after. Keep in mind that this kind of target bait is only worth it in a few occasions, but you’ll probably know when
Selecting the Right Idea
After you’ve gathered dozens of great ideas, it’s not important to choose the idea that you’ll be working on, but it’s important to choose the idea you’ll be working on first. It would be a sin to leave the rest of the ideas untouched, wouldn’t it?
Selecting the right idea is nothing more than determining which one of the options will probably help you to reach your end goal -whether that’s just lots of links, links with specific relevance, traffic or anything else.
You’ve checked your own site, you came up with dozens of creative ideas and did research on what works (and what probably won’t), so you’ve got enough data. Your client has enough knowledge of the niche and you have enough knowledge of SEO to be able to come up with the best option together. In the end, you’ll find out that the final choice will be one that’s made by feeling.
Oh, and a little tip here; make sure that -if you work for one- your client makes the final choice. If you think he might choose for the wrong option, give him better directions. This ensures a better relationship in the future, no matter what the outcome is.
Use the Results
Now that you’ve done a great deal of research -and hopefully have a ship load of ideas-, it’s important not to forget your research data as well. You just found out that both industry blogger X and related website Y have both linked to that press release that your competitor sent out earlier. Since they’re both linking to this page, it might be useful to include blogger X and website Y in the list of websites you’ll be contacting when you announce your great piece of content. More about this in part two, but don’t forget to save the data you’ve collected. Having to do things twice can be a real pain…
Conclusion
This list is just an indication that there are tons of places where you can find inspiration for creating content that attracts links like a magnet. Some, however, ask themselves if link baiting isn’t a bit overrated, I do believe that creating link targeted content really is worth it - and it sure as hell can be so for everyone (be careful with widgetbait, though). Besides link and ranking related reasons, you shouldn’t forget that the piece of content and the traffic it attracts aren’t exactly worthless.
Next in line is part two of three: Creating content & Preparation
Yesterday, when I was doing some research on Digg, I spotted a page that I had seen before and wanted to check it out once more. This page in question managed to get to the front page about three months ago, but when I tried to visit it today through Digg, it wouldn’t load anymore. It was 301′ed.
After digging in a bit deeper, I noticed that this website made it to the front page five times. Four of these submitted pages disappeared and were replaced by a 301 to heavily optimized pages on the same domain. Three out of five pages were submitted by the same top Digg user, who had submitted the same pages to Reddit as well.
I used to have the opinion that you can either try to redirect as much link bait strength to your most important pages by designing your page optimally (or changing it later), or you can try to catch all strength by 301ing the link bait page to one of your important pages. This example completely changed my mind.
Using a 301 on a page that has been generating links in the past is -in my opinion- not the way to go (and can even be dangerous) because:
It’s not user friendly. Visitors that are looking for specific content and find something that doesn’t correlate with the link that directed them to your website, will be disappointed.
You’re deleting great pieces of content. Why would you remove stuff that made it to the front page of Digg, Reddit or any other social media website?
You prevent the page from attracting even more links in the future. Good content will remain to attract links in the future as well. Content that is 301′ed to a heavily optimized page probably won’t.
You get a wrong incoming anchor text/ page content relationship. Especially when your link bait page isn’t 100% related to the products you sell, your anchor text/ page content relationship will be completely off.
This can even backfire in terms of bad publicity (gaming the system). What if a few Diggers found out that your website is 301ing several posts that made it to “their” front page. Can you imagine what that might cause?
You might lose that top Digger. I don’t know how this website managed to let the same top Digger submit several of their posts, but if his Digg reputation is in danger, he probably will refrain himself from submitting more stories.
And the reasons mentioned above aren’t even all reasons. For example, imagine what Google would do if more and more people would use this strategy. Do you think they will remain to handle 301s exactly the same way they do today?
So what can you do to let as much link strength and link relevance flow to the most important pages on your website?
Use in-content links to other important pages on your website (or add these links after the first link bump is over)
Nofollow pages that aren’t that important, or remove some navigational links on your link bait page
Provide an RSS feed in your “link bait section”. People who liked your link bait might like (and link to) your future campaigns as well.
Of course, there are some exceptions (off-domain 301s, for example). In some cases it might be better to 301 a link bait page, but I don’t think this is the way to go in most cases. Especially in this case, where it were blog posts and an html page that got redirected, I believe that other solutions might have been better. I can imagine that you don’t share the same opinion (or perhaps you do), so my question is:
do you use 301 redirects on your link bait pages? Why, or why not?
In my opinion, these two types of online promotion are almost the same, except for one big difference: the end goal. In a Viral Marketing campaign, the main goal usually is to reach as much people as possible (in a SMART way) to deliver them a positive brand message.
When you’re link baiting, you can be aiming at the same people, but the end goal usually is to attract as much (ideally relevant) links as possible, to eventually increase search engine rankings. Link Baiting is the search engine optimized version of Viral Marketing. A few technical changes can turn a viral campaign into a well organized link baiting campaign.
Examples usually tell more than a hundred paragraphs.
Let’s take a look at The Chamber of Torture (Warning: pretty NSFW and 18+ only). This Saw IV The Movie promotion website, where you can torture Britney, Cameron Diaz and other celebrities, might look pretty entertaining for visitors, but looks really different to search engines. Search engines see nothing more than two lines of text in a flashcontent-div and five links to social media websites. This is like mentioning the newspapers, that wrote something about your print ad, in your own radio commercial. Without mentioning your own brand. In this case, Lionsgate is promoting Del.icio.us, Digg and others with this viral campaign.
(Hat tip to ViralBlog.com)
How to turn a viral campaign into a link bait
If you want your viral campaign to result in an improvement in rankings in search engines as well, there are two important things to keep in mind.
Relevancy If you’re planning on building a link baiting page about strange toilets from all over the world, while your core business is providing job and career info, this will result in lots of irrelevant links. Lots of buzz, but irrelevant links. You might be able to achieve top positions on “strange toilets”, but it won’t improve your rankings on “career info” a lot.
Creating a link baiting campaign is a page about increasing blog traffic, while your core business is to explain people how to increase their traffic, however, is baiting links; relevant style. Oh, and make sure to target your link bait title as well.
Funneling the Juice
This differentiates a Link Baiter from a Viral Marketer. Why not turning the buzz you created into an improvement of search engine rankings? Neglecting this is like opening a giant store with only one small entrance on the side of the building. Sure, people will walk in, but you’re not receiving the amount of visitors you could.
So: include search engine indexable links to other parts of your website.
While you’re at it, you can even try to deliver the majority of the linkjuice you received to the pages that really need it; the ones that make the money. Although every successful link baiting campaign delivers some link juice to your main page, it can be advisable to take control and to let the juice flow to your most important pages only.
When your full, 512 links counting css drop down navigation is present on your link baiting page, you’re dividing the page’s link strength over these 512 links. This is ok if all these 512 pages are product pages or other pages that somehow pay some of the bills. If not, you might take a look at turning off the link juice tap for the least important pages. You can do this by nofollowing these pages, or by making the links to these pages not indexable with javascript or a robots txt-ed out redirect. You could even remove these links completely, but I don’t recommend doing this.
The difference between a link bait and a viral campaign will probably disappear in the future; you’ll see an increase in search engine friendly viral campaigns. Advertisers and marketing agencies will become more and more aware of the possible search engine advantages that a viral campaign can offer, if executed correctly. At least, they should.
It is, like Lisa Barone mentioned earlier, time to let your link baiting campaign grow up. This starts with focusing your link bait campaigns the right way, by using the right hook and by dropping your bait in the right place. And what type of hook to use and where to drop your bait, depends on the goals you’ve set.
This post will give some guidance in how to choose the right hook to reach those goals you’ve set.
Defining your goals
Just like with any other marketing activity, you’ll have to set yourself a clear goal first. Do you simply need lot a lot of traffic? Are you looking for lots of bookmarks? Or do you only want to improve your search engine rankings, no matter what strategy it takes? You’ll need to have a clear goal in mind. When you’re shooting with a shotgun while you’re being blindfolded, you will certainly hit something, but were you aiming for it?
There are numerous types of goals you can set for your self, but every possible goal will include one or more of the following factors:
Links (are you looking for lots of, or quality links)
Traffic (do you want lots of, or qualified visitors)
Buzz (are you only aiming at buzz/ branding)
Bookmarks (are you mainly looking for bookmarks)
Durability (do you want your campaign to have a long shelf life)
Choosing your hook
There are several types of hooks (or content creation approaches, or types of link magnets, or whatever you want to call them) you can choose from. The most important ones and the ones with the biggest potential are being mentioned below, together with the possible potential of each hook. This way it’s easier to see which hook can help you best in reaching your goals.
News
The news hook either needs commitment, or just dumb luck. If you really want to get that piece of valuable breaking news, you’ll probably need to do loads of research, networking and investigation first. And even then, you really have to be the first one that mentions it and let others know that you’ve found something new. Or, if you’re lucky, it just drops at your feet. But I wouldn’t count on the last thing to happen
If you use this hook over and over again, you’ll be able to attract lots of loyal visitors, but this usually also needs dedication and lots of time to achieve.
Education & Information Using the Education & Information hook is probably one of the best ways to attract targeted, quality links. If you educate people about a subject you know a lot about, that will lead to relevant and high quality links for sure. It’s also a great way to show what you’re capable of, and build yourself a solid brand this way. If you are able to update your piece of content once (or regularly), you’ll end up with a page that’s capable of generating links until eternity. The con of this hook, however is that it takes a lot of effort and time to build a good piece of information. But this is usually being outweighed by the amount of links.
using your link bait campaigns the right way, by using the right hook and by dropping your bait in the right place. And what type of hook to use and where to drop your bait, depends on the goals you’ve set.
If you really want to get that piece of valuable breaking news, you’ll probably need to do loads of research, networking and investigation first. And even then, you really have to be the first one that mentions it and let others know that you’ve found something new. Or, if you’re lucky, it just drops at your feet. But I wouldn’t count on the last thing to happen 
If you educate people about a subject you know a lot about, that will lead to relevant and high quality links for sure. It’s also a great way to show what you’re capable of, and build yourself a solid brand this way. If you are able to update your piece of content once (or regularly), you’ll end up with a page that’s capable of generating links until eternity. The con of this hook, however is that it takes a lot of effort and time to build a good piece of information. But this is usually being outweighed by the amount of links.
