You can do reciprocal linking which is free. But reciprocal linking takes time and work and you have to be selective about which sites you'll link back to.
You can buy links but that takes money so it doesn't belong in this tip.
And then there's link baiting.
Link baiting is the act of putting something on your site that "begs to be linked to."
No, I don't mean you actually beg people to link to you. I mean putting something so good or unusual on your site that people instinctively want to link to it.
What qualifies as link bait?
Just about anything can qualify as link bait: a useful tool, a cool widget, a great freebie (templates, audio, video, picture, etc), a fascinating article, an opinionated blog, a debate, a poll, a contest, a resource, and the list goes on and on.
And to show you what I mean, here are a few examples of link bait in action:
- http://www.toprankblog.com/tools/rss-buttons/(useful tool)
- http://searchengineland.com/070118-074231.php (good content)
- http://www.stuntdubl.com/2007/01/12/linkbaiting-hooks/(good content and lots more examples showing different kinds of link bait)
Now there some negatives to link baiting like:
- No control over who links to you.
- All the links point to 1 page and may not help the rest of your site.
- It takes some time to create good link bait.
- If certain types, like debate and controversy, are not done correctly it can backfire and actually hurt your site.
However, if done right and used with good, quality content, link baiting is effective and can provide you with enough links to really help with your search engine placement.
To help you decide if link baiting is something you'd like to try, you can use my Magic 8 Ball. In fact, you can use it as much as you'd like.
To Your Success,
Susan
P.S. If you found this tip useful, please leave a comment.
Tags: link baiting, link bait, linkbaiting, magic 8 ball, link building, get links
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