If you want your content to stand out in a crowded online space, you need to create engaging linkbait. Linkbait gets attention, creates social media shares, and earns valuable inbound links that improve your SEO performance. Readers are hooked with high-quality content, click-worthy headlines, and shareable value that they encourage further sharing.
In this article, we will provide actionable steps for creating linkbait. Therefore, your SEO strategies can increase audience engagement, improve online visibility, and build trust with your readers.
What is LinkBait?
Linkbait is content that attracts natural backlinks with the sole purpose of getting people to link to or share that content. The useful, unique, or thought-provoking content is linked to by bloggers, journalists, and other websites.
Unlike typical link-building methods that rely on outreach, linkbait earns inbound links naturally by standing out and offering something worth sharing. Therefore, backlinks help your website become authoritative, improve SEO rankings, and increase visibility in search engines.
Steps to Create Engaging Linkbait
If you want to build quality backlinks, you need to create compelling content that will be valuable to your audience. Natural links, visibility, and trust are all earned by high-quality content. Below are practical steps to create engaging linkbait:
Step 1: Focus on Evergreen Content
You write content on topics that have been relevant for years. Evergreen content generates consistent traffic and backlinks because it’s useful to readers. Evergreen content can include how-to guides, tutorials, or deep resources.
Step 2: Incorporate Emotion
You should add emotions such as humor, empathy, or inspiration to your content. People connect better with content that makes them feel something. Emotional content is more likely to be shared and garner backlinks such as a funny piece, an inspiring story, or something relatable.
Step 3: Use Storytelling
Stories capture attention and make content memorable. You should tell real-life stories, share personal experiences, or compare case studies. A good story gives your readers a deeper connection with your content. Therefore, they want to link to your content and share it further.
Step 4: Focus on Visual Design
Design plays a huge role in content performance. Content with high-quality images, infographics, and videos is well structured grabs attention quickly, and keeps the readers engaged. A visually appealing design helps your content stand out, leading to more links and shares.
Step 5: Offer Real Value
You should write content that gives your audience something valuable. Free tools, downloadable templates, insider tips, or unique insights attract attention and naturally encourage backlinks. The more readers see genuine value in your content, the more likely they will share and promote your content.
Step 6: Promote Your LinkBait for Maximum Reach
Once you have completed the above steps, you need to promote your Linkbait to achieve maximum reach. Here’s how to maximize your reach:
- Share on Social Media: You share your content on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Social media expands your audience, creates social shares, and attracts backlinks from people who find your content useful.
- Leverage Influencers: You collaborate with influencers in your niche to get your content in front of their audience. They have built trust and can help you reach a larger audience, increasing the chance of a quality contextual backlink.
- Use Email Outreach: You contact bloggers, website owners, and journalists who might like to feature your content. You create a personalized email to tell them why your content is helpful and relevant to their audience. A good email can get you valuable backlinks and relationships.
Effective Examples of 7 Types of LinkBait
Linkbait is about creating valuable content that generates natural backlinks. Below are seven proven types of linkbait, with examples and strategies to help you implement them successfully:
1. Statistics Pages
The statistics pages, which compile key data that journalists and bloggers often use as references, are still being updated. Writers like citing summarized statistics over multiple sources, which is why these pages work.
For instance, The Zebra built a “Homeownership Statistics” page, which ranks well on search engines and gets backlinks from big sites like BiggerPockets and Axios. The original data came from Zillow, but writers found the page useful and cited it. If you add original statistics alongside curated data, your page stands out and has more credibility.
2. Surveys to Tell Stories
Surveys are highly linkable, as they generate unique, original data by getting insights from a targeted audience. Exclusive data is valuable to journalists as the data helps them add credibility to their stories.
For instance, NerdWallet runs an annual homebuyer survey and the company has backlinks from sites like Yahoo and MarketWatch. The data is trustworthy and relevant because they’ve got more than 2,000 respondents.
The Harris Poll, a reputable polling company, partnered with NerdWallet to make sure results were quality. Therefore, for your survey to be successful, you select a reputable polling partner and request a sample size of at least 1,000 respondents to attract journalists and media outlets.
3. Use Public Data and Rankings
Publicly available data from government agencies can be transformed into valuable rankings and reports. When combined with a clear methodology, available data becomes authoritative and highly shareable content.
For instance, the U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Transportation were the sources of data used to rank the most bike-friendly cities in the U.S. by Clever. National media, local outlets, and even city websites linked to the report. Clever’s team love to share their content when they are ranked positively in cities. Because the content helps them build their reputation.
4. Tools and Calculators
Helpful tools, such as calculators or templates, provide real value to users and naturally earn backlinks over time. For instance, Bankrate’s student loan calculator is first in the keyword “student loan calculator” and has authoritative backlinks.
Bankrate’s content solves a specific problem for users, so the content is very shareable and linkable. Therefore, a successful tool must be user-generated content, visually appealing, and give accurate results. Real problem tools work better and often get consistent traffic and links.
5. In-Depth Mega-Guides
In-Depth Mega-Guides are comprehensive guides that provide detailed information on broad topics. Moreover, mega-guides are the go-to resources for readers and content creators. For instance, Backlinko’s ‘Google’s 200 Ranking Factors’ guide has been linked to sites like Microsoft and Shopify. The guide’s detailed structure is relevant for multiple subtopics and can be used by multiple content creators.
6. Graphics and Infographics
Charts, infographics, and illustrations are visual content that simplifies complex ideas. Writers often embed these visuals in their articles and provide backlinks as a source. A good example is Harvard’s “Healthy Eating Pyramid” infographic. Harvard’s infographic is clear, informative, and visually appealing design. So Harvard’s infographic has earned hundreds of backlinks. Therefore, you pitch your graphics to relevant websites and offer usage rights with proper attribution to the widest possible audience.
7. Evergreen Content
Evergreen content is an excellent tool to attract backlinks. Because evergreen content answers timeless questions and remains relevant for years. An excellent example is Search Engine Land’s ‘What is SEO’ article, which has close to 10,000 links from Salesforce and Amazon.
While evergreen content ranks high in search results, viral content can keep attracting traffic and links over and over again. In addition to creating evergreen pages, you should use internal links to direct the authority earned from backlinks to other key pages on your site.
Why Does LinkBait Work?
Linkbait works because link uses psychological principles that drive people to share and link to content. Content marketing expert Jonah Berger calls these “share triggers” in Contagious.
- Social Currency: People share content that makes them look good.
- Triggers: Top-of-mind ideas encourage sharing.
- Emotion: Content that evokes feelings gets shared.
- Public Behavior: Visible actions inspire imitation.
- Practical Value: Helpful content is highly shareable articles.
- Stories: Relatable stories make content memorable.
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