The term “linkbait” has been around at least since 2005. Nick Wilson is sometimes credited with coining the term. It’s a great way to lure visitors to your site, but some SEO authorities now claim that it’s not such a good idea. Who’s right?
This is no small question, because the answer determines where a site owner must invest his time, money and effort. For those who are somewhat lost right now, “linkbait” is content that has been created with the intention of attracting lots of interest. Linkbait creators hope their content is discussed (and linked to) in lots of blogs, submitted to social sites such as Digg, and so forth. Dedicated linkbait creators even participate actively in social sites and post comments on blogs to help spread the word. If their linkbait goes viral, they’re ecstatic.
Aside from a sort of popularity contest aspect, linkbait doesn’t truly have a down side. Or does it? Aaron Wall posted in his blog last month that he believes linkbait is the new version of a reciprocal links page. I’ll get to the details of why he believes that in a moment. Right now, I’m not going to say he’s wrong; he’s been writing about SEO a lot longer than I have, after all, and delved into the subject far more deeply. In short, he’s an expert.
I’m not an expert. I’ve only been writing about SEO for three years or so now. But I think that there are some points that Wall doesn’t take into consideration in his post, and I’m going to go over them here. In answering his points, I also hope to give you at least the outlines of the way you should approach building the linkbait for your own site.
To some extent, I agree with Wall, but whether linkbait is good or bad is not a cut-and-dried issue (or else I wouldn’t be writing an entire article on the subject!). So while I’m going to disagree with many of the points that Aaron makes, I also plan to make a few of my own that could be perceived as arguing against the use of linkbait. I think it should be used, but it should be used properly, and with full awareness of its risks. Having said that, let’s look at those risks.
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