What makes effective link bait?

Sometimes it is not simply enough to pen a well written and informative blog post (or other content) for your website. If you want people to actually read your post and also increase the amount of traffic
coming into your site, then you are going to need some sort of bait to encourage people to link back to the blog in question and/or your website. In the industries of web marketing and SEO (search engine optimisation), these hooks are known as “link bait.”

But what constitutes link bait exactly? And what does the most effective bait entail?

Matt Cutts – an SEO expert employed by Google – describes link bait as simply “something people want to link to.” Link bait is supposed to provide outreach (the act of hunting and securing relevant and useful contacts) on your behalf. The bait can take the form of written or illustrated opinions or facts, images, videos, advice...the options are almost endless. The only limitation is that the content is of interest to a significant number of people. It goes without saying that link bait that does not provoke back links from an array of different places across the web has failed in its role.

That’s not to say you cannot target slightly more niche groups however. A piece of web content discussing the difference levels of “yobbish” behaviour contained between two competing major league football teams (which both have large followings; for example Liverpool and Manchester United) can still attract a lot of attention. It is important to remember however, that controversy will often be greeted with questions regarding the quality and/or authority of such content. Bad link bait and negative attention are not one and the same though. Let me explain with an example:
Journalist Richard Littlejohn penned an article (Why my wife's PoW grandad wouldn't mark a minute's silence for the Japanese) telling Daily Mail readers how the world should not send money, provisions or even pray for the wellbeing of the Japanese population in the wake of the devastation caused by the recent earthquake and resulting tsunami. The controversial statements saw UK Twitter feeds erupt with peoples distaste. But was the Daily Mail worried? Of course not – the paper is known for its sensationalistic positioning and the tweets drove thousands of people to visit and back link to the site via their own tweets and retweets (RTs) as this pie chart from HashTacking.com shows;
 

Creating a storm of backlash isn’t for everyone though and there are plenty of positive ways to get people to link to your site or blog. Detailed, instructional “how to” guides can generate a lot of interest as can exclusive information or interviews from key experts in whichever industry your website relates to. Solid information sources aside, you should always offer your audience something that none of your competitors (or anyone else on the web) has done previously.

Competitions (and therefore prizes!) provide instant incentive for back linking are probably one of the most effective link baits – especially if those who want to enter them can only do so if they link back are spread the details using social networking mediums such as Twitter and Facebook.

Lastly, it is imperative to remember that a good piece of link bait is useless should it be presented in an awful way. You should ensure that the page containing the link bait is aesthetically clean, well laid out easy to read and largely advertising free. Including all of the relevant social media bookmarking buttons (Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, Stumble Upon, Del.icio.us...) will enable your content to be easily shared. Solid block of texts with no images does not make for an engaging page and content on such page is far less likely to read and therefore; shared.

Kat Cole has learnt a substantial amount regarding the art of link bait in her time as a marketing assistant for Easy Offices in Soho. Outside of working hours, Kat is a keen live music attendee and also enjoys (badly) playing guitar. 

Guest Blogger Guidelines

Some of you have commented to me that I seem to have a number of guest posts on this blog lately and wonder about how I chose guest bloggers. It's pretty simple.

Most potential guest bloggers contact me via email. If they can suggest a topic that is in line with the theme of this blog, and demonstrate that they can write decently, we proceed.

Any guest post has to be on topic and well written. I also allow a byline of course (one link please initially), something like these examples:

Joe Brooks is a blogger and businessman who can be found at Brochure Designing. He lives in Missoula and fly fishes in his spare time.

This post courtesy of Fred Flintstone, an expert in Champagne.

Henry Higgins writes on red wine, the formerly disgraced science of Phrenology, and Clams. He lives in downtown Chicago with his 37 cats.

When the post is done it is reviewed by a small group of my colleagues - basically I pass it by them. They decide whether it is good enough to publish. Most posts get published. The link must be to a high quality site or blog.

 

100 Tips, Tools, and Resources for Better Business Writing

Writing is an essential business, and life, skill.

We can all write better - certainly I am working on it.

Practice helps a lot, but sometimes practice alone isn't enough. If you keep doing something wrong or sub optimally, practice without any external feedback won't help much. Of course bloggers do get some continual feedback with helps somewhat.

Here's a great list to help improve your writing:

The Ultimate Guide to Better Business Writing: 100 Tips, Tools, and Resources

It includes a lot of solid advice as well as links to additional resources. Well worth spending some time going over!

Exciting Blog Posts - 5 Tips For a Steady Stream

Most bloggers write at least weekly, many write daily, and some write more than daily. How can a blogger keep finding topics to write on? Sometimes it's easy and there will be so much you can't blog on everything you want to, but other times you'll have difficulty finding a worthwhile topic to blog on.

Here are 5 tips to help keep you pumping out exciting blog posts.

1) Use the free Google Alerts or a similar service. Google Alerts tells you when it finds new relevant content on topics you blog about. You specify keywords and phrases you want to have tracked for you.

For example, if I blogged on flyfishing for trout, I might tell Google Alerts I want to know when any new content is discovered that contains the keywords "trout" or "fly fishing." I might also specify my name and blog name as keywords.

I get emails a couple of times a day from Google Alerts and I have 8 to 10 things that Google Alerts tracks for me. This helps uncover news and new content in my niche that I might blog about.

2) Read specific blogs in your area using a feedreader, also sometimes call a news aggregator, for example, MyYahoo or Bloglines. There are a lot of these out there, and they make reading lots of blogs extremely fast and easy.

If you are not familiar with these, they display all the new posts from blogs you follow on one page. You can quickly read the ones with interesting post titles, and skip the others. Again, you'll find interesting things to blog about.

3) You'll think of great post ideas at the strangest times, so always have something handy to take notes.

I use simple pads of paper which I have scattered around my home, office and car. When I get a great idea and write it down, I place that piece of paper in my wallet so I don't lose it or the idea.

4) Consider occasionally updating and re-posting some of your most popular posts. Some bloggers simply repost them as is, labeling them as classic hits, and others update or expand on them. Both techniques are valid.

5) Keep a few blog posts in reserve for when you just don't have any great ideas or are too busy. For example, if you write 3 blog posts on Monday and a couple are on evergreen topics, ones with timeless value, you might refrain from posting them immediately.

A steady stream of great blog posts on exciting topics will help build your readership and keep your existing readers coming back. Somedays it's easy to crank out a new and exciting post, other days it's a challenge. Hopefully these tips will help you maintain a steady stream your readers will enjoy.

And for over 100 more tips on successful blogging, I invite you to grab your free copy of my ebook Secrets of Successful Blogging at http://www.secretsofsuccessfulblogging.com

Blog Writing: 3 Tips to Improve

Bloggers write all the time, but few pay attention to improving their writing. Have you noticed the most successful bloggers tend to write extremely well? Practice, just writing a lot, helps, but practice does not make perfect. Here are three quick tips many find helpful to improve their blog writing

1) Read your post out loud before publishing.

If you are in an office people might look at you funny, but this works amazingly well. It is actually an old writer's trick and it will help find grammatical errors and typos as well as improve the flow of your writing.

I don't do this with every post, but I do it quite often. I almost always find something I can fix or improve that a quick proofread may have missed. I even read my entire books out loud more than once before sending them to the publisher, despite several other levels of editing to follow.

2) Occasionally have someone else critically read and comment on your writing. What do they like? What don't they like? They don't need to be a better writer than you; they are a second opinion.

I occasionally have my wife or a friend review what I've written and discuss it. I always get feedback, and while it's not 100% useful, there are always useful pieces and insights I wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

For my commercially published books I have an official editor, and their input is always valuable, even if I don't agree with or implement everything they suggest.

3) Consider taking a writing class. Most local community colleges offer them and you can also consider an online course.

These courses will most likely not focus specifically on blog writing nor should they necessarily. Many people are amazed how quickly their writing improves when they take a class. If nothing else it makes you focus and your writing gets a critical review and useful suggestions.

Writing is a critical business skill. Whether you blog or not, writing is something you want to improve. You don't need to be a great writer to blog successfully, but it can certainly help! The most successful bloggers tend to write extremely well. Improving your writing will improve your blog and make it more successful, and the best writers I know continually work on improving their writing.

And for over 100 more tips on successful blogging, I invite you to grab your free copy of my ebook Secrets of Successful Blogging at http://www.secretsofsuccessfulblogging.com

Blog Posts - 7 Tips For Great Ones

1) Keep your blog posts relatively short. A few hundred words maximum in general. Most blog readers expect and want concise posts. Sure, you may have the occasional real long post, but in general they should be fairly short.

2) Longer writings can be broken up into multiple parts and form a blog series. Readers tend to like those. If they read the first part they will come back and read the second part and the third part and so forth.

Also something to keep in mind is on the Internet people don't read, they scan. Short blog posts are far easier to scan and get the meaning of and get value from than long blog posts.

3) Writing great post titles is important. Post titles are essentially headlines and hopefully they entice people to read further. For example, "How To" headlines and list such as "Five Ways To whatever" often work really well. Copyblogger.com's Brian Clark has some particularly good advice on writing post titles, i.e. headlines. You can learn a lot by reading what Copyblogger has written as well as by studying his.

4) You should spell-check and proofread your posts before publishing. Taking a few seconds will catch most errors. You still might very occasionally have some grammatical errors or other errors and that's ok.

5) Always site your sources and link to them. For example, if you are blogging on something you found out about due to someone else's post, give them credit.

Reasons to do this include honesty and that it makes your blog more valuable to your readers. If you found that blog valuable and got ideas, maybe your readers will as well. Also the sources you link to will frequently discover your blog and they may become readers or they may link to you in return at some point.

6) Always think before you hit publish. Almost the whole world will be able to see what you have written. As I often mentioned, "Hey, the Internet is a very public place."

If you are angry, if you are upset, use the same rules that you should use with email. Wait at least overnight.

7) Don't try to make your writing perfect, writing is never perfect.

An occasional typo or other error may be get through and it's not a problem, although certainly you don't want too many errors because that looks unprofessional. Also remember you are writing a blog post; it's not a research paper. You are putting ideas out there. You are extending the conversation. Realize your posts aren't going to be perfect. Writing never ever is.

That said, sometimes I will save blog posts that don't seem quite right and work on them later. Although many posts may be written and published in just a few minutes, some may require more time for contemplation. Some posts may require you sleep on them, wait until the next morning, before you can do them justice. Sometimes I won't be sure whether to hit publish. It just doesn't seem quite right, but I am not sure why. I can tell you sometimes I publish these post anyway and they have been some of my more popular posts.

And for over 100 more tips on successful blogging, I invite you to grab your free copy of my ebook Secrets of Successful Blogging at http://www.secretsofsuccessfulblogging.com

Blog Posts: 3 Successful Types

There are three types of blog posts that tend to be very successful and popular. Some of your posts are simply going to be much more successful than others, and they will almost always be one of these three types.

1) Link Posts

It's great to link to work by other sources, things other people have written, and add your own thoughts. These sources can include other bloggers, traditional websites, online newspaper articles, and basically anything.

I do this and suggest you do when linking to something adds value to your readers. You are showing them something that they are hopefully interested in and adding some of your own analysis or thoughts and comments.

You may agree with the original author and add some more thoughts or disagree. Sometimes controversy, where genuine and well thought out, can create a lot of interest!

Make sure you link to lesser known sources sometimes. If you're only linking to A-list bloggers and very popular Web sites, it's more likely your readers will have already seen what you are referencing.

2) Single Topic Posts with Original Content

Although link posts are great, you should write original content at least some of the time. Original material makes your blog even more valuable and attracts the search engines who will send you more readers, especially when a post if focused narrowly on a single topic or issue.

Some people write more original content, perhaps primarily original content, whereas others like to link more of the time and both techniques are fine. Most bloggers do and should use some mix of these two techniques.

3) List Posts

Lists are extremely popular! Often they'll have titles like "27 Ways To . . ." or "The Three Best . . ."

The items in the lists may be original thoughts, links to other resources on the Internet, things you've already blogged on, or some combination.

Notice what's not on the list: rambling posts that cover several topics. These are rarely popular or useful. Stick primarily to the three types mentioned above, and you'll find that some of your posts take off and attract lots of readers. Oh, and expect to be surprised at which ones are most popular; all bloggers, including myself, always are!

And for over 100 more tips on successful blogging, I invite you to grab your free copy of my ebook Secrets of Successful Blogging at http://www.secretsofsuccessfulblogging.com

Effective Blogging: Conversational Writing

Bloggers need to write in a conversational tone in order to be effective. They must write as though speaking to a friend. Marketese and business speak do not work in blogs. "If you ever went to business school ignore everything you learned about writing while there," is very popular advice that lots of people give and not far off the mark.

If you have trouble writing conversationally, try saying your thoughts out loud as if speaking to someone before writing them down. As silly as it may sound, some people find holding a telephone to their head helps.

One gentleman I mentored had such trouble initially, even though he is a great writer. He is a better writer than I am or will ever be, but he had such enormous trouble writing conversationally initially. He would speak into his phone to a secretary's voice mail and she'd then transcribe his words into a draft message which he would then take a quick look at, make sure she'd transcribed it right, perhaps make some minor changes and publish. In fact we found that if he didn't take just a quick look, he'd sometimes edit it back to business speak.

Most people don't have this much trouble writing conversationally, although many new bloggers find it difficult at first. Conversational writing is simply much different than the traditional business communications you may be familiar with, but most new bloggers quickly get the hang of it as it's not difficult at all. For example, after a couple of weeks this gentleman was writing conversationally and very effectively. A good way to see a lot of conversational writing is just to read some blogs because blogs of course, the popular ones, the well done ones, are all full of conversational writing.

Effective blogging requires a writing style closer to speaking to a good friend than the business writing you may be familiar with. It is fairly easy to learn although it may seem difficult to learn. Once you master the basics of conversational writing, you will find you can write faster and easier than ever before!

And for over 100 more tips on successful blogging, I invite you to grab your free copy of my ebook Secrets of Successful Blogging at http://www.secretsofsuccessfulblogging.com

Writers Block - 5 Tips to Cure It

What about writers block, when you just can't come up with anything to write about? This problem can be particularly severe for bloggers as they write so often.

Some days I have so much to blog on that I can never get to it all; I just have so many ideas, so many things I want to say or write in my blog. On other days, I just have no idea what I am going to blog on. I may be looking forward to blogging but I just don't have any ideas. Here are some tips to combat writers block, something all writers eventually experience.

1)  Read your old blog posts. Just read what you've written before. This will often give you new ideas.

2) Surf the net for new post ideas. Read other peoples blogs as well as other kind of content. You never know what may spark a creative thought.

3) Go and blog somewhere different or just go somewhere different. I like to go to a local coffee shop which has free wireless access, good coffee, and good sandwiches too. Sometimes I will go there and blog for an hour or two when I have writers block and just don't know what I am going to write.

4)  Another technique that works for me and other people is googling bizarre or random terms. For example, last week I was at a loss on what to write and I remember I googled "evil cheese," "hairless goats" and some other strange terms that popped into my mind and I ended up laughing and I got inspired. I actually got some good ideas and did some writing as my writers block passed.

5) Just write! Maybe total drivel will come out, maybe something great, but just get some words down. Even if you produce nonsense, the very act of writing will often cure your writers block.

Every writer will eventually experience writers block. Simply reading, searching, changing your environment, surfing, writing anything down, or some combination, will usually quickly cure writers block.

And for over 100 more tips on successful blogging, I invite you to grab your free copy of my ebook Secrets of Successful Blogging at http://www.secretsofsuccessfulblogging.com

An example of great writing

Simple. clear. Easy to follow. Speaks to you, the audience.

Stolen from Morty Schiller (who stole it, with credit, from A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner):

“Rabbit,” said Pooh to himself, “I like talking to Rabbit. He talks about sensible things. He doesn’t use long, difficult words like Owl does. He uses short, easy words like ‘what about lunch?’ and ‘Help yourself, Pooh.’ I suppose I really ought to go and see Rabbit.”

Now Morty is a man who can truly write well. he knows his words and how to use them.

Click here to check out an example of truly great writing by Morty: simple, clear, easy to follow, apt to horrify your uptight unpleasant English teacher :)