How To Use The Right Bait To Attract Links To Your Site

By now you know that adding links to your site gives you to string advantages:

1. The more links you have, the more different audiences can find their way to your content and products.

2. Google places a great deal of value on inbound links. They consider each link to be essentially a vote of confidence for your site. And, the more popular or authoritative the linked site is, the higher your ranking goes since the linked sites ranking contributes to your ranking.

Do not sit on the sidelines and hope that people find your site. There are plenty of useful ways to attract links to your site for you to try. Here are some of the best we have seen.

Create a timely resource

Capitalize on the fact that people will be out looking for holiday resources starting in September or October. Create a resource that is related to your product and tie it back to your site.

For example, if you sell table linens to a U.S. market, create an article on how to get out special holiday stains such as turkey gravy, cranberry sauce and candle wax. Or, if you sell pipes, research why Santa Claus tends to be pictured smoking a pipe or better yet, make up your own story and post it as a children's tale.

Use humor

Look at the major topics of the day in the country where you market. Find some humor in a crazy burglary that took place or a political gaffe or a sports teams improbable win. Create a cartoon, a joke or a slogan and put it out there on your blog or post it to someone's Facebook page or Tweet it. People love humor - it is one of those Internet offerings that tends to get passed around.

Photos

Like the humor we described above, a funny or touching or just plain strange photo can sweep across the Internet very quickly. Keep in mind that people love animal and baby photos.

Surveys

Think of a survey that people can participate in on a timely topic. Be sure your survey topic somehow links to your business. It is just weird to find a survey about who Brits will vote for in the next election on your iPod accessories site. It does make sense to find a survey about music preferences or how many devices are owned that can be plugged in to a computer.

Contests

Everyone loves to win something! Contests are fun, especially contests such as creating a caption for a photo or naming the websites mascot or sending in the best story about how the coffeemakers you sell on the site improved someones day.

Interviews

This offering is especially useful on B2B sites. Interview a prominent figure and post the interview. People love to know what other people are thinking.

Be controversial

This technique may be tricky because you do not want potential customers to have a negative opinion of you. On the other hand, it is smart to use your special knowledge of a subject to take a different point of view.

If you sell how to be successful in business books, you could decide to disagree on some authors views. For example, many how to get a job authors say that cover letters on resumes are very important. When you were a manager, you never read them. That is an excellent difference of opinion to write about.

Every link back to your site is another path for a potential customer to follow.