LiNkBaItInG - aNyThInG tO gEt AtTeNtIoN

My entry into the online marketing game began as an affiliate playing around with natural / organic search. Anyone who has attempted optimizing a website for the search engines will quickly tell you that 90% of the game is link building. There are lots of ways to obtain links but the engines (particularily Google) are becoming more sophisticated each year in terms of what is a “true” link versus a manipulated link (bought etc.). Ultimately, the best link building strategy is to create loads of original, quality content that others will WANT to link to. As blogs have become more widespread a new link building strategy has become more and more common - linkbaiting. Basically link baiting is the idea of writing something so outrageous, controversial, funny or attention grabbing that people can’t help but link to it. Search Eninge Land refers to linkbaiting as “viral, linkable content designed to attract thousands of links. ” Even Matt Cutts over at Google (who typically frowns on any attempt to manipulate search engine rankings) admits that link baiting can be “something interesting enough to catch people’s attention, and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. “