Viral Marketing & Link Bait Basics: Part VIII

There is a general type of linkbaiting method that is often used on the Internet, much more so that specified marketing campaigns. These are especially useful for those that have content-rich sites, such as blogs, or anything that is meant to sell information via traffic, rather than through a direct product. This is general viral marketing and linkbaiting, which can be applied in several difference ways. Each one should appeal to a different source, and slightly alter the way that traffic is created.

Blogs

Quickly becoming a staple of the online world, blogs are a better place than ever to generate interest. Because they are so easily shared socially, they make great viral marketing foundations for your website. This is also true of generating links. Blogs will commonly link to one another, and they have to do legally use a source. Using the day’s top interest points, or targeted niches, will help to ensure you regularly bait links through your own blog.

What you have to decide is the purpose of the blog itself. Most will probably have it stand alone, and put all their time and effort into updating it, and branding it. This is commonly seen with news blogs, gossip blogs, technology blogs…anything that moves quickly and has to shift from day to day. This will always bring in the most links.

Next, you have general interest blogs. These don’t bring in as many links, but they do often get dedicated followers for the information you provide. For example, you may create a site dedicated to offering all natural beauty tips, or reviewing video games and movies. They won’t be updated on a day to day basis, but they will generate a good deal of interest, and continue bringing in links on the same topics for a long while.

Last, you have SEO blogs. These are sites that have posts created specifically to anchor links. These can be beneficial for advertising purposes for another website, but they can also be easily caught. You should think of these as hit and miss options. They may help to boost you in small spurts, but those are not lasting. They are like the Mario Energy Stars of the linkbaiting world….effective, but not at all permanent.

Tools and Applications

How many Facebook quizzes have you taken this week? How about Quizilla? How often have you seen someone posting an HTML code in a forum, on a Myspace page, or a message board? Applications or small tools are seen all over the place these days, and their entertainment value is endless. You can take advantage of this by creating your own applications and tools.

When you allow someone the ability to paste the code elsewhere, you can apply a tag to it that shows where the application or tool came from. This will get your name out there (viral marketing), and get plenty of backlinks from those who wish to try it (linkbaiting). It is fast, effective, and can circulate for quite some time.

Articles

Several websites have popped up over the years to accommodate writers looking to create articles that will pay a little cash, and be hosted for free. Webmasters have begun taking advantage of this fact by hiring those writers to write a number of articles with anchor links for the sake of linkbaiting. Even larger companies that manufacture everything from fake Nike shoes to penile enhancers have been giving this tactic a try, and it isn’t uncommon to find thinly veiled ads on ezinearticles.com, or other such hosts.

While this isn’t necessarily the best tactic for marketing, you can offer a small link in your article to take the reader back to your own site. Whether you choose individual articles, or spins, is up to you. Just remember that it is in articles that content, and quality of content, especially counts. Beware shoddy writers or attempts and pulling in traffic without first offering some substance.

These are only three of the broad linkbaiting and viral marketing topics you can address when building your own campaign. Next week we will discuss the others, as we move closer to the end of our 10-week series on viral marketing, and the effect employment of backlinks.