The Year of the Linkbait

Linkbait is a buzzword I tend not to like. However that didnt stop me from going out and buying lots of domain names related to linkbait in order to some day write a book about linkbait. See in my mind there are two motivations to link to someone. The first being an emotional motivation, someone provides a resource that inspires you. Secondarily there is also the ego motivation. This is usually driven from some controversy. I was once a king of the ego based motivational linkbait. Crushing others egos is an easy way to get links but it can be a bit weighty on the soul. The better kind of linkbait is by creating great resources and helping folks.

In order to write good content that would qualify as ‘linkbait’ you first have to set aside the goal of writing linkbait and write something you are either passionate about or extremely knowledgeable about. The greatest articles on the planet all start with powerful headlines. Usually content that lands on the front page of digg comes from professional marketers, and search engine optimizers, and social optimizers who are getting paid thousands of dollars to market their clients’ sites.

But is this really why we are here? To have to go surf through all the crap on digg that usually comes canned from a professional marketer. I could ‘out’ atleast 10 SEO and Web Developers getting paid thousands of dollars to feed Digg full of crap they don’t even believe in. Of course I guess they have to make money. And well this shit just works. So I don’t blame these guys.

2006 was the year of the linkbait. We can only expect more of the same in 2007. I continue to tell bloggers who do this for a living to not try and compete on the Digg Marketplace but to just write passionately and honestly because if you do that you are sure to succeed eventually.

Anyone who wants to can always ping me in the comments and I’m more than willing to help coach you on increasing your traffic, developing powerful headlines, and monetizing your sites. Thanks for a great 2006.